A transfer and after ...

The final months leading to 2018 was an anxious one.  A bit tense too.  I didn’t want either and also didn’t want the reason for these two.  In November I got to know that I would be transferred from my college to another college within the group.  It was an emotional shock for me.  There were transfer orders earlier too, but the incumbent principals of my college managed to get the orders reversed.  During most of the last 4 years, I was the only English teacher in my college.  They didn’t want to send me and I didn’t want to go.  But this time there was no reason to not let me go as there was no teaching load for me, though my principal tried hard to retain me.  I knew I wouldn’t be having any teaching to do in the ensuing semester and I had planned to take a sort of unpaid study leave, get some unfinished work done, and so on.  The usual flights of fancy of restless frustrated people like me.  Fat chance, daddy … 

So, after thirteen and a half years in one college, I found myself in another college at the beginning of December.  The parting was very emotional and distraught and I cried and choked during the farewell given by my Principal.  I had visited my new college earlier and I know a few people, so there was some familiarity.  And the faculty members in the English department and the admin officer, who had worked in my earlier college, made we feel welcome.  This put me at ease.  Now I commute to my new college.  It is closer to home, so the travel time is reduced. 

The worst part is that the one day changes your life dramatically.  Friends and colleagues you would see, meet and talk to every day are no longer part of your everyday life the next day onwards.  It is more than a month since I have seen them.  It is not that my earlier college is far far away, but the daily routine takes over and I have to find time within my timetable to really push through something new.  I just about managed to meet two of my friends one day for just about 20 minutes.  I talk and text, but I miss their presence, the familiarity, the banter ….

I didn’t want this transfer at this point of time, but I couldn’t do much about it.  I didn’t have many allies, just a couple of them.  Anything I could do or would have done would have been considered too drastic and had the potential to upset the apple-cart.  Very little room to manoeuvre actually, and any move on my part would have required some daring and guts, both which, unfortunately, I don’t have now … I lost them somewhere along the way long ago …

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