Author: Prajjwal RT
As Satan’s year couldn’t turn any worse, me keeping my room scruffy vexed my mom, and finally, I made up my mind to tidy it once and for all. While doing so, I stumbled upon some school stuff- my school uniform and a few of my class photos. It soon did reminisce me with a glorious past and unleashed the treasure trove of memories. As I stared at the picture, I noticed that Class 10A was like a group of happy campers, half of them were grinning, the other half with a gloomy face, standing all poised behind our teacher. Ah! Those days were cut above the rest.
Although we definitely were wearied by the same mundane routine, grueling class hours, apocalyptic tests, and exams, we truly were living in seventh heaven. The morning prayer, anthem, and assembly followed by a mass drill were how we all used to start our day. Each episode of an assembly was so distinct and hysterical that I still have a crisp memory of it. Be it the dramatic incident of a student falling unconscious due to the scorching heat or the teachers reprimanding us for being in a comatose state: everything seems to be etched in my memory.
‘Zoo’ and ‘fish market’ was what our class was branded for: the exoticism and peculiarity of each species- the ferocious one, the chirpy one, the sluggish one, and zillion others were found to be in abundance. While the monotonous sessions showed no signs to cease, we all kicked our heels for the break; sometimes the snack store under our desk was what saved us from further drooling as we all sneakily shared and munched over. The best part of it was the days we used to have annual sports and cultural fests. As the dictum states: The journey is better than the destination, we had mastered the knack of missing our classes (the repercussions of which later was reflected in our attendance) to groom ourselves for the big day.
While field visits and excursions were wholesome and enthralling for us, the teachers were ill at ease, vis-à-vis our disciplines, which could land the school’s reputation in jeopardy. Those were the days when we took each sport to be as austere as a World Cup tournament, celebrated birthday like maniacs, and prophesied each pair in class to be a match made in heaven. PTMs contributed more to the labyrinthine as the teachers took the privilege to use their trump cards and spill some beans.
Apparently, it was the place of all my firsts, be it success, failure, breakthrough, friend, foe, or a flame. Even though I was resentful of the tedious times, it did contribute to teaching me about values, virtues, and how to conduct ourselves in life. And whenever I would walk past my school, I would glare at the wordings ‘Presidency School’ on the tall edifice and the hoardings, which boast about the impeccable triumphs it has achieved over the years, only to be followed by another dose of nostalgia.
