The Stairs of Dreams

On my first day of college when I walked into the auditorium through those wide stairs flanked by stately pillars on either side, I did not know the three witches. I was also too zapped by the officious-looking seniors waiting to check our id-cards to notice the other, smaller door on the left of the main entrance, led to by a smaller, humbler flight of stairs.

The auditorium was not used everyday. On normal days, the doors remained shut and students used the stairs leading to the doors as places to sit and chat. In the early days, I was spending too much time in the library with a frenzied enthusiasm- the typical geek, so I didn’t need a chitchat corner. After a month in college, unable to find companions in the large gang I had been hanging around with, I moved to the other side of the classroom, to the row occupied by Rose, Usha and Naina. They took to me kindly, even though I had imposed myself upon them. And so we were sharing whispered jokes between taking notes, and was going to the canteen together during lunch-breaks. I began spending less time in the library as I learnt to explore the excitement offered by the surrounding streets and shops, and I developed a liking for those marble stairs leading to the auditorium.

We preferred sitting on the smaller steps despite being a bit cramped. There was this leaning bough from the adjoining garden lending a ‘secret hideout’ touch to the place. Of course, it wasn’t really a hideout. We could be seen through the leaves just as we could watch others walking past. But every time I pushed aside the curtaining branch and stepped on those steps, I imagined entering a magic cave through a hidden door in some storybook fairyland. We loved those steps with a natural owner’s pride and if anybody else sat there, we walked about staring at them with the unhappy, indignant faces of people driven out of their homes. It might have been our imagination, but more often than not, our persistent staring seemed to make the tyrannical usurpers uncomfortable. They would usually leave, and paradise would be regained.

I used to reach college early and on those steps for the others, often giving them missed calls by turn. Sometimes Rose and Naina would arrive before me. Usha was always late. Often, she came panting five minutes late into the first class, gasping about slow or stopped watches and missed trains in between hurrying to take out her books. And all those unsaid messages on little scraps of paper as the professor pretended not to see. Or just an exchange of glances and a slight smile at words that held special meanings only for us. And then we made for the stairs in the next off period, or in the lunch break. It wasn’t always perfect. Naina had a different subject combination so our free times didn’t always coincide. Rose began seeing Amit. Usha was worried about what teachers would think if they saw her idling all day on the stairs and both of us visited the library now and then.

One rain-washed breezy day, we bunked a class. Who cared about nations and their laws on such an enchanting day? The leaves curtaining our stairs of dreams whispered amongst themselves as they flirted with the wind. It was the sort of day that made a poet out of everyone, and I was trying to write about the clouds and the wind and the sky.

“I don’t like this weather.” Said Usha.

“But why?” asked Naina, surprised, “It’s such a lovely day. I feel like dancing!”

“It makes me sad. It makes me feel that nothing right is happening in my life.”

“You must be in love.” Rose quipped.

“That won’t be new,” I laughed, “She falls in and out of love every week.” My eyes met Usha’s, “You are not really in love, are you?” I asked a little uncertainly.

She shook her head.

“It’s not about love, or studies, or anything at all…”

“Life will be great, Usha, cheer up!”

On other days, we staged our own mixed up versions of Macbeth and Twelfth Night on those marble steps hidden by leaves- our very own, personalized Shakespearean bower. They were the three witches, I was Hecate, or Olivia, or just the fourth witch. We wrote our own plays too- with teachers and classmates as characters. We played schoolish paper-games and we fought over chowmeins and pastas. We teased each other as wicked as we could get, and I got named as the girl with the lowest boiling point ever.

The fluttering leaves watched us at it for three years, as the branch grew longer and denser. They became the silent listeners of our insane ramblings, our thoughts and hopes and dreams as we made the best of our time on those steps, knowing that life would be so huge, so different after three years. For how much time was three years? It soon passed away.

The gardener did some pruning last week. When I returned after the vacation for my last month in college, our friendly bough was gone, and our secret haunt exposed and bare. The tree still stood there like a tall stick with a signboard saying ‘Happy New Year’ pinned to its barren bark, but the tree was not our friend. It was a stranger we had never cared about. It was a miserable sight, so I turned away to the grounds, where Rose and Amit were whispering and smiling at each other.

That afternoon, the four of us sat on the stairs leading to the main door of the auditorium. One of our batch-mates from another department walked past, and we noticed she was married.

“Some of our classmates are getting married too, after the exam.” Naina informed us.

“Why are they all in a hurry to be tied up?” asked Usha suddenly, “Why do they want to give up their dreaming space so soon?”

“Let’s play Chinese Whisper.” I suggested, feeling uncomfortable. But after two rounds, I was tired of the ridiculous answers to clichéd, meaningless questions. Why weren’t the right questions asked? Or perhaps the answers were all wrong. I could not leave because the game had been my idea; and because I didn’t want to appear disinterested to my friends. But all the while I thought up the dug up road on the way to my house and the traffic jam it led to if you were late, and of the smoke, the dust, the unintelligible din as you sat trapped in that little hole of your seat in an auto or a bus with watering eyes. And all the while, I grew steadily annoyed with the game, with my friends, with the long way back home.

After four rounds, I left. At the college gate, I turned around to wave good-bye. My eyes found the alien tree standing alone with its bareness. Perhaps, I thought, they would let it grow again, and others would come to share their secrets with the new leaves. But our magic door will not be found again.