I did my schooling from ****** High School, one of the premier educational institute in Mumbai. Living up to its reputation of churning topper's at Mumbai merit list, my school nurtured some rare and exceptional talent. For graduating students, this is what it had to offer in abundance ...self-motivation, perseverance, discipline, optimism, industriousness, morality and self-righteousness (misinterpreted on many occasions as chauvinism - by other school students). I had my takes too but my share on academia was not something i could brag about..Introvert by nature and inattentive in class, i emerged to be an outlier / a misfit....i consistently hit/stood rank 30 - 35 in a class of 60 approx..attending school seemed obnoxious. My imaginations were muddled with possibilities of skipping school hours... my read on school had grown to become more of a docking station where you load and unload books from bags. Parent's meet assumed war fronts because class teachers (assumed enemy) would go over student's progress in presence of their parents to suggest scope for improvement (open artillery). Without getting into the specifics of what had to follow, i would like to cite one such incident / meet where my class teacher failed to recognize me as her student (it sounded like she acquired the taste for my name "Harshavardhan" for the very first time and i do not accuse her for that.. Out of Reticence, i never raised my hand.. be it to ask a question or answer one...leaving her clueless on my grasp over the material taught )... what paralyzed me then was the fact that she fell short of words to describe my grades because they weren't bad nor something that she could refer to as exemplary ...bereft of hope, there were no signs of improvement.... i kept cruising along 55/100 on most of my subjects...(silence dominated the room then and a thought occupied my mind .."back home, someone is gonna get hurt read bad." ).
A typical day at school usually started at 7 am in morning with prayers, followed by lectures with intermittent breaks finally to wind up by 3 pm. I detested English, History, Geography to the core. Exegesis of extracts from Shakespeare's time (so called English), crying over martyr sacrifice and salute their bravery for killing innocent civilians in wars(so called History) and keeping stock of what is produced in which part of the country under which climatic conditions?(usually referred as Geography) always remained inexplicable..Marathi and Hindi were very special to me. What made them "talk of the town" was the fact that i remained roll number "1" throughout my school life (thanks to "Achrekar" last name) and during this tenure my marks were projection points of my class performance. The examiner who graded my exams sheets had to venture hrs together amending my spellings/typos with all sort of special symbols including underlines , crosses and circles marked in red only to outnumber my content...Amidst lectures, lunch breaks tend to put me on lull because "omlette n rotis" or "dal n rice" ,although seemed difficult to devour, had grown to become my staple diet. Term "pocket money" was not coined then.
Morning prayers typically lasted for 3 minutes and reciting it was such a painful ritual...but when it came to exam week, prayers lasted for 10 minutes and i could chant it free of fallacies...because it was my last n only resort then...i thought i could engage god in negotiating terms with me on stuff i had read to appear in exam. He chose not to be by my side and out of disgust i started pinning my poor performance on lack of tuitions (private coaching on subject taught in school) - my scapegoat to justify my failure...when asked by friends about my rank in class, i used to utter in a low and indistinct tone any random number i could possibly think of between 15-20 only to find out someone already owns it...not to my surprise. Average grades , lack of confidence , low on general knowledge , ignorant about books/news/sports , i had shut all the doors to socialize..Living in seclusion, "Friendship" was a new concept for a loner like me...Yes this was me before my 7th grade until i meet Muthuprassanna (schoolmate who did manage to strike optimality between rote learning and critical thinking) and thereafter all the equations changed in my favor.
In retrospect with the title of my post, a london based friend of mine raised a flag ..."do ya still wanna re-live u r school days?"...and then for once, all the good times i had spend then, started pouring in only to make my belief stronger.
I want to relive my school days coz i miss
When i was a child, i thought i could do nothing wrong,
When i was a child, i thought i could do no harm,
When i was a child, no pain or worries i could see,
When i was a child, everyone seemed to get along.
When i was a child, i was young and free of sins,
When i was a child, i could afford to be aberrant n learn from mistakes,
When i was a child, praying to god revered pious.
When i was a child, i thought it would last forever,
Now i am an adult, all i got so far r memories to devolve.
A typical day at school usually started at 7 am in morning with prayers, followed by lectures with intermittent breaks finally to wind up by 3 pm. I detested English, History, Geography to the core. Exegesis of extracts from Shakespeare's time (so called English), crying over martyr sacrifice and salute their bravery for killing innocent civilians in wars(so called History) and keeping stock of what is produced in which part of the country under which climatic conditions?(usually referred as Geography) always remained inexplicable..Marathi and Hindi were very special to me. What made them "talk of the town" was the fact that i remained roll number "1" throughout my school life (thanks to "Achrekar" last name) and during this tenure my marks were projection points of my class performance. The examiner who graded my exams sheets had to venture hrs together amending my spellings/typos with all sort of special symbols including underlines , crosses and circles marked in red only to outnumber my content...Amidst lectures, lunch breaks tend to put me on lull because "omlette n rotis" or "dal n rice" ,although seemed difficult to devour, had grown to become my staple diet. Term "pocket money" was not coined then.
