Second Saturdays

The blue ambassador left as his mother waved at him and his sister pasted her nose on the rear windshield from inside, leaving a cloud of dust and a trail of the tyre. He stood there with a poly bag in his hand, a packet of biscuit and some packed food protruding from it.
He wiped off his tears with the back of his hand and he sobbed for a while looking towards the road, where the cloud of dust was still visible.

There were still several cars parked outside his house (Abhimanyu), and the cars thinned out every minute, as guardians coming from distant places had to leave earlier. People who came from nearby towns stayed a little longer. For guardians with their only son studying in SSG, the distance did not matter and they always stayed longer.

Those days, affection towards oneself by their parents would be measured in terms of the goodies & foodies that they used to bring on Second Saturdays and by the regularity with which they would visit on each Second Saturdays. Students from Bhutan, as well from Bihar and other states would be content to see their parents once or twice in a year and in December during the Annual Parents’ Body meet.

The tears stopped flowing and the pain ebbed away slightly and a group of students snatched the bag away from his hands and ran towards the quadrangle. The food spilled over on the grass, as some stuffed their mouth with brown biscuits and cakes. He ran around them, trying to grab his share. A small piece of folded paper dropped on the grass, unnoticed.

He picked up the paper and unfolded it. It said,

Son, I could not visit you this Saturday as some urgent work came over. I promise to visit you next month. I am sending your favourite Bourbon biscuit. Hope you love it.

With lots of love
Dad.

He looked up at the spilled packets on the grass and went to his room.