It was morning and your mother came to wake you up.
"Five more minutes", you said.
You were not really feeling sleepy but the terror of doing
what came next had taken over and you wanted to delay the inevitable as much as
you could.
You refused to budge from your bed.
The more terrifying prospect however, was your mother's rage. So you got up and headed for your bath.
You didn't know it back then but your life was taking a new
path.
As your father raised you off the ground, so that you could
see your face in the mirror while you
brushed your teeth, you looked at your groggy eyes with a sense of self pity.
You were subject to the world's most harsh atrocity.
You got dressed and made your way from home with a not so
nice feeling in your stomach.
Your parents dropped you at the gate and you put a bag
bigger than yourself on your shoulder.
To add to that water bottle around your neck and the weight
was more than a boulder.
Your parents saw you as you started the long walk from the
gate to the premises till you would disappear.
The child that went it would never reappear.
As you entered your classroom you saw faces that you would
share 7 hours of the day with for thirteen summers.
Your class teacher entered and in perfect synchronization all
40 of you rose to wish her a good morning.
Each one of you stood and told your story to the class,
while at the same time you wondered with anxiety how the time would pass.
Learning the alphabet and how to count was your new thing.
Oh how you yearned for the afternoon bell to ring.
When it rang you ran for the bus like it was nobody's
business, you wanted the first seat at all costs.
On your way home the giants who sat at the end of the bus
would cross you and would say that you are cute and would indulge you in an
antic or two for a couple of minutes before retreating to their abode.
You smiled as you entered home, you had survived your first
day at the concentration camp.
You entered the same place you left with much terror with
equal amount of optimism as it was time for your afternoon nap.
You awoke in the evening and as you had your milk and an
evening snack you put on the television to watch Pokemon, Beyblade or any other
of the cartoons on TV at that time.
Much to your disappointment your mother would not let you go
out till the sun was gone for fear of you getting ill, your impatient self
would still wander out to the park a few minutes before sunset.
The favorite part of your day had arrived and the next two
hours were absolute bliss.
Playing your favorite sport in the colony with your friends
with a level of competitiveness that could put a world cup final to shame.
There was one unsaid but absolutely unavoidable rule, the
person who owned the equipment was the king.
If the guy who owned the wickets was out, he would simply
take them and waltz right back home claiming foul play and then had to be
pacified.
You got home all mucky and sweaty and had nothing else to
look forward to that day.
After dinner you would enter the world of dreams but not
before asking your dad to keep monsters under the bed at bay.
Time passed and gradually you got comfortable with school
and you made a few friends, recess was not spent alone anymore but was spent
playing catch or hide and seek.
You knew the alphabet now and had forayed into learning
addition and multiplication.
You now knew what fractions were in math class but still
didn't understand how they worked, because when your friends said he will eat
half your food you had a portion much smaller than him.
Social Studies and Science were added to your list of
friends who would seem friendly all year long but when finals week came along
they were nowhere to be found in your brain.
The morning assembly was a place you didn't really like.
Who
enjoys standing in the sun for half an hour while a certain class just went on
about a random topic?
However if your class was the one conducting the assembly
then it could not be taken lightly, because for one it was a matter of pride
for your class teacher and if it got messed up, well its safe to say there was
going to be no smile in response to your good morning wishes.
As you went from kindergarten to fifth grade, the afternoon
naps became shorter as you had homework to do and the daily outing to the park
could and would not be shortened.
The fight was to sit in the front of the class so that the
teacher thinks you mean business and maybe makes you the class monitor. That would be a proud achievement for anyone.
Everyone from the first bench to the last was interested in what was being
taught.
Junior school was a mix of emotions, from hating the
prospect of going to school, not knowing
many people there and them not knowing you to gradually getting
comfortable in your surroundings and getting accustomed to your family for the
last six years.
One thing did not change though, the agonizing wait for the
afternoon bell.
As we entered sixth grade our sections were shuffled, some
of our companions of six years were shifted to another section, some stayed
while new ones came. Middle school was upon us.
There was an added sense of both fascination and
responsibility now. Though most of us
never really delivered on the latter the former excited us.
Our teachers told us we were big boys/girls now and even
though this was definitely not their intention, this gave us a misplaced sense
of entitlement which was only going to grow.
If Science was not enough as a subject alone to scare the
life out of you, it was now Physics, Chemistry and Biology to terrify you.
Social Studies had
now become, Geography, History and Civics.
However as the number of subjects increased so did the
fun. You started participation in extra
curricular activities.
The actor, debater, footballer, swimmer in you started to
blossom.
