There was a Time:
It has been a couple of years since I finished college but
this story isn’t about college, It is before I stepped into the trap of
engineering and became a so called “software engineer”.
This is about a time when you carried your school bag
instead of your laptop to work. It’s about a time when your greatest problem
was incomplete homework and quarterly/half-yearly exam results.(The annual
results never revealed your marks) All you ever cared was securing that 50% in
every subject so you are eligible for a rank even though your name would never
come in the “Roll of Honor” list in the
black board at the back of the class. The only period you actually cared about
is PT and u made sure that your “canvas shoes” are white by rubbing chalk-piece
on it
The only TV channel we ever watched was Cartoon network. Now it rests In Peace.
Friendship day was not celebrated with whatsapp text or
facebook posts. Rather we had colorful bands which we wore with pride and That
awesome moment when your crush ties a raksha bandhan in your friend’s hand but
not yours.
Sneaking in notes from one desk to another without being
caught by the teacher
Now a days we just text it off within a second. Where is the
fun in that?
Computers and google came into our lives way afterwards.
Unlike today we didn’t google everything out but actually used books and
library. (well atleast till some point of time).
We had the Monday morning assemblies where we happily sang
the national anthem and also hoped that the assembly time would eat in some
time off the first period of the day.
In the weekend we marched the roads on our bicycles with our
cricket bats at the back seat. Every cricket match we had a fight between the
batsman and the bowler and also with the neighborhood aunties whose glass
window our batsman just shattered.
We hated the teachers who took our PT period away just in
order to complete the syllabus.
There comes a time of the year called cultural fest where we
happily bunk the classes on duty and plan on plays and events for the national
festivals of the year. Looking at our friends from outside the window and
asking them to come out stating some silly reasons.
Little did we know that when we stepped into class X all
these things would disappear and the teacher starts talking about the public
exams while the parents lecture us about responsibilities. All of a sudden the
after school football practice becomes tuition sessions and everyone we meet
talks about public exams.
You would be surrounded by weekly test, daily test, cycle
test, mid-term tests and model exams.
Fun becomes zero and so desperate times calls for desperate
needs. We bring in something called “group studies”. Those are the best times
of life where you get a lot of hourly coffee and you get to chat with your
friends and when your friend’s parents enter you change the topic from
girls to “F=M*A”.
And at last the exam fear kicks in when everyone around you
says something geeky and you don’t know a word of it. Finally you manage something which doesn’t
look so bad but also leaves your parents disappointed as you didn’t score a
state rank (Come on everyone cannot score a state rank).
Class XI: 6 months beak before they start imposing the class
XII portions on you. One happy thing is that you don’t have to deal with history
or geography classes anymore but physics and chemistry gets tougher with each
passing day. Equations,Chemical Recations and
trigonometric functions were a nightmare. Am still wondering where am
gonna use these stuff in real life.
Tuitions become even more of a nightmare with impositions on
every week end test.
The only bright side to all of this is that you spend most
of your time with friends and enjoy every little joke you crack about the
tutor.
By this time gossips, rumors and drama have become a part of
our life. We try to find out every last detail about our crush. Life all of a
sudden becomes interesting with stories of love/proposals/ego clashes and break
ups. Following your crush till their house on a bicycle and making sure that
you leave before her brother/father comes out of the house (epic).
Within no time you step into class XII and everyone gets
serious with studies. The test cycle starts again and you have no clue what you
are up to this time. Marks become a very important thing in life and everyone starts
asking “which college/which course you are planning to take” and you would be
like “duck! Y do you care” but you reply with a smile and move on wondering
what you are goanna so at the end of school.
“Study leave” : The most beautiful part of your life where
you get to do a group study every day and yet not study a single word from the
book but what you wont realize is that these are the last days that you could
happily say that you are a school student.
Every day you get to hang out with the friends of your life
without realizing that the day to day laughter,bike rides,birthday bashes and
all that teasing would slowly become long distance phone calls and facebook
conversations.
Departing with the school is the toughest part in life. You
would never get to see your entire class under one roof. You may promise to
call or text everyday but eventually the day to day chats would become once in
a week and then once in a month and then
you call your friend only on special occasions such as birthdays or marriages.
Some just get out of the picture totally and you wouldn’t
even remember some names or what they are doing.
Now to sit back and think that such a time actually existed.
A time where our friends are a daily part our our life. The greatest worry is
not our careers but our homeworks. You get up go to school and then
laugh,cry,make fun/made fun of,gossip. Never would we get a chance to relive
these moments again.
What wouldn’t change is the childish relationship, when you
see your friend after a long time you become the worry free school boy again.
You push aside your daily chores and try to relive that life again. You laugh
talking about the good old times where nothing could ever go wrong.
Now they may be busy engineers/research scientist/doctor/business men who live across different parts of the globe but these idiots made your school life the most memorable one. They never missed a chance to crack a joke at you but at the same time they never backed out of a fight for you. So just pick up the phone and start disturbing those godamn son of a glitch who made your school life one hell of an experience.
