•Like it Happened Yesterday

Ravinder Singh

PRESENTED BYKAVYA

Ravinder Singh (author)

Ravinder Singh(born 4 February 1982) is an Indian author. He has written four novels entitled I Too Had a Love Story, Can Love Happen Twice?, "Like it happened Yesterday“, and Your Dreams are Mine Now.

Ravinder Singh was born into a Sikh family in Kolkata. He spent his childhood in the small town of Burla in Odisha.[He completed his schooling from Guru Nanak Public School, Sambalpur, Odisha. He received a Bachelor of Engineering in computer science engineering from Guru Nanak Dev Engineering College in Karnataka. Then he moved to Bhubaneshwar to work at Infosys Technologies for five years. He did his MBA from Indian School of Business in Hyderabad. He was working as a Sr. Program Manager at Microsoft when he decided to become a full-time author.

He met his girlfriend who died in 2007 before they got formally engaged.He adapted his own story into a novel. The book I Too Had a Love Story was reviewed by N. R. Narayana Murthy, Chairman Emeritus of Infosys Technologies, who called it "Simple, honest and touching".Now married to Khusboo Chauhan who was one of the readers of his first novel and was so deeply moved that she went to a Gurudwara to pray for him and she probably could not have imagined that she would be the luck one who would get married to Ravinder, on September, 23, 2012.

NovelsI Too Had a Love StoryCan Love Happen Twice?AnthologyLove Stories That Touched My Heart (ed.)

Ravinder Singh

1.like it happened yesterday

Ravinder Singh

1.First Day, First SchoolI cried. And I cried hard. I think I had never cried like that ever before. Till then I didn’t need to. It was my first day in school. I had been admitted to the nursery class. My father had held my left hand in the warm safety of his right hand. All did was to keep pleading with him to not leave me alone. Till then, I had never been away from my family. And Dad was trying to do exactly that. I was scared at the very thought of being without Mom, without Dad.And now that I hated my father, I loved my mother much more than I ever did. So

I started missing her.I was left sobbing in the class. The sound of my crying lasted as long as it could.When all my energy had been drained, I became quiet and went to sit in one of the corners of the classroom .

Sitting alone there, I thought to myself—What would I do without my family? I believed that

Dad had left me at that place forever. I remembered my mother. I remembered her love for me.

I wanted to run into her lap and complain to her about Dad for what he had done to me, that too

in front of strangers!

Two years passed by in understanding what a school was all about. By the time I got into Class I, I had finally accepted that there was no escaping school. I had a fair idea of what my life was going to look like for the next twelve years, or even more if I failed midway. I thought it was safe to follow everyone. And, so, I accepted going to school.But now that I had accepted going to school, my parents upgraded their level of expectations. ‘Study well. You have to come first!’

2.Happiness in Little Things

Our family lived in Burla, a very small, peaceful town situated beside the river Mahanadi in the western part of the state of Orissa. Hirakud Dam, once known as the world’s longest dam, was just four kilometres from the place where I lived. Because of its importance, Hirakud Dam had become a landmark for Burla—a dam which the little, sleepy town was very proud of

Our house was tiny, simple and yet complex in its arrangement. We loved to live there primarily because of the vast courtyard outside, where my brother and I used to play. No one in the entire Burla enjoyed as big a playground as we used to.

3.My World in Black and White

My brother and I had rhyming names. It was quite common in many families to do so. While my parents named me Ravinder, they named my brother Jitender. But the usage of these names was only limited to our school. At home, and, for that matter, in the rest of the town, we were known by our shorter names. I was called Rinku and my brother was called Tinku—rhyming pet names as well!

4.Fear of the NeedleWe would willingly lie down on our stomachs on the medical bed, baring our

bottoms for the injections. In our minds, we would see the shopkeeper taking the chilled packets of Frooti out of his freezer, just for us. In the meantime, the nurse would take out the needle from the boiling water over the electric heater. Our dreams would progress, and we would now be holding our coveted drink in our hands. The nurse was constantly in the process of preparing the injection, pushing in the nozzle to flush the air out of the syringe. And, as we imagined piercing the tiny round foil at the upper corner of the Tetra Pak with our pointed straws, the nurse would pierce our behinds with that injection.

5.All for a Toothy Grin!

Dad took me straight to the dental outdoor ward. There was already a long queue there. Dad handed over the ticket to the compounder, who placed it underneath the stack of tickets on the doctor’s table. He then placed a paperweight over the pile, and went back to relax on the stool by the door

I closed my mouth and turned my attention back to the smiling lady with the toothpaste. The dentist explained a few things to my father, which I completely ignored. He prescribed some medicine for me and asked us to visit him again after two days. The last thing I heard him saying was that the procedure would take an hour when we visited next, so I would have to miss a period or two at school.

I checked with Dad if he was going to do anything to me, and whether it was going to be painful. Dad shook his head—all I had to do was to take the medicines and come and show the doctor my teeth, the way I’d done today. I realized that after two days I could legitimately bunk school!

6.I Have a Pen!It was when I got to Class VI that I started feeling truly mature. I

think it had to do with two major changes in my life.First, an ink pen had replaced my pencil. It made a big difference

when I felt its presence—in my hands, in my pencil box and in my shirt’s pocket.I remember how obsessed I used to be with my ink pen. I loved its

nib, and that, to me, was the most beautiful part of the pen.

7.A Change of Schools

The school in Burla conducted classes only till Class VII. Of course, it was a small institution. Even the state-board-affiliated coaching centre had more students than we had in our class! But as this was the only English-medium school in Burla, to continue further studies in the same board, one had to move to Sambalpur, the nearest city as well as the district headquarters. And I had successfully passed Class VII. So the argument I was having with my mother was about which school I should go to next.

It was the second week of December. The half-yearly exams were in the past tense now. The results were due in the future—early January. We were left with a pleasant month on our hands that had Christmas, the New Year’s day and a week of winter vacation in between these two holidays. But what made December special for me was the school’s Annual Day celebration.

8.Fighting to Be There

I think about 20 per cent of our class loved the Annual Day celebration because they enjoyed participating in the various exciting and creative events. The remaining 80 per cent of the class loved it as well, but for the concept of the last period being zero period. This meant that, for about two weeks till the day of the event, all the last periods in school were cancelled. The event participants were to use this period to practise, while others were allowed to go out and play games.

9.In Sadness and Defeat

So far, in my entire school life, I had been in the top 10 per cent of my class. It didn’t matter how fun-loving I was; I had managed to stay near the top ranks. But, in all these years of school, I was yet to achieve my ultimate goal of topping the exams. There were about a hundred students in the same class at Guru Nanak Public School, divided into several sections. Being the topper at this school was not an easy thing.

Mom told me that getting good marks for me should not be a matter of winning the rat race or showing off to everyone else. But a good education was our only way of bringing the family out of poverty. Our parents were not even concerned about themselves, only about my brother’s life and mine. The only way for us to have a good life when we grew up was to score the finest of results.