First of all the reason why I am writing this post is, in the last month or so when we friends chatted about our school, my roomie also being from a girls-only, I realized that the fun I had in my school knew no bounds, partly because of the above-mentioned reason. For everyone it was a different emotion, a different recollection-of-sorts, a different reminiscence, a different environment, a different life all together. After everyone had dispersed, I still sat in thoughts of my school and that is when i made a mental note that one day, some day, I would write on it.
I seriously have no clue where to start. I still remember the first day when amma left me at my school, my first ever assembly, my first ever teacher, my first ever friends, my uniform. Now that was something I was very proud of, our uniforms. It was a checkered knee-length skirt and a white shirt with a tie and thus we got ourselves a chic look. If I start talking about all that then I would just never stop. But I will never forget these special things in my life. What brought out the naughty people in all of us would be our 11th and 12th standards and everyone in my batch would agree to that. I mean the levels of insanity that our classrooms have seen in our year are inexplicable. Coming to the 11th, the penultimate senior year and the year when all the chains are broken loose and hell is released, when all the quiet, sweet and innocent awaken the devils and monsters lurking within them. Don't get me wrong here. It is just that the freedom one enjoys on reaching that year is quite enigmatic as it is that one year when you get to enjoy after your 10th boards and before 12th boards. So the students just utilize it to their advantage.
We had a rousing reception into our 11th and some Fresher's Day fun (organized by our seniors to just get some practice of ragging) we all settled into our classrooms knowing very well that come June, July and August we had be lined up with events after events. Our very first one was school elections. One fine recess our new Principal enters our classroom followed by some of our senior teachers and announce that we had to vote for our school representatives. Well it was all a joke then! Finally the results and posts of the elections were out (after meetings with seniors and juniors and teachers and God knows who all, the results were finally decided) and I was the Assistant Head Girl. Thus started my tenure as the AHG and as the Head Girl, the next year. And then in between all that started practice for the famous LaFest. Well let me just put it this way- it was just pure hysteria as far as some of the people were considered , after all this is the most prestigious inter-school event in Trivandrum. Well there were others but LaFest always enjoyed that supreme spot. All inter-school fests were enjoyable in its own sense and was different in some way when you were the team captain. I must say that the nervousness does get onto me during results time but after a few results we become pretty sure of our standings and I must say that we sweept LaFest in our 12th and lifted the trophy for one last time! And thus the rumors started- the all boys school would definitely have a soft spot for us and it was a known thing that we would finally win LaFest. But all that I had to say was, " Guys please check out the points table! The huge gap would in itself answer all that!". In school though, none of us thought twice before speaking. The endless conversations and teasing our corridors had been a witness to with bf's names being called and what not! Even our teachers did not stay back, "How are your guys in other schools? You would have seen them in tuitions yesterday right? So what are they saying?", and then would start a lively discussion on some of the tuition classes with expert opinions from our teachers too.
In between all this I was busy concentrating on my coaching classes. There were 7 of us who used to attend MathIIT from our school and that in itself earned us a lot of names like 'zombies', 'bujis' and much more (refer http://jani91.blogspot.com/2009/08/life-of-iit-aspirant.html for more details) and when ever we heard that we used to just fume thinking of our performances there and if at anytime one of us voiced it out and i seconded that opinion I would dig my own grave and the pastor leading the entire group would be VS starting off with, "Varsaji, you shut up. You don't have any right to speak about performances." But in between all this we used to have a lot of fun staying back in the school so as to attend the class and the ride from school to MathIIT and all the mimics that VS did the next day.
Then there were times in my class when our expertise was needed, especially in some of our boring classes. When people have had enough of learning for the day they would just pass a chit to me and request me to disrupt class in some way (Now that is a side of me only my school mates know while others just find it very difficult to accept that). I would usually have my head buried in the assignments or books that I had under my table and pondering over its solutions which unfortunately my school teachers always misjudged to be a contemplation of their questions and remarks. Then feeling pity over my friends who had suffered this lecture for some time now (though i had no clue what was happening) I would raise my head and stare at the board just to know what topic was being taken in class! Then if it was a topic that had already been done in MathIIT then i would ask all the questions that sir asked us, some very technical ones and baffle the teachers which was like 10 minutes of comedy time for all my class mates, seeing the way I put the question so that our teachers could not understand the question for 5 minutes and then when they figure it out they try to present it in the same complicated method that i had asked and finally end up saying, " Hope you all have understood what i said, though that is not there in your syllabus"! English hours were the only hours I listened to because they were interesting, what with Shakespearean plays and readings (in the true Shakespearean style with curtained doors and daggers and great stage settings within the classroom)and poems. Well that was heaven for me! At this special moment I must thank my English teachers for the fact that they were very instrumental in helping me disrupt classes. After all my simple questions were made so complicated just by the use of some English jargon not very commonly used [;)]. Shakespeare also proved instrumental in getting me a new name. 'Beelzebub' was picked up from Macbeth and immediately attached to me. Apparently this ruler of hell is what suited me the best and I always said that I had no problem because after all I was leading some devils and who called themselves Angelites!
