Green

Will go out to find my grasshopper-greens

The pair was pea green color. Had soft heels, fancy buckle but the last sensible thing you will pack for any hills as such.

But I was eight then, damn arrogant and equally light when it came to body mass.

‘Baba can carry me!’ I was confident. ‘All the way up to the Tiger hills!’

‘And what is exactly wrong with your school sports shoes?’

Ma always managed to ask all the wrong questions, then and even now!

Any simple soul, who is not obsessed with functionality and at the same time, not challenged either with words like ‘show time’ and ‘fashion’, will mess up comparing a pair of lime-green Bata’s ‘pujor juto’ (fancy shoe) with South Point’s sad, widow-white sports sneakers.

So, the pair, however inappropriate and uncomfortable, went for a trip to the mountains.

Looked like there’s no road which lies flat and every walk was a challenge to the heels. Being the fragile tourists from the soft undulated plains, we were all a mess when it came to conquering altitudes.

Within a quarter of an hour, I would spread my hands for dad to carry me up on his lap, with my pea-green fancy pair, dangling on my feet.

Mom gave the look which could have turned any Arambagh’s chicken to a sizzling hot tandoor platter in a minute. But I was a tough soul and knew when to ignore.

Dad couldn’t! So he panted and sweated, heaved and ho-ed…and carried the tiny weight on his shoulders. Like all dads, and if not all, at least like those ‘Few Good Men!’

They could make it maybe because they never thought that they were ‘carrying’ at the very first place. It was a walk up…together!

The way the young son carries his fragile mother all the way up to some far away divine lake, or to a shrine.

Like some of those old men, in my neighborhood or yours’, balancing back home, two big bags of greens, fish and milk for his busy boy who is quite busy reading his morning papers over his second cup of tea.

I don’t think they ever thought they ‘carried’ anything!

Letter to Myself During the Days of Corona – LnC Series by Piu Mahapatra

My mom asked me to take my shoes off and give it her. I didn’t answer but looked at dad hopefully.

‘Thak! Thak!’ (That’s fine! That’s fine!)

I knew he would say that! The shoes did add few extra pounds but that afternoon when we came down, seeing the sunset, it felt like that movie title…The Englishman Who Went up the Hill and Came Down the Mountain.

Hugh Grant was my heart throb at one time, much later, so was dear my prized pair of pea-green shoes, which like the hunk, got lost in the hills and never could make it back to the plains.

I plan to go for a search one day when the lockdown is over….will go out to find my grasshopper-greens and take dad along, and just like last time, none of us will feel, we are ‘carrying’ anyone!

Picture courtesy: Shukti Banerjee

Click here to read more Letters to Myself During the Days of Corona every Saturday.😊

About the Author

Piu Mahapatra ( 42 Posts)

A painter, facilitator, and art consultant by profession, Piu never let go the opportunity to work around and along with the ‘Curious little George’ of different schools in India and abroad. Her articles on art education and awareness have been published in different contemporary art journals of India and Virginia for more than a decade. She loves to let her hair go down and often makes pathetic attempts to write poetry and short stories for children. The only thing she has ever done good is letting her son soar high and low with his wings open wide and fear-free.
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