She held the paper in her hand and read it out loud to the whole class. She finished with a click and kicked her heals. She was expecting some remarks some solid ones. She knew she had done a great job.



He was the new teacher of the subject called logic and reason. He gave away the first assignment. It was strange. It was an essay to be written on any topic. A black eyed girl sat on the first bench. She was far too intrigued by his way of teaching and could not get the need of the assignment. She some how felt the course wasn't getting its perfect treatment and the professor was making it all haywire. She went down to him and complained about how she felt about it. She openly made it known to him how she thought it was all a waste. How he was wasting the class hours and how it all just didn't fit in the institution.

"What's the topic you have chosen ?", he asked. The afternoon sun lit his face brightly.

"I do not know", she hissed.

"You need some help with that ?", he asked again casually smiling.

"Hell no!!"

She looked confused and went away only to call him back some time in the night all in tears.

"I couldn't think of any thing to write. I just couldn't. I am the best student in the class and have always been the first to complete the assignment. Somehow its all confusing. All this doesn't make any sense. What kind of assignment is it any way"

"Well I m surprised you say that"

"I couldn't think of any thing to write. I need a topic desperately."

"You need some help with that ?"

"Hell YES! What else would I call for............ "

"Tell me something what is the last thought you had in your mind which you think is significant?"

"Well it was about your stupid lecture and how it was all a waste and it just didn't fit the institution called college"

"So why not"

"Because it isn't like the ones we have had all these years."

"So ?"

"Well it doesn't work that way. Let me tell you...."

"Why don't you tell it to the whole class as your essay on Monday. I think you have stopped crying."

Click .... beep beep beep




"Roll number fifty four get ready to read you essay." Secretly he had been waiting to hear to what she has to say for the whole weekend. Somehow he had a feeling he knew what she would write. Things were reciprocating.

She looked at him with deep respect and pulled out a paper from her Grey top.

The topic of her essay was "Abolition of Institution"

When she was done she thought she had enlightened the whole class. She argued that imitation was the real evil and ensured that the real teaching could never begin at institutions. It felt like an external compulsion. Little children didn't have it. It came later on possibly "the school" was the cause.
Yes they were the reason. They taught you to imitate. If you didn't you got a bad grade. In college it was sophisticated imitation. You were supposed to imitate in such a way so as to convince the teacher that you haven't imitated. That way you scored your A. Originality might give you anything from A to F.

The class remained silent. They didn't have that edge of three day long thought process over the issue and hence were in the same initial state that she was in. No one liked what she said. Perhaps no one understood what she said and you never like things you don't understand its perfectly natural. No one seemed to be interested and it all hurt her. Somehow again she was lost. How could they not see what was so obvious.

But this didn't slow her down. Her voice caught an odd old-time religious flavor. A pleading tone. She begged others to listen, to understand this was really right.

"I am not saying this for him", she glanced at him and then looked back at the class.

"Its for YOU."







-------------------------------------------------------------------------
With apologies to Robert M Pirsig

"Is that the door bell ringing", she questions.

Yes surprise!! its him. Its seems like years since they have had a glance at each other.

He comes up with that perfect excuse and she is graceful as always. He would take her on a drive as they always did. No one spoke there was no need.

He parked in the backyard of her house this time somehow walking through that front door was a sin. A sin that would turn the two of them into stone statues. He kicks off his velvet neck tie which is caught by the arms of that old skeleton tree. She removes her uptight sandles.

And they danced in the moonlight. Barefooted they danced to the music of silence, the grass caressing their toes and still not a word. Finally they fall down laughing and crying the same time. Still no words and now the only sound is the crickets chirping. They both knew what the silence meant. She smiled and he turned away.

Far away in the distance stars wobbled and wept with that strange and unaccustomed joy.

"How was the tea?", she asks.

"Fine as always", he shoots back.

There was no tea. The moon hid behind his blanket of clouds. Rain begins to pour softly and steadily. No one notices. His best tie will surely be ruined. Her sandles they are already lost.

That night, of course, there was an earthquake, not of the kind the Richter scale could measure not of the kind anyone but the stars could see.