When you just entered middle school in grade six, the
innocence of junior school was still intact, you still did your homework on
time, you still sat in front of the class or at least tried to, you raised your
hands to ask a question to show the teacher you are paying attention.
Gradually however this innocence faded, as you entered
seventh grade homework started to be done in the morning in school itself.
Then the daredevils made their first appearance, they were
just a handful of you who left the war to sit in front of the class, you were
the breakaway group and formed the original members of the "backbencher
crew".
Every teacher (except for one really cool one) had disdain
for these people. These were the criminals and the teachers I think knew that
their arrogance and ignorance would attract more.
The first four rows of the class still represented those who
were trying to get brownie points from the teachers, of these everyone
including the teachers knew that only a few actually meant to study the rest
were just trying to show the teachers they were.
To escape class and its atrocities we would fake a stomach
ache to escape to medical room for a period or two. What bliss.
The chemistry lab was your devil's workshop and mixing
various acids in beakers and test tubes sneakily, whilst the lab assistant was
looking away became the new cool thing to do.
The physics lab was where you saw life through a prism.
The biology lab was the place you would stick a toothpick in
your mouth to scrape cheek tissue and then analyze it to compare it with onion
cells under the backdrop of a creepy skeleton in a case.
As you progressed to eighth grade the amount of attention
you paid to the class decreased even further, however the severity of the
punishment increased too.
If you were caught chatting with your mates even after
multiple warnings, the teacher would ask you a question to which even the class
nerd would not know the answer and it basically ended with you kneeling down
for the duration of the class.
When the teacher entered the class now, half the class would
stand and half would not bother to wish the teacher. She/he however would still
insist that all of you stand and wish her, wanting to impart basic manners in
the students. Looking back they were more like Alfred not giving up on Bruce
Wayne and i guess we owe them quite a bit for the manners we have in us.
The number of backbenchers also increased a little, their courage
increased slightly more and they now used to do all sorts of antics in the
class, from making funny noises to outright sleeping in the class.
A couple of them would also dare to answer back the teacher
when being accused of something, they would take a stand for themselves, a
sight unseen uptill now. This would elevate their status to class legend for a
while, where all the others would come to them and talk about the incident for
days.
You now started to go out with school friends for after
school scenes as well, as long as you were back home by 7-7:30 in the evening
your parents were anxiously fine with it.
The movie theatre was the popular destination or a pool
center or maybe a bowling alley. This feeling of independence, limited though
it may be gave you a sense of excitement and you loved it.
Then there were those two or three members of every group
that wanted to add an extra zing to the outings, while most resisted at the
same time being fascinated by these people or judging them or both, there were
these selected few who would take the plunge into the world of crime.
They would come out of the movie theatre and walk upto the
panwadi outside and ask for an ultra mild. Oh those monsters you would think,
unless you were one of them ofcourse.
The number of people in the park had also now decreased with
people taking up tuitions in the evening and nothing made you more sad than not
playing in the evening, but still they were few who resisted the temptation of
taking tuitions and they would religiously be there everyday at 5. They were
the real keepers.
The one thing that still had not changed was the painful
wait for the afternoon bell and the joy that you felt when that did happen.
You wouldn't run like mad for the bus though anymore, you
would walk towards them as that seemed more cool.
You had also moved behind in the bus from the first 2-3 rows
to the next ones somewhere in the middle of the bus but still a little towards
the start.
However here also there were a few rebels who would go
within touching distance of the last few rows, the seat to fight for was the
high one near the back door.
You had graduated from playing hand cricket or something of
the like and now used to talk to your friends, probably bitching about the most
hated teacher in the school to pass your time going home.
There were few who would fool around in the bus probably
picking on one poor chap and taking his case all the way home.
The people in the last two rows of the bus didn't seem that
big anymore but were still a bit intimidating.
Rides home were always fun especially if two people got into
a fight on the bus. There would be cheering and shouting and on few special
occasions if it would seem like the two are reconciling some senior from the
end of the bus would come and add fuel to the fire (this would be something
very common in an all boys school).
It was time to enter grade nine now, senior school. This time
your teachers didn't have to tell you that you were big boys, you knew it
yourself.
Some of your friends had left for a new school while some
new ones had come to yours in the past nine years the crux of the family still
remained though.
Your classes were shuffled one more time, but it did not
matter anymore. The friendships forged were strong enough now to pass the test
of partition.
Just after a class would end and the teacher left and before
the next one came in you would wander into the neighboring class across the
border to meet your friends, while one person would stand guard on the door and
would keep a hawk eye on the end of the corridor to warn you when the teacher
would come, so you could scuttle back to your class.
