Slate

 

        I spotted it while digging through my old childhood trunk. You never know what kind of treasures you might find—and that’s how I came across it. It was a slate made of hard stone. I’d estimate it to be over 40 years old, at the very least. That’s how old it felt. In this electronic era, even the use of paper and pencil has become nearly obsolete in the name of saving trees. The chances of anyone using stone slates today are absolutely zero. It’s nothing more than an antique now. Those days are truly gone.

         I tried to lift it out of the box—it was that heavy. It could easily substitute for a lightweight dumbbell. I pulled it out carefully. It was still in good shape, with a wooden frame. The corner clips were rusted, and the steel plates had blackened with time.

        I took a closer look. The surface was clean but not entirely black; it had several faded spots. I also noticed a crack, but thankfully, it wasn’t broken. I tried wiping the faded white spots off with my hand—it didn’t help. Instinctively, my fingers moved toward my tongue, as if to moisten them for cleaning. But I stopped and smiled. That’s how we used to clean slates—good old saliva. Instead, I reached for the water bottle beside me, dripped a few drops, and tried wiping it again. Still, it didn’t work.

         Hmm, what could it be? My mind drifted back to those childhood days. Could it be my first drawing of an elephant’s tail, where I pressed hard trying to perfect it? Or maybe the lines from the square games I used to play with my friend during a dull subject class? Perhaps it was from one of those other line games where you had to connect distant dots without the lines touching.

        I found myself lost in nostalgia, curious about what those marks could have been. In a way, slates and the human mind are quite similar—they take in so much. We might erase things as time goes by, but what leaves a deep impression tends to resurface. As my fingers moved across the slate, I noticed the area around the crack was unusually smooth.

        A typical slate shouldn’t be that slippery. Its surface should be slightly rough, making it easier for the pencil to leave marks and for writing to feel natural. Slippery slates don’t offer a good writing experience.

         Back in school, we had a special homemade mix to prepare our blackboards for better writing. We’d grind leftover kitchen coal, amanakku seeds (which produce castor oil), and a special type of plant leaf (oomatham) into a paste. We rubbed it onto the blackboard and let it sit overnight. The next day, we wiped it clean, and it was ready to use. We sometimes used the same mix on our slates to improve writing quality. My hand was still tracing the slate, now gently touching the cracked line.

         Slates were delicate. I always placed mine in the center of my school bag so it wouldn’t crack if it hit the sides of my bicycle or the classroom floor. On days when I did my homework on the slate, I had no choice but to carry it in my hand. If I placed it in the bag, it would erase all my work. I remembered dropping it once while carrying—that’s how the crack happened. But it was still usable, and I managed with it.

        Wow. I thought about how far and closely this slate had traveled with me. If we forgot to bring our slates to class, the teacher would punish us by making us stand outside. But slates had many other uses, too. They could be weapons—either to attack or defend. Sometimes, they even served as umbrellas during a drizzle. They held so many memories.

       You don’t see such slates anymore. The last time I saw one was at a grocery store where it was used to mark daily prices. I’ve also seen them in small village tiffin shops—the owner would use one to calculate bills. I even bought one for my daughter. It had a plastic frame and was made of a lightweight tin. She didn’t use it for even a week before switching to paper and pencil.

          Today, we have countless gadgets, styluses, and digital tablets. We can write and erase instantly. They're easy to maintain—but one thing is missing. They don’t carry the same kind of memories our old stone slates did.

P.S.: One of my college seniors, Parithi, shared a story about how he had found his slate. That inspired me to write a story based on my own experience.