Those Days of our Lives

I will be leaving Mumbai in a few days. Every time before I leave, it is a practice to visit the school, our teachers and staff. The name of my school is Smt. Sulochana Devi Singhania School and boy, am I proud of it! It is the best ICSE School in Mumbai (I feel that way, always will). I have studied there for fourteen years, right from Junior K.G. to Std. 12. And those were the best days of my life. Yet! There was a time, after I gave my ICSE board exams when I strongly resented everything about my school, mostly because all my friends chose to study in Junior Colleges instead of continuing in my school. My dad black mailed me emotionally and persuaded me to such a great extent that I cried a river. But that did not change his mind! (This is where you pity me). And the first year there sucked! (I don’t make friends..It just happens or whatever:S) But later during that year my friends joined me, well, they took admission here and Std. 12 was simply brilliant! We were a gang of maybe ten? And we all loved each other’s company so much! I miss that the most. Well, we all are in touch and whenever in Mumbai meet each other, but it isn’t the same. I miss English literature too! Shakespeare’s works! Julius Caesar and King Richard II. I could read them over and over again.

The Throw ball era:
Only we know the way we troubled our professors, with all our hue and cry wasted at least fifteen minutes of every period begging them for what we called “free periods”. Why did we need free periods? To play throw ball! And the boys played football obviously. When I look back at those times, we were happiest when a teacher granted us our free period (It was indeed hard earned). We needed our ID to get the ball from out P.E. teachers. “ Chal Avantika, bhag na! Time waste ho raha hai”, she said. After all, every period was for just half an hour. We ran like crazy till we had the ball and reached the ground. I was what they call “katcha limbu”. How embarrassing! I was always picked last. . (Here’s where you pity me again). While playing all was well for maybe fifteen minutes. There was a girl among us who wouldn’t let the game finish without starting an argument and calling the opponents cheats. I do not remember a single time when we have played the game till one of the teams won. It was so annoying! She hated losing. She started arguments and always left the game abruptly. In the beginning, we tried convincing her so much but she ALWAYS left. After a few more times we didn’t even bother. Man! Those were the days! When I think of that today, I know that those petty arguments made things more interesting. Our throw ball era wouldn’t have been memorable if it had not happened regularly. Exactly why I do not remember the other times I have played with my friends that clearly.

The Punishments:
Class 12 C, my class, was reputed to have been the naughtiest, most mischievous class in the ISC section. ALL our subject teachers have walked out of our class! Our Computer teacher has walked out THRICE! Once, we gave her an impression that we did not respect her at all. Well, maybe because we did not listen to her when she asked us to keep quiet and kept disrupting what is supposed to be a disciplined atmosphere. She got so mad that she walked out without telling us that she was and locked us within the class from outside. We were all so taken by surprise that all we could do next was laugh (One more teacher down!). One of the boys’ walked to the door and failed to open it. “Eh! Woh door bandh karke chali gayi!”, he said. Dear Lord! What a blown out of proportion situation to deal with. We knew what was coming next. Apology letter! Our second one to our Computer teacher, I believe. We must have written several of them during that academic year. We have made our teachers so mad before and when they see us today they tell us how proud they are of what we are doing.

They have only one expectation: “Please keep coming to school whenever you are in town. This is what keeps us going you know, ex-students coming and visiting us. Every time we see our new batch of students we keep wondering about what the earlier batch did.”

We love them so much! Unfortunately, most of the teachers who had taught us have now left the school and have been replaced by new ones. What we fear most is that even if we do keep visiting our school there will be no one there to meet. The cause of visiting the school would be lost. And that disappoints us the most.