When the teacher entered the class now five or six lone
rangers would still stand and greet her, while the others would either continue
their conversations like nothing had changed or they would greet the teacher
seated where they were.
The teachers also were a bit fed up now to be bothered to
make us greet them.
The first three rows of the class still represented those
who wanted to study, to pay attention to every detail and to show the teachers
they were doing that.
The balance however had undeniably shifted towards the
backbenchers, with everyone behind the third row now under the spell of being a
rebel.
The back answering had increased substantially, so had the
other antics of these back benchers. Now when the teacher called you out for
misbehaving and after arguing your innocence in the laziest of fashions with
her (its like you wanted to lose the argument but argued for the sake of
looking cool), when you were asked to leave the class and kneel in the corridor
it was like a medal being awarded to you and you would walk out with a smile on
your face, it was an excuse to not sit in that excruciating lesson and at the
same time to show the class that you did not care about the teacher, rules or anything
at all.
While one or maybe two of them would actually not care the
rest were just showing it as the case. How could you spot these pretenders? Well
when the subject teachers were giving out the internal marks and they had
failed every test, they would be the ones going to the teacher with a puppy
face and telling the teacher they would really improve their behaviour now and
become the brightest students of the class.
While some teachers would give them grace marks by the magic
of these words, others would make them work
for it by giving an assignment or a project, there would always be one teacher
however who would not budge no matter what. You could tell them your dog died,
you had cancer, you broke all four limbs even if you told them you died and
could not study for the test, these would still not give you any grace marks. You
were basically Matilda and they were Mrs Trunchbull. Hard luck.
We no longer faked an illness to escape class bunking class
had now become a thing. We would escape the to the field or to the basketball
court.
If a special function or event was coming up in school, we
would tell our teachers we needed to practice for the same and we would rush to the auditorium where we
would happily overstay our welcome.
The storm of trigonometry and economics had come to ravage
our lives and we needed to gear up to face them.
While the class toppers resisted, or at least they claimed
they did, most of us now had succumbed to tuitions.
Tuitions also were chosen by many not on the basis of how
well the tutor taught, but what sort of crowd went there. The opposite sex was
finally making its presence felt on our lives.
The timings for outings with friends had now increased to
9:00-9:30 as we would give our parents the number of few of our friends lucky
enough to own a cell phone.
The puff of smoke in our lives had increased with more
people picking up a cigarette. There were
a few who dared to gulp from a bottle of vodka and who claimed that its not
that harmful nor does it give any sort of high and we all should try it.
As we entered tenth grade our parents told us to get serious
as the shadow of the boards loomed large over our heads.
Even if we didn't study that much, and lets be honest we did
not, all the talk around us by teachers, parents and relatives was of studies
and what subjects we would take and that was a stress in its own way.
As the year progressed and the exams drew closer , the major
excitement of our life was provided by the 9th chapter of the Biology textbook.
R.D. Sharma and R.S Agarwal became best friends for many of
us (not me), while the rest of thought focusing on our school books was more
than enough (me).
Around February was the time we actually started to study
though with the exams due in March. This was also the time when we cursed
ourselves for not starting earlier.
The exams happened and we came out of them unscathed.
The next 20-30 days were a bliss though, spent with friends
or watching endless movies or episodes of friends with no stress of school,
holiday homework or exams.
We had started liking school a lot by now but still the wait
for the afternoon bell was just as eager.
We had graduated right to the edge of the last two rows in
the bus and the people who sat in the end were not that approachable as our
friends were but they were no longer intimidating but in our heads we wanted
the last two rows for ourselves and could not wait for that lot to graduate and
vacate the seats for us.
Before we knew it we were in class eleven, we chose our
subjects or in some cases they chose us. We were divided into Commerce, Science
and Humanities but united by our genuine desire to create a ruckus and to be a nuisance.
Eleventh grade was a joyous ride, it was right after the yearlong
stress of the tenth boards and we knew
that much much more of the same awaited us one year down the line, we were
finally old enough to do the things we were not allowed to earlier, well we
probably still weren't technically allowed to do them but we finally had the
courage to do them anyway, and now we finally had the time to do them also,
everything fell perfectly into place.
For many of us even the parents were happy as we did away
with subjects that we were awful at and thus our marks also improved.
The classroom was a more happier place than ever before,
everyone had followed the backbenchers into the world of hilarious antics,
non-stop blabbering and ofcourse annoying the teachers.
The first two rows were the only ones now who had any
interest in what the teacher was saying, the last of a dying breed.
We finally started having late night outs and no longer needed to be envious of our
elder siblings for the same. The time to come home could now be 12:00- 12:30
and in some special cases if an added push was applied it could go up till 2AM.
