Space

Some memories are so trivial and yet so endearing. This particular one is so insignificant that it feels silly mentioning it here. I still shall, before my brain decides to push it far back into the foggy darkness of irretrievability in the back of my mind, from where it would eventually be thrown out on being replaced by a newer array of memories. And I wouldn't miss it. Because I wouldn't know it's gone.

Most of the memories of my school-life have already met that fate. However, the ones in which we (all my classmates and I) drudged doggedly on 'Projects' of History, Geography, English et cetera in our ninth standard; have survived Time's denudation. These projects were of great importance at that time- what with their marks adding up in the boards next year and all. So we cut and pasted pictures (not virtually, of course), illustrated diagrams (of pictures we could not cut), compiled data from different textbooks (which just made the reports repetitive) and used packets upon packets of punched papers (make that V.I.P. punched papers in white and blue packets, if you please).

The thickness of the project was quintessential. After all, it should look like the culmination of all the hardwork and midnight oil (and V.I.P. punched papers) that had gone into its making. A clever device to increase the bulk and thence, its noteworthiness was increasing the size of your handwriting and writing with great spaces between the words. And this was the common ploy all of us invariably used. The words were so grotesquely over- spaced that sometimes only three words would fit into one line.

The over- all effect was that the sheets looked whiter and barer and a relief to the eye (if you're not one of those spoilsports who'd rather judge a project by the content) with specks of blue floating on an expanse of white. Ah! how lovely, clean and voluminous this stratagem made our projects look! And you can't blame us; how else do you make a three line acknowledgement (we just could [i]not [/i] make it longer, we tried everything, I guess we simply didn't feel grateful enough) stretch till half the length of the page?

I doubt if those things were ever read by anyone, seeing how much effort we put into its 'presentation' (a good word for all the fancy covers and colourful lettering) in hopes of fetching better marks. But I do know for sure that my Geography teacher at least used to look inside, if nothing more. I say this because most of us got our projects back with "Save trees" written on them in her hand.