I have this vivid memory of me getting down from my school bus on a very hot day during summers when sun would be just above my head and my mom waiting for me for around 10 minutes after getting down from her school bus. She would always buy me a pack of cold soft drink (aka frooti) from a nearby store and ask me to finish it on the way to home itself as I was no longer governed by the rules of school after school hours got over.

It indeed used to be nothing less than ‘drops of heaven’ on a sunny hot day.

Another source of comfort during summers was the fan of my room. Not because of just air that it gave but because of its sound, making me feel like I’m finally home, a place where I can study whatever I want, whenever I want and be in awe of how freedom of getting to know beautiful things is only under this fan – even if it was not too efficient in reducing the effects of high temperatures of surroundings. That fan would make me forget every bad or good thing about my time at school and would support me by asking me to let go of everything troubling present in my brain and maybe bring a bit of regularisation by means of doing lunch on bed while reading ‘Speaking tree’ and ‘Calvin and hobbes’ and solving sudoku in TOI that my father used to get everyday.

That fan would sometimes make it hard to read things in newspaper but there were always few things around which would help me reach the equilibrium of all this dynamics that I still consider as the best time of my life. Amidst all the sound of that fan, I remember I used to sometimes miss my elder brother and how once we both used to go to school and had discussions which I almost forgot completely by the time he went out. I also remember how my mother used to discuss her day at her teaching job, sometimes telling me so many small details that I would try to look more interested in eating lunch even when I wasn’t. But that fan always kept revolving, continuously making that comforting and irritating sound. I would somehow tolerate that sound because of associating it with me being able to do Mathematics with peace under that fan of brown shade. It was like a friend of mine, that would never betray me.

Now, whenever I go to a new place, I check the fans and their potential to be my friend in the precious hours of silence, being involved in some good thinking. But I also bias my decision on the basis of amount of time I would spend with them. One year, two years, three years, four years?? How can I trust them like that fan of my room in my home?

I have now learnt to live without that sound of fan. I now find that one needs to adapt to things fast in order to live life to its fullest. I don’t know if I’m upto the fullest but I know that I always try not to let that sound go in vain. It gave meaning to my life.

And meanings should never go to waste.