Windows

Windows 3:

Age -- in terms of class attended -- IV. I was hardly fascinated with this thing called the 'new subject.' We had to rote commands to run. What were we doing, inside an ac room, when all the running was supposed to take place out in the playground? I learnt zero about the computer and I may have passed only because I had to draw boxes and drop-downs, and the grace marks attached to cleanliness.

Windows 2000: 

Class X. I realized the virtue of having two glamorous windows in my room, one which opened to an endless field of green, which became a river during the notorious Assam floods, and the other which brought in voices of a self-defence class, each morning as I sat in the sofa in the name of an hour of study, before school -- "Hoo! Haa!" I knew some faces by the chords of my ear. The same window exposed me to the sound of mass-violence of Bihari bhagao! Bangali bhagao! Early sleepers, my family, I curled up on the same sofa, this time seeing blood with my own ears and for in many, many years, walking into my parents' room thereafter.

Windows XP:

UGI. I took the early morning bus to college, and looked out at the empty roads which would grow like fungus in the next five hours on my way back. Peddlers were beginning to set their wares up. Wives lined up to fill various plastic pots with municipality water, husbands braved the stench of fresh morning fish and bargained over their best bet at dinner, sleepy children in crisp uniforms went about their mundane school routine, without a trace of the minutest joy on their face. 

Windows 8:

I have four dedicated power-windows installed specially in the base range of the car I bought on hard-earned loan. I had thought of the other side of the window from UG I, where I could look up at the buses and voyeur into people and plots. How diligently wrong I have been. I have a sip of my water, grab a fruit slice, or set my hair once I am at the red light. Shamelessly, I also dab another layer of lipstick on my 'cigarette lips.' It is only then that I look out and up, and try and figure if there is a me on the next bus, watching me do this. I have no time to ponder much, it is 9-8-7-6, time to ignite the engine and move on. 

Windows 10:

Sometimes, I look into the little window of the world, my smartphone. Faces I knew since the run command now all smile and stand alike, like those drop-down boxes, with grace marks for perfection in posing. 

In such a palace of windows, I reflect upon decades that slip through my lifetime. Like weight, it weighs on me, the amount that could be burnt down, and the useless assemblance. I curl up in a corner and look out.  

It's time to open them!