REWINDING and FAST FORWARD

The other day I sat down to think about my school life and to my surprise I could remember more than a thousand moments from that glorious time period.Though I won't be able to jot down all of them but I 'll make an attempt to share with you few of them.:-)

The earliest of my school memories is that of my first school,Budding Flower.I am riding the tricycle in the school garden and racing with the other kids.I remember the morning assembly where we sang the national anthem and the song 'Hum Honge Kamiyab,Hum Honge Kamiyab,Hum Honge Kamiyab Ek Din' and when the assembly got over we rushed to the class to claim the seats which we reserved for ourselves.The school had a pond with ducks.It was a small school so I was moved to a convent school after a year.

My new school,named Sacred Heart High School at that time,was huge.I can recall the time where I am being interviewed by a Sister who is asking,"Where does your mother cook food?" and "Where will you seat the guests at your home?"... Lets fast forward a bit :-) So here I am in U.K.G where I learned the first lesson of my life,taking someone's belonging without their permission is called stealing and stealing is not good.I took out the fancy sharpener that Ankita boasted about,whole day.I told my parents about it on returning home.My father made me sit on his thigh and made me understand meaning of what I did and next day I returned the sharpener to my classmate.From that day I never took anybody's things without their consent.It was the impact of the same lesson that in fifth class,after the school got over,I found a five hundred rupee note and I gave it to Sister Sisly,the receptionist at that time.My mom gave me a tight hug when I narrated the whole incident to her.

From fifth I will rewind and go back to second grade.The single moment that I cherish of this class is the time when I got my first unexpected reward,a brand new pencil, for knowing the another meaning of the word 'Bat'.

Third grade was an eventful class.I remember my hiding behind mom on parent teacher meet even when the teacher kept on calling me, the math problems written on the board and my struggle to solve them,my weird desire to use three different types of  handwriting,one for each term,learned the meaning of niece and nephew and for the first and the last time I scored highest in Hindi 69 out of 70 giving me an all time high.Fourth grade didn't have much except two things.First,my being punished,for not completing my homework,and sent to the main ground to stand so that whole school could see.Secondly, my falling in love with the basketball.

Fifth class: heating the sugar experiment and then being asked by the teacher to taste the hard black mass...  ,my answering the question about the weather of desert and no one else knew the answer :-),long answers that were to be noted down from black board and the whip of the stick on the hands of  every student of the class because we made noise in the absence of the teacher and our class happened to be just above Principal's office :-D, Avadhi's habbit of leaving the tiffin inside the desks until fungus grew on food...

Sixth:Sixth Sister Gracy teaching Tom Sawyer and nightmares of scoring low in the English test,the last seat with window behind from where I can look at the cow tied in the small field who kept eating grass and going round and round whole day and also the main road visible that was busy throughout the day with traffic.I would keep gazing out of that window and at times felt my lessons were outside the class and not in subjects being taught inside... the Jaipur trip where my camera broke down and I lost many lovely memories of Sister Sisly who choose to learn break dance... my selection in the St. Thomas house's basketball team and my best pass ever where I was about to fall on the ground with my back facing it and the opponent team's player,four years elder to me,almost falling over me and I manage to pass the ball just before I hit the ground... those basket ball matches in recess with me as captain of one team and Reishma of the other and I always winning,my coming across Puneet Di and she gave me the name Multani and Pnky to Reishma,for she wore a pink trouser on the trial day and how can I forget Arpan and Radhika,the dreaded tom boys of the school but the best basketball players at that time. Loved Arpan's Blind pass.

Seventh: the classroom had four doors and my gaze was most of the time fixed on the assembly ground outside.I loved looking outside the class... sir O.P khanna's pledge to make us learn the tables by heart... sneaking away in the needle work period of Mam Agnes with Geetan Di and having Chat with her on the stairs...

Eigth was crazy class of fake faces,became friends with Priyanka who gave one or two advices that I carry with me till today and remember her whenever I follow them... mugging up the antonyms and synonyms in hindi grammar for test in recess and the Hindi stories ' Usne kaha tha' and 'Chhota Jadugar'. Chhota Jadugar(magician) was the story that moved me to tears when I first read that in class and I never dared to read that story again because in it the chhota jadugar performed magic tricks on the road side to collect money for his ill mother. The mother died before the kid could reach home.I asked my mom to read it and do the question answers for me.

Ninth has funny moments clinging to it and is also the class where,for the first time,I thought of reason behind the existence of the universe and mankind.Once our English teacher was making us revise 'The Diverting History of John Gilpin' or 'A Ballad of Sir Pertap',I really don't remember now which of these two it was,and suddenly the topic of friendship and sharing started.I never had the joy of  having a friend for life till that time and I had a new friend for every class.I believed 'variety is the spice of life' :-D LOL. So the teacher asked,"do you all have friends to talk your heart out?".Everyone nodded their head and said yes.I did not have one so mine should be a 'No' I thought.I was on the last seat and shook my head to convey a 'No',wishing that the teacher did not notice me.To my surprise,the next  moment when I looked up,I saw Mam Kanwaljit teacher staring at me though no one else came to know what happened.My heart was racing.I did not want to stand up and explain my answer.She started speaking and looking away she said,"it is good that you have one and if someone does not have it,she can come and share it with me anytime".While she said to came to her and share she looked back at me and I had a faint smile on my face.I was relieved for not being asked to stand up and elaborate my 'No' and filled with joy to hear the last part of the sentence because I felt it was said for me...

Tenth was a BLASTING year.I became the captain of school basketball team and we won both the tournaments we played that year.I remember hugging my principal,Sister Regis,after we defeated the district level champions...:-D YaY!!!

Apart from all the above,there are numerous small things coming to my mind like reading the news and thought of the day in the assembly,stalls at fete,annual sports day,rush at the canteen,use of long books as a partition to avoid any sort of cheating during test,the love for small,colored,sugar coated,chocolates called 'Gems',writing of  'A.M.D.G' on top of the page...

Phew!!! Enough blabbering for tonight.Remaining of the memories will have to wait.