For everyone who left after class ten

There is a particular kind of person in this community and almost nothing is written for us, so I am writing this. We left after class ten. Some of us because of a board, some because of a parent's posting, some because of money, one or two because we were asked to. We did not do the last two years. We were not there for the goodbyes, we are not in the final photograph, and when people say "our batch" they mean a year we did not finish. For a long time I felt like a guest at this. I would read these posts and feel the pull of them and then think, carefully and quietly, that I had not earned the pull. I want to say two things to anyone else carrying that. The first is that the valley does not do part marks. Five years there is five years there. The thing it put in you is not prorated. The second is that I came back for a day last year, unannounced, terrified, absolutely certain I would have to explain myself at the gate. Nobody asked me to explain anything. A teacher I had never met walked me to the banyan and asked which house I had been in, and when I said Krishna she said "ah, the shouting ones", and that was the entire process. Come back. Nobody is checking.