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Wednesday, June 11, 2008

When I knew only laughter....

Life can't get better than the one I had at Jawahar Vidyalaya. It was, in fact 'better than the best'. Precisely, I made the most of my last four years at JV that is from my 7-10th standard. They were, and will definitely be the best phase of my life where I used to enjoy even the smallest things happening around me and now, when I think of it, feel blessed to have made friends around me happy.Before penning down that wonderful journey, I would like to thank all my friends without whom this article would never have been made possible.

Seventh standard was to me what a spark plug is to an engine - initiated the fire or rather kicked off that wonderful journey of mine. I used to be a very quiet boy, face ebbing with innocence, being too circumspect at times with a not-so-friendly attitude. What brought about the change in me was unintentional but something that just happened and I feel that's what they call GOD. What really surprises me is the fact that I never knew I was changing but was thoroughly enjoying and there never seemed to be a dull moment at school. Even those numerous art classes when I was chucked out were warmly welcomed with a smile or rather laughter. The lack of concentration in class just because I was busy planning for my next dig at teachers thankfully didn't hamper my studies. I was very successful in maintaining a consistent score of 80-85 p.c and to my utmost satisfaction, got a higher rank than my close pal Shriram almost every time. This was a key factor in me not compromising on the fun part at school. Another pivotal role was played by my cousin Divya who never disclosed any of those mischiefs to my parents at home though she knew most of them. The tallest of all - when I was caught of malpractice in that f***ing IT paper ( details of that incident revealed later in the article). I'm very thankful to her.

I loved school so much that I missed just half-a-day of class in ninth standard to attend the 13th day rites of my grandfather. I still remember that day- I pushed my mom to get my lunch done fast and rushed to school in my Hercules MTB cycle to attend the second half to make sure I've cent percent attendance in the ART hour. First of those funny incidents was in seventh standard when I misplaced my friend Sreeja's pen which had a photo of Sai Baba. I was so perturbed that I started making fun of her and refused to search for that pen. She ended up in tears, won my sympathy and I had to compromise and thus offered her a pen which my friend R.B had with a photo of Vinayak. She was in no mood to accept and wanted that Sai Baba pen alone. I got so frustrated that I shouted 'Podee Baba' and a few around me burst into laughter and eventually she was nicknamed Baba. This incident will always remain etched in my memory- her weep and those moments which really tensed me and R.B. Being an innocent boy, I was afraid if she would complain etc but things ended up on a good note and we found her pen just behind her chair. She stopped weeping thus bringing my pulse rates back to normal.

Eighth standard was just perfect when all the french students merged and I should say, we really gave the teachers a run for their money. I had become a boy sans fear - Come what may, I was ready to face it and nothing could be done at the expense of the fun we had. I still remember the day during one of those math periods when the six of us ( myself, Shriram, M.B, Rakesh, Vignesh and Murali) teamed up to cook up a story with all teachers in an amusement park. Though I don't remember what exactly the story was, it was that day when we all got together and the intensity of our laughter was just too (three) much. It was also the year when I learned all those filthy words and found pleasure in using them even when situations didn't demand. The best was my verbal dual with Arvind Raj on one of those days during lunch hour ( I don't want to get into this topic any deeper just to maintain the decorum of my blog space). These funny incidents had no boundaries...to name a few more... those Mane Mane cherche lines in our hindi classes, Taj Coramandel matter, By the by My name is Damayandrui (craft), the extent to which Shriram and I laughed when I copied during a hindi test...those funny conversations Kutty Sriram, MB, Murali and our class teacher used to have among themselves almost every day...the art hour when Vignesh and I hit chalk at our Sir and ran away. Art hour used to be unique in a way that it was supposed to be the only class where I had fun from outside the class. In a sense of exuberance, on most days, I never used to bring the Art note just to irritate him. The friendly cricket matches we used to play during holidays deserve special mention here ( Rakesh, do u remember the reverse shot we used to play). It feels nostalgic to remember those days when we assembled by 7 in the morning and played till the sun took the toll on us. Almost all matches were nail-biting finishes.