In our 11th we also had to spearhead the Magazine Committee. Running around and going to all the classes individually and asking everyone to submit articles, then screening the bunch of stuffs we got, making soft copies of it, then more running around to do our own articles (thanks to being part of the Literary Club), then doing reports on events in schools, carrying out polls, in short an entertainment in itself.
There was a reason I mentioned about our uniforms in the beginning. Let me just put it this way, our corridors were pretty airy and even in a slight breeze all our skirts just have minds of their own which wander freely in that breeze. It was such a common phenomenon that most of the times people rarely bothered about it (after all shorts were an integral part of our uniform) and we used to howl from within the classrooms, " If the show is over, let us know, we need to close the windows :P". Eve-teasing was something we indulged in within our own classes thanks to all this skirt-flying and cheesy remarks.
Another interesting thing that happened was the introduction of a house dress. It was of growing concern for everyone including me and during the speculation period, I was the butt of all jokes with my classmates designing my dress to just irritate me. After all I had to represent all the four houses and hence the weirdest design was of a skirt with stripes of all the four colours. I almost had a temporary black out imagining that thinking that I belonged to some circus troupe. But when the uniforms came I must say that I had the most decent one of all! Mine was a pure white skirt and a white tee with just single thin stripes of all the four colours on one side and the school emblem on the other. It was just cool. My friends on the other hand had a disastrous time what with blue and red and green and yellow skirts and white tees with coloured cuffs. All that we could say was we turned heads in that uniform of ours! It was true because early in the morning when me and my friend went to AO sir's place nobody actually noticed any change in my attire, but when my friend walked in even the buji's (aliens as we called them) who would not take their heads off from the textbooks checked the uniform out and could not suppress a laughter. This was converted into a huge story in class that morning. In the evening when we had to make an entrance in MathIIT, I still remeber VS's plan- go just 5 minutes before the class starts, enter in a single file and that too like a colourful rainbow and from the front entrance (and with me, the least colourful, at the very back). We knew that we would be the laughing stock so we thought of making the most out of it. We entered like that into a classroom full of people and there was silence immediately. And after 2 people had entered the chit chat started and we knew that the topic of discussion was our uniform. The girls realized that it was a planned entry, after all we had to live up to our school's name (all meanings intended)!
In 11th, the other fun thing we had to do was organizing the farewell for our seniors and I still remember of how we had to meet our teachers with like every small thing and get approvals and sometimes even with the Principal when it came to catering and venue! Well after all the troubles we went through I must say that we did shed a few tears when our seniors bade goodbye to us.
Talking of farewell, how can i even forget that time of ours?! That was the time of the year when our desks were filled with slam books and memoirs. Well we decided to celebrate ours a bit more differently (apart from the normal sari-clad eventful evening and night we have). We blared music during school hours but trying our level best not to interrupt other classes, that is the least we could do, after all we had to study like that when our seniors had enjoyed. It was January and the boards were just coming up and we were all too busy with our coaching and everything. So as usual the MathIITians were seen sitting and completing assignments when there was music in class. All the MathIItians cuddled around me for copying the solutions while the some of us who had done it continued to think over some of the doubtful questions. With music and dance in class, these people had a very difficult time controlling me. But when 3 songs played there was no stopping me, namely Zara Zara, Desi Girl and Hips Don't Lie. Ok....Stop going by the lyrics of the song. The music is good to dance on. Anyway when these songs played my classmates would arrange 2 tables together and would push me on top of that and I happily danced away to glory not even bothering that I was right under the fan (refer uniform) . It was nothing less than a discotheque in class and since it was just us, all the lyrics of the song were given great importance(and the rest of the description I am censoring)!There were no reservations whatsoever! The dance continued till one of the teachers entered the room to find the Head Girl dancing on top of the table. And being the rep, it was me (along with the rest of the house reps) who finally had to meet all the teachers and ask them permission or rather put on an angel face and request, " Mam, last few days at school. Then we will all leave you. *sob sob* Mam please can you cancel class for today and may we pleeaaase enjoy?" to which we were always met with, " Ok girls for the last time. We will all miss you big time sweet hearts. Don't make too much of noise though". And we never waited to hear the last part. And today all this just seems like distant memories, but memories nonetheless.
Now living in a college were the female to male ratio is 1:4 , I pity all those people who have never been in such schools. There are always arguments to this saying that co-ed would have been a better option and all that crap but I genuinely feel that any individual would have to go through such an institution at least once in their lives to know what school-life actually means. It is from here that I learnt the meaning of true freedom, the ease with which I can converse with my teachers, the courage to take on anything challenging, those starting lessons of managerial, organisational, leadership, technical and soft skills, the confidence to just get on stage uninformed and give a speech whenever the occasion demanded (and have some fun informal moments on stage) and much more.
Well this place truly holds a special place in my heart...
1 comment:
gooD one...I went back to my school days too...
Best wishes!
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