The Pencil Box

The pencil box was cylindrical about 20 cms in length with a diameter of 4 cms. While the whole body was translucent the cap was of the brightest shade of red. The translucent part was also covered with a couple of big red green and yellow colour alphabets…maybe 5-6 of them. The alphabets or the colour on them was being rubbed off a bit each time- due to friction from other surfaces. It was made out of the cheapest quality of hard plastic and the lid did not adjust too well. Many a times while trying to close it, it would pinch my fingers. But I never complained. Never.

For me it was the most precious possession in the world – the most beautiful, simply the best. The red lid added brightness to not so bright classroom and the fact that I could roll it around made it the best box in the class. My teachers hated it and even complained about it to my mom. Reason: It was a rolly polly thing (because of having no edges) and would fall off my desk no less than thrice in every period. The noise would not only disturb the class but would get me off my seat to pick it up (and search out the contents, in case the lid had gone off). My mother hated it as well, for a different reason though. It had come free with something and actually looked cheap (not the kind of stuff that children from “good” families would carry to a public school. She tried to entice me to give it up, but failed – thoroughly, miserably.

During the first round of her failure she got me a new pencil box (which had an attached sharpner). I rejected it after a single day at school after the realization that the sharpner was useless – it was of a bad quality and invariably broke the tip of every pencil. Next it was double decker box, the third which opened on both sides. None interested me though.

In the second round of failures, the pencil boxes came from other cities and one even from Dubai (she had especially requested a friend to get that). They came in a variety of shapes, sizes, designs, compartments, qualities and contents (pencils, fancy erasers, magnets and toffees) but each one failed before the red one.

In the third and the final round she tried some marketing strategies. She pointed out the short comings of the red one versus others. That the red one had developed cracks (due to constant falling), that it looked old, that it had just one compartment, that the lid pinched my fingers and so on and so forth. Who cared? Finally she gave up on me but warned me that the pencil box should not come before her eyes and that if she received one more complaint from my teachers the pencil box would be thrown into the dustbin.

The warning had the needed effect. I kept it inside my bag all the time – taking it out only when I needed something from it. When no one would be watching I would roll it around on a slope. Things went like this for a long while.

And then we moved to another town- taking the most important things with us. The rest of the things were kept at a family friend’s place to be taken away later, in the next visit. Needless to say I kept the pencil box with my stuff, ensuring that it was deep inside so as not to be noticed. But destiny had planned otherwise. My mother found the pencil box and took it away- without my knowledge.

The next morning as I sat into the car that was to take us to the railway station something bright red caught my attention. Gosh!! It was my pencil box, lying in the garbage bin. I quickly checked my bag (which had all my “precious” stuff and found the box missing. I tried to make a dash to the bin but was restrained by my mom. The car started moving and that was the last time I saw anything of the box – bidding it a loud, noisy, crying farewell.

That was way back in Kindergarten. I owned a lot of pencil boxes after that but always missed that one. If you ask even today, it saddens me to think about it – no riches of the world can bring back the dirty, cheap, non decrepit pencil box that was last seen over the garbage bin.