Ninth and tenth had tough moments as well.... juuuust and ssssss ( our sincere efforts to imitate our geography and history teachers) were part of almost all the conversations we made... Another notorious incident worth reminiscing was when Shriram and I burst into laughter seeing UPK Ma'am take the podium to conduct the morning assembly and almost all students scowled at us with disgust as they were tired of our laughter. We feared if we would be pulled out and taken to task by one of the teachers present . Thankfully, nothing unfortunate happened but our laugh was instantaneous as we were astonished to see a fat lady adjusting herself between two doors. There was not a single class when I failed to get away without rebuke from my history and geography teachers. The situation worsened one day when my history teacher left the class in disgust as i jacked her left, right and center. She found it so insulting that she left the class saying, I quote "I will not take history classesssss for you peepul (people), horrible classss, alwaysssss loghing (laughing) and making fun of all teacherssss. One idiot (myself) startssss loghing and the whole classss followssss him. All of you keep standing and no one should sit...keep standing". After she left, I murmured to myself ' Who the f*** is she to make me stand... F*** off '. That was the only day I actually wept in school. Mrs. Shantalakshmi had complained this act of mine to the class teacher and the latter asked us to stay back after school hours. Our class teacher entered and in an angry tone said " Except Rajesh, all of you shall sit". I felt like a stranger stranded in a jungle. She shot back " What an audacity you have!!! Who do you think you are?". I was lambasted verbally in front of all the 42 students. I knew, I was the sole reason for having made the entire class to face the axe. After we dispersed, I found a group of my class girls standing outside the gate having a private conversation and I was very sure they were cursing me. I felt so bad that soon as I came back home, I went straight to my room upstairs and wept for nearly an hour. Another terrible incident was when I used a red pen to add a few marks in my IT paper and complained the teacher of totaling error. I admit to the fact that I was not smart enough to use the same ink she had used. She was bustling towards the principal room when I stopped her to plead guilty. That evening, my pulse rates soared as I had to meet the principal but thankfully the principal had left school little early and the VP was kind enough to let me off saying "You thought you can fool her every time? Today is her chance to win over you."



Excursions added spice to the fun and fortunately we had two outings in ninth standard ( thanks to Divya Ma'am for arranging a trip to the Chennai harbour ). The bus journeys were just great. We leaned out of the window, made fun of fellow motorists but the fun inside was kickass stuff...imitating the way Anuja sings and her apple polishing attitude, Sukanya's Oonjal matter and of course we had Kutty Sriram who was always made the scape goat. Dolphin City and Mahabalipuram made for two great places of visit that year and we had a wonderful time.

On the whole, JV life was where I made ' FRIENDS FOR LIFE ' and it's a special feeling when I see myself in touch with almost all of them even today. The time we all spent together are great memories, which might better find place in a book.

25 comments:

R.B said...

haha.. a brilliant chronicle of events..It made me take a virtual soujourn of those brilliant days and made me even more happy for the fact,i was a part of it(though slightly)..Baba event was retold to the levels of ultimate perfection :).I was surprised to know u wept after that day and you've really got the audacity and nerve to say 'I WEPT':).Hey u shudnt hav missed PALLAVI THE NIGHTINGALE and HER STINT WITH MURALI and of course the evergreen SLAPGATE INCIDENT WITH KUBBU :)...To put it in nutshell the blog is a soothin parody of reminiscence :)

PR said...

Chance illa.. Such a beautiful narration of all those memorable days.. I can never forget the ever-laughing combo Rajesh and Shri made.. Kubbu being the scapegoat always... Madame and her classes.. IT and of course HE exams.. Seetha and her INTERESTING classes... Leena slapping.. Those aruvai Csc classes.. Me getting educated by Aravind Raj.. SK,Combu,SSSSS,Juuuust... Library hours that was one thing you should have missed...KC 's lunches.. Those were the days when I was at heights of mischievousness.. You made me cry and laugh reminiscing those days.. A very beautifully credit blog.. Hats off to you...

Unknown said...

ya ya.. pivotal role indeed .. :P .. i m becoming like one eternal secret keeper for all my cousins.. n bout tht "baba" thing.. LMAO.. poor sreeja..

theslasher said...

nothing less expected from the blog king.this man and his fellow partner in crime mr.shriam r laughin weapons,they got the capacity to crack joke at anyone at any point of time.job well done by 10D group moderatoras well as the meet organiser:D

AJ said...

wat a blog!!!organiser to a writer!!!first, i shud thank u for comin up wit such a blog. secondly, congrats for makin it such a joy ride da...miss those days badly.we get pushed out or praised,we want to be in that class.Ain't it,pal??cha..really miss it buddy :-( finally thanks for givin me the opportunity to just look back..THANK YOU my friend..