Let alone afternoon naps, we now refused sleep at night
also. Since most of us had cell phones and puberty was also hitting us, nights
were spent chatting on Facebook trying to get his/her number and once you
managed that incredible feat you would go to the recharge shop and get that
20,000 SMS per month pack put in your phone so that you could text all night.
Many of us started dating, in which case we would sneak our
phones to school sometimes so that we could use it to text during the day also.
Sleepovers at our friends place had now become a common
thing. We for the first time in our lives were tasting the good parts of adult life and boy it
tasted good.
Homework was still given, but let alone do it in the morning
we stopped doing it altogether.
We used to tell our parents that we are going for group
study to our friends house when we were just roaming in the colony with that
one friend who had a car, probably smoking and listening to music.
Those of us who didn't smoke had hookah to save us and many
of us were on the drinking bandwagon now. Many had gone beyond that even and
had herb in their lungs.
Some still resisted
though and still had as much if not more fun.
There was always that one insane birthday which would throw
up so many stories that they could last a year. Someone who got shit drunk,
someone who got shut drunk and their parents caught them and all that.
Class eleven passed us by like that and before we knew it
the final chapter of our school life was upon us and the most important one as
well.
As we entered class twelve, everyone including our inner
self told us it was time to get really really serious. Okay well not maybe our
inner self but everyone and anyone else did tell us and this time we did seem
to get the message.
We started the year thinking we will really study this time,
we got tuitions put and started to prepare.
This didn't last very long though did it? Soon enough we
were back at it. Back to the antics and not lending an ear for even a second to
what the teacher was saying.
Making a fool out of our parents when we told our parents we
were studying when all we really did behind the locked door was texting, or had
our earphones plugged in and if neither of that then we were just staring at
the ceiling planning a trip with our friends post the boards.
In school also even if we were staring at the teacher while
she was teaching, all we were actually doing is wondering how would we save
everyone if terrorists struck our school. We still waited for the afternoon bell.
We still went out with our friends, a little less but still.
Convinced our parents by telling them our tired minds need and deserve a break.
Time flew quickly in the middle of books, tuitions, school
and chilling and the boards were upon us.
We again actually started our prep in February only. Studying
6-8 hours a day to cover up for a year of not even touching the syllabus. Our mother
was worried for us and kept refueling us with coffee, tea, maggi, biscuits,
etc. We definitely put on some kilos
during this time.
It was time to bid farewell
to our school. As we walked in from those gates for the last time as
students of the school we didn't realize how much we were going to miss this
place.
During the farewell ceremony we were overcome with nostalgia
as we saw our juniors perform for us, our teachers through the years were
seated there and it suddenly hit us that every single one of them, whether we
liked them or not, whether they liked us or not had a small part in making us
who we were and for that we owed them.
Post the ceremony we met all the teachers, thanked them as
they wished us goodluck for life and for our boards.
We then met with our batchmates and discussed the funny
titles we had got. We then got to the shirt scribbling session and had funny, sweet, nostalgic and many
inappropriate things written on our shirts, we were going to keep them for a
lifetime.
As we walked out of the gate a funny feeling in our stomach,
our heart pounding and maybe even a moistness in our eyes we remembered the day
we first came here and laughed at how it all turned out, how we turned out and
how glad we were to meet these people we called friends.
Just like that our school life ended, in a flash. It started
with terror of what was going to happen with school in your life, will you like
it? Will people like you? Will you do well? It ended with the terror of what
was going to happen with school out of your life, will you keep in touch with
these people, will you do well in life? Will it all be different. Will life be
a lot more tougher?
School had become something more than an educational institution.
To put it in context, looking back now imagine meeting your friends, both close
and not so close together every single day for seven hours, 5 days a week for thirteen years. It was the largest, most amazing and craziest chilling spot we would ever have in our life.
As the years went on though, most of us did not keep in
touch though as life caught up with us, but the few of those who we still talk
to are our friends for life, our closest companions and even if they were the only
thing school gave us, which they were not for we recieved a lot more which cannot be quantified, it was all worth it.
Even today as we clear our cupboard and find that signed
shirt, we sit down to read those notes scribbled and wonder where those people
are and what they are doing.
Even today when we drive back home from work, starting our
careers , and cross the neighbourhood park and see a small kid with an angry
expression on his face carrying some wickets or a ball back home and a pack of
children chasing him, begging him to come back we allow ourself a wry smile,
what we would give to go back to the simpler times. They were thirteen years of
paradise, thirteen years of glory and thirteen years of guilty innocence.
How we long to hear that morning bell again, signaling the
start of school for the day?
