My Biggest Secret

To participate in the contest!!
During those years, after dinner when I would retire to my room. I would think about everyone I met that day. What I felt, how my mind created various opinions about them. Sometimes these opinions had no particular or strong reason. It was just based on my gutt feeling.

I would gather my thoughts and jott down my opinions about each individual in a dairy. A few lines about everyone I met on a particular day. Well ofcourse not including the ones I meet everyday like the family who lives with me, my chowkidar, driver and the maid who would be cleaning the drawing room as I was leaving for school.

For some I had negative opinions for some it was balanced or neutral but for some I had some high regards. The people for whom I had high regards, I always tried to note the reason why I appreciated them. It could be as simple as dressing up for the occassion or always a smile on the face or maybe never late. With some I had a little note too adding I wish I would find such a quality in the person I get married to or fall in love with someday. My secret desires with those I appreciated were also written along with the reason I admired them.

I kept this daily routine till it was my last year in high school when studies took priority over everything and I was always home studying. During those teenage years I had filled up handfull of dairies which I had to hide from everyone. No one was ever allowed in my room when I wasn't there but I still had to safegaurd my secrets.

My bathroom had the old style overhead flush tank with a chain hanging from the handle. The tank was made of cast iron sometime in the middle of the last century. During my preteen years, I had the same room and used the same bathroom. I noticed that the flush tank over the years never needed any repair. It was painted twice. Once with bright blue to match the bathroom tiles and later a pale white. I noticed that the tank had a lid which appeared to be heavy but could be easily removed. One evening when I was alone at home and chowkidar was having his evening chit chat with someone from the neighborhood right outside the gate. I climbed on a stool and removed the lid. It was heavy. Carefully I brought down the lid and placed it against the wall and raised myself again on the stool I peeped into the tank. It was green inside and appeared to have an inner linning of copper which had gathered some green rust. Old engineering, always planning for 100 years. I guess it was to save the cast iron from rusting. The water was clear. I pulled the chain and heard the water gushing down the hole in the center. It was a big tank. I noticed that the tank had a clear marking of how high the water would get after the tank filled up. The years of use had created two distinct layers just like the sedimentary rocks. A line demarking the water level from the area which would be dry.

I noticed that the lid was raised a bit in the center which probably created enough room in the tank to stack my dairies. There were two small holes eight inches apart which appeared to be drilled in for a particular reason. I was not sure why? I decided to use this area to hide my dairies. But how would I hold it along the inside of the lid? What about the water damaging the paper?

I wrapped my dairies in plastic sheets which we had saved from the packaging of the new TV purchased over last Diwali. Five dairies packed in the plastic sheet tapped and again rewrapped in another sheet of plastic which I had to cut out from a plastic bag of some saree store. It looked like a neat package. I had to find a nice piece of wire to hold this package against the inside of the lid and look the wire from those holes so that it would stay up above the water level.

I had to sneak into my brother's room who was in his final year of electrical engineering. I was hoping to find what I could use. I looked around, under his bed, behind his bookshelf but found nothing. I decided to check his desk which had a few drawers on the right. I thought he always kept it locked but it wasn't. In the second drawer from the top I found copper wire coated with plastic neatly rolled. I pulled it out. It was about the size I was looking for. As I was about to close the drawer I noticed picture of one of my freind Sheetal, from school. I knew my brother had crush on her ever since he had seen her on my 15th birthday. I heard the old grandfather clock in our living room strike six times. I didn't have much time to finish up what I had started.

Quickly I closed the drawer and rushed to my room and opened the wire roll. Carefully tying the wire around the package and then passing the wire through those holes I tied the loose ends. The package was firm agains the inner side of the lid. I tried to pull it, it moved a little but was secure. I tried to lift the lid but it was now heavier. The books added more weight and may be my inner most thoughts added to that as well. With a lot of effort I picked it up and climbed up the stool. Lifting it over my head I felt as if my arms would fall apart from my shoulder. Slowly I placed the lid on the tank and had to adjust it so that it would fit in the groove. With a clink it fell into the spot. I pulled the chain to make sure it was still working. The water gushed down as always and I could hear it fill up again.

That was the last time I saw of those dairies. I forgot all about it as I got involved in higher studies. Soon we moved to a different place and I forgot to bring those dairies along with me. It recently occurred to me after all these years that those dairies are probably still holding against that lid. I drove past that hold house and noticed that not much had changed. It still had the same trees around but the garage to park the car seem to have been converted into a room for servants. I believe the old flush tank is still in the same place and my dairies with my secret desires still safe.

Well, who knows you could be the person living in that house who has access to my dairies. If you are do leave me a feedback letting me know that you found them. If you are not the luckyone, still a feedback would be appreciated.