Morning prayers typically lasted for 3 minutes and reciting it was such a painful ritual...but when it came to exam week, prayers lasted for 10 minutes and i could chant it free of fallacies...because it was my last n only resort then...i thought i could engage god in negotiating terms with me on stuff i had read to appear in exam. He chose not to be by my side and out of disgust i started pinning my poor performance on lack of tuitions (private coaching on subject taught in school) - my scapegoat to justify my failure...when asked by friends about my rank in class, i used to utter in a low and indistinct tone any random number i could possibly think of between 15-20 only to find out someone already owns it...not to my surprise. Average grades , lack of confidence , low on general knowledge , ignorant about books/news/sports , i had shut all the doors to socialize..Living in seclusion, "Friendship" was a new concept for a loner like me...Yes this was me before my 7th grade until i meet Muthuprassanna (schoolmate who did manage to strike optimality between rote learning and critical thinking) and thereafter all the equations changed in my favor.
In retrospect with the title of my post, a london based friend of mine raised a flag ..."do ya still wanna re-live u r school days?"...and then for once, all the good times i had spend then, started pouring in only to make my belief stronger.
I want to relive my school days coz i miss
- Rechanting the phrases used in the epics of Ramayana n Mahabharata on people.
- Setting off on a planned mango heist every saturday afternoon followed by hide n seek later in the evening.
- waking up to the tunes of chitrahaar on sunday mornings followed by poha/upma with chai
- Craft class to demonstrate my creative prodigy.
- Box-cricket sessions yet managing to break glass windows.
- Reckless dwelling/hogging on pav bhaji, samosas, pani poori at "Khau Galli" stalls.
- The games / food at youth festival of my school
- Cheering up for the girls basket ball team which won accolades, participating in sports events while guys team was a clan of amateurish incompetent performers.
- Playing football after 3 pm on lush green outfield in order to score extra points to shoot up percentage.
- Watching cultural events at the annual school festival.
- Ganesh Chaturti(lord ganesha worship) festival at my place.
- Waiting for the school bus to play hindi music(gajar ne kiya hai ishara-tridev) in transit
- Beginning of every semester requiring me to buy new books, school dress, shoes., etc
- Vacations i spend at my Grandfathers n Grandmom's place filling square books with Tables from two to twenty.
- Garlic chatni n Chapati with chai, i used to dine in from my Grandmom's hand.
- Two stories my Grandfather used to narrate alternatively yet never got bored or them.
- Preparing for 10th exam on the roof of my house, in the scorching sunlight on top of a water Tank lid.
- Racing with hot-wheel cars on my sofa cum bed adding vocals/storyline to spice up.
- taking off on my cycle with 1 rupee coin to get kadipatta n lemon from a local store to add in pooha / upma.
- Continuously keeping a tap on the streets used by mom while returning from work, at the tick of 6 pm, in anticipation that she must have bought some snacks to eat with evening tea.
- In continuation to the previous thought , open the door and run towards her shouting "mummy aa gayi..." the very moment u sight her.
- Winning the running race competition at the colony only to be gifted with crayon color sticks.
- Coffee made by my mom to keep me awake during my exam days.
- Powai Lake outing, my school used to take me every year to set up camps n play cricket against different divisions.
- Playing catch - catch n rugby during lunch hours with my friends.
- Watering the plants in my garden.
- bickering over the fact that as a young boy i should be served more food than my sister.
- Mumbai rains, that used to create havoc setting things in my house to float.
- Whinning over every mark lost in exam.
- Enacting school Teachers.
- Playing pranks / giggling / fake snoring / tickling / carving on wooden desk important formulas / making everyone around you laugh while teacher is busy explaining something n many more stupid acts that would add to the list of activities.
When i was a child, i thought i could do nothing wrong,
When i was a child, i thought i could do no harm,
When i was a child, no pain or worries i could see,
When i was a child, everyone seemed to get along.
When i was a child, i was young and free of sins,
When i was a child, i could afford to be aberrant n learn from mistakes,
When i was a child, praying to god revered pious.
When i was a child, i thought it would last forever,
Now i am an adult, all i got so far r memories to devolve.
