You hated boxes. Cuboidal, cubical, spherical or cylindrical. You hated them all. You stayed away from them.
On your first birthday, you walked out of your playpen to grab a toy.
They cheered, “Ambitious!”
When you were two years old, you found a way to climb out of the cot with guard-rails they put you in. They called you clever.
When you turned three and chatted non-stop in playschool, they found it cute.
When you were four and painted the river in your painting magenta, they rechristened you as innovative.
At the age of five, when you tore across the school field with your long hair flying in the air, they shook their heads,“Tch tch! She’s wild!”
You wondered why. You were just curious to see whether your hair flew towards the left or the right like the girl in that storybook that Mumma read out to you.
“Where do you think you are going, girl?” the Principal called out, spotting you in the corridor when you should have been in your fourth-grade classroom. You opened your mouth to tell her that you had actually gone to the washroom during snack break, when you had heard two other girls discussing the new laboratory with white mice in it, and as you didn’t like the idea of the mice being in cages, you were thinking of a plan to free them when you remembered that you had not rehearsed that one-liner on the freedom movement that you had to recite during the next session and so you were on the way to the library to pick up that book on Indian Independence kept in the box marked ‘Indian history’. However, you shut your mouth without uttering a word as the Principal took you to the classroom and asked the English teacher to make you write a ‘free verse’ on good behaviour.
Another day, when you were asked to read quietly, your attention went to the protruding belly of the letter ‘b’ and the very obvious ‘derriere’ of the letter ‘d’ and you started giggling, much to the annoyance of the tutor in charge. When she scolded you, you concluded that the belly belonged to ‘d’ and the derriere to ‘b’. Just when you had it figured out, the letter ‘p’ popped up, perplexing you further. So you twirled your pencil a zillion times, akin to the buzz in your brain, until it swirled across the desk and landed on the tutor’s table. And while she screamed at you, the number 9 written on the blackboard got your attention.
“ Is it a long-lost twin of ‘p’ adopted by the number family?” you pondered, oblivious of what you were being instructed to do.
The next moment, you found yourself standing outside the class.
Out of the cuboidal, box-like classroom!
When you jived around the house to your favourite music, spreading your arms without a care, you were often reprimanded.
“You will break something,” they shouted.
“Can’t you ever sit quietly?” they asked.
Until your cousin won a dance competition!
You were promptly enrolled in a class where you had to dance to the tunes of an instructor. As you spun around for the hundredth time to perfect the finer nuances, you felt trapped in a hollow sphere; a sphere which seemed to be shrinking instead of expanding.
“Run in-between the lines,” the sports sir often rebuked. How were you to tell him that when you ran, you didn’t see lines, or tracks, or boundaries – you ran to run, to feel the sheer joy of your legs feeling weightless, your stride boundless, and your mind thoughtless.
Besides, you always found lines as the prerequisite for boxes.
When the life-skill teacher asked you what you wanted to do the most, you replied, “ I want to fly. I want to soar into the sky!”
She beamed at you and said, “ Aah, a pilot or an astronaut! How wonderful.” You bit your lip even as you nodded. That wasn’t exactly what you meant.
You imagined yourself floating inside a cylindrical box on a well-defined path, bumping into the walls while staring at the never-ending blackness outside.
“Nah!”
You wanted to fly like a butterfly, fluttering in a garden full of blooms, pausing and resuming, exploring and moving on. Your indomitable spirit wanted to spread its wings and soar like an eagle, unstoppable and unleashed.
But they wanted you to fit in.
And when you didn’t, they put their heads together and put a label on you
It read ADHD.
You were counselled, warned, blackmailed.
And then treated.
They managed to tether you.
To restrict your flight.
To clip your wings.
To keep you in cubicles.
To make you walk in line.
To stay inside boundaries.
And you fit in.
Now, the walls close in, and you literally see thorns on them – a million thorns that poke you, and stab you, making your heart bleed. They do not see them, but you do. You shift in your seat, the discomfort obvious in your frown. You hold back your tears, even as your throat carries a humongous lump. A silent scream escapes your lips every once in a while.
It doesn’t matter if you hyperventilate.
Or you feel cramped, nauseous.
You simply move from one box to another, as expected.
The boxes change shapes, but they are boxes, nevertheless.
Beautifully packaged, neatly labelled boxes.
*****
Glossary:-
1)ADHD – attention deficit hyperactivity syndrome
