The four year old ran across the room to get all his books. “Eight, of them” he proclaimed and lapped it with his grandma. It was Navami (the day before Vijaya Dashami) which is when we follow a tradition to give ample rest to books/pen/pencil/paper/... (forms of Saraswati Devi).
The grandma called out for me and wifey, asking for our set of associated artefacts. The boy was still pushing the old lady to let him keep all the sketch pens and crayons. We were numbed ... numbed with a set of thoughts. Books/Paper/Pad ... We didn’t have any definite collection of them. Most were fiction novels or comics or some generic gyan books. But not something sacred and close to heart that we could think of.
Navami was always a great day when we were in school. Its one of those rare forced holiday from books, reading, writing, etc.... Most artefacts related to the profession, study, music would all be kept in front of the deity and venerated. After a small pooja in the morning they would be covered and left there to take rest and the kids free to freak out. They could do anything that day without the parents reminding them about studies/books/homework/exams and so.
The next day morning pooja ended with a session when everyone would sit quietly in front of the deity. Elders would unwrap the bundle sealed yesterday and everyone handed their set of books and pens as placed. Each of us would read through those difficult chapters and play those difficult notes praying that this would be the moment.
This time on, there was a sudden dearth of artefacts. Books were as PDFs or DOCs, mouse and keyboard had taken over pen & pencils of our life, activity sheets were electronic, appointment books were embedded inside the cell phone, mails were electronic too...
Absolute tautness and no solution yet. I mustered courage to pick up the bhagavad gita & wifey found a real old book to place, but the little boy insists that we have to match his numbers. And while we pondered he stood there and said “Why don’t you place the laptop here?” leaving us cogitate.