P.S :machi..u forgot NCC,Suppi,KK,alien,45Degrees da..

Rajesh said...

There are quite a few things I missed but already this is such a big article. One must also understand the fact that I can't go on writing just because I like. As I had mentioned, the days we spent together are better placed in a book. Anyway thanks for your comments guys, really encourages me to write better articles in the future.

P.S: Very kind of you people to have the patience to read such a big article :)

Vicky said...

huh.. no words to describe tis prticular blog actually.. al the incidents intact except for a few... the day wen i put papers in art sir's head.. weu u wrote ASS in mirror image wit wet chalk in the teacher's chair befor SK actually sat on it.. those music classes,alien incident,tat fellow who pelted stone on our class window shatterin the glasses durin suresh babu's class,45 degrees, the time wen we used to go outta class thro the other door to play in the corridor durin VE hour n me runnin outta class wen SK came to beat me...ha ha ha... n many more.. i think u can write one more bolg jus recollectin the missin things... i hope u ll... my request n i guess tat would be everyone's too...n rajesh i never knew tat u would wept for those things dude...anyway i really enjoyed it n am happy to be a part of tis memorable blog...

miss those days so much....love ya all
vicky

Unknown said...

school days are so memorable isn't it.. all the fun.. the classes..

lovely narration must say.. just keep writing.. it will be great.. and am sure you will cherish all these memories for ever.. and i bet you will find it so amusing right now..

its considered the best days of one's life..

Anonymous said...

i can say noone else could ve narrated our school days better than rajesh...infact its thru this article tat i came to know of many incidents tat i wasnt aware of..was a real nostalgic feeling to go back to our JV-days 4 a few mins..hats off to u rajesh...this one article of urs has taken all of us back to our X-d classroom..keep writting more...n also congrats on ur great writting skill..the way the article was organised n narrated is perfect...looking fwd to many more articles..sreeja

Preeti said...

Haha! this is realllllyyy nice stuff...i agree, school time is the best and i really think school and college r times that one must make the best of...there's no point regrettin it later..!

So ur in college now? or r u still in school and just outta JV?

Madhu Gopalan said...

wow...very sweet post! i think all of us can relate to what you've written...i miss my school days too, they were so much fun! but thankfully, my friends from school are still my closest friends, and we love talking and laughing about the stuff we did at school :)

Ekam-trial said...

wow! amazing narrative.. feels like being part of a fabulous movie.. he he..
am surprised and happy our jv life affected you so much, and still does.. i guess its always brilliant to live without inhibitions, and to live like there is no tomorrow.. and i always found that attitude of yours very striking.. do stay the same :) and write more such wonderful blogs!

Anonymous said...

The zeal with which u've written this,it certainly does seem like they were very fine moments...but u must realise that u were very lucky to have such an attitude, not everyone is able to relish this period :)

Rajesh said...

@ AYushi

Interesting comment...that's something I never thought of.. Ya you're right....lucky and I'm thankful to God

Unknown said...

well when i started reading da blog...da first thought which came to mind was..."oh my god dats pretty long..will i be able to read da entire blog"....but as i started dere was not even single moment of boredom..ur blog kept me glued ....gudwork keep it up..

Rajesh said...

@Shreya
thanks...that was encouraging...hope u really meant wat u said :)

Anonymous said...

uve touched my mostalgic nerve with tht reminiscing account of middle school...

it brings back rueful memories of my very own 'Golden Age' in PSBB..
trips in skool r truly unforgettable da..never come bak again those moments..wil they?

its my 2nd fav of ur fav articles da..keep entertainin an moving us with ur words da..

P.S: totaly surprised tht u actually cried..though i can und the circumstances an the biggest factor-AGE which couldn't stop u frm composing urself..i stil dint expect it frm u.

Mona said...

i think ur write up is splendid... it's made me nostalgic!!!... u truly r a master of words n emotions... kudos...

as for school days... yeah really.. those days were d best days of my life!!!

Express said...

:-)

Nice read...had fun yea! and thanks for the parallel translations :-P

well 7th was my peak on the fun quotient. then they shuffled the class in 8th! and we had fