School Days
I did not cry on the first day of school. Many did but I kept on smiling. It might be because I knew school would be the best organization which I could ever have. They changed my division, my place but I always got friends wherever I was put and that made my school days best days of my life. My school, my teachers and my friends always fought for me and so I did for them. It has been almost a year now after I entered professional life and at this moment I badly want to go back to my school life- to fight for me In fact to fight for us.
I grew as an aggressive, rebellious, kind, helping and sagacious individual in school life. The first thing I remember is punishment. My class was full of intelligent, mindful, and artful but mischievous children. My appreciation was always followed by punishment, today they call it escalation. But we never sacrificed our dignity. We always stood for us – as a class. We always enjoyed getting beaten up by lady teacher. Even in the worst case scenario it did make blood circulation better. But I can only relate terrorists being beaten up by American soldiers in Afghanistan to the way our sports teacher used to beat us. I remember one day for not completing a mere essay we got tattoos on our legs and some of us saw their wallets broken into pieces. But there was one punishment I can never forget. We were in 9th standard and unchallenged seniors in school. We used to go to play on ground whenever there used to be a free lecture. One day we did same but this time we did not return even when the next lecture began. The teacher called me through window to come back to the classroom but being a true leader of my class I strongly declined. I can relate the arrogance only to the one showed in South Park but I was very innocent and was just being true leader of my class. At the end we all had to stand in front of the principal. Principal being nice offered us two choices one to write a whole big lesson from history book or to be beaten up by devil. Being class representative I chose the later as to prove our boldness. But Principal sent all others to class and ordered sports teacher to beat me as well as to write the whole big lesson. When you are beaten in mass it is enjoyment but when you are punished alone in front of all it is huge embarrassment. And I was the culprit.
Except for the few occasions I was lucky to be a favorite of my teachers. But there was no as such favoritism in school. All were treated equal. Weaker students got more attention. Teachers were really nice and they treated us like their own children. We represented our school in interschool Kho-Kho competition. Being an unfunded school we did not have coach. We lost the opening game and were reduced to tears. But this time we saw really different sports teacher. He gave us party from his own money and motivated us for the come back on next year’s championship. Today I eat outside very often. But I cannot compare Vada Pav party given by sports teacher even after losing the only game we played.
As we grow up motivation becomes more internal and less external. And it has been proved to be true for me. I only drew worms on paper instead of alphabets. It was almost impossible to decipher what I had written in exam. But it proved beneficial because Teacher never could recognize mistakes and always gave me full marks. And I always stood topper. But things changed when I entered 10th standard. In board exams handwriting is the key to success. And I started getting dip in marks and was scolded by teachers for not improving it. I used to believe that I wouldn’t improve and would be screwed forever. I was very disappointed. But miracles do happen. One day our geography teacher was dictating something and she had habit of going to each student’s desk while dictating. And this time my handwriting was at its worst. I thought my notebook’s days are over now. But she told me, “Hey Saurabh , This is not fair. You can write really well. Believe it from within.”I couldn’t believe the next line I wrote. Worms turned into pearls. I could get respectable score in final exams just because of this –good handwriting. Since that day I believe external motivation.
There were many such examples. I can only recollect the ones which I experienced. My school was heaven and teachers were like parents and my friends were gems. It wasn’t a high profile school. But we did all possible things which a schoolboy can do. We played a lot during sports festival, took part in dramatics, dance competition excelled in studies as well.
Even in such good atmosphere for learning I couldn’t learn few things. I could never reach beyond monkeys in case of drawing and painting. When I started singing once the classroom was vacated. And I was considered as consistently below peer group in dancing.
During day to day life we used to wait for recess break desperately. We used to ask countless doubts in order not to let teachers complete lesson and give us homework. Things changed as we grew up. We started fighting for last bench and stopped doing home work. In 9th standard some of us started smoking – I remember we gifted Gold Flake to our first smoker friend on his birthday. Fortunately none of us tasted alcohol in school. We were all very sober. We came to know about different slangs at the same time. Every day we used to listen to new one. English slangs were regarded as proficiency. We went for the camps; picnics celebrated cultural festivals, sports festivals and came out as winners always. Victory meant coming together for us.
Those golden days were over as our 9th standard results were announced. Everybody started with their tuitions and was packed in schedule. The stress free school life was over. The life became like fast local train. And there was no time to wait even for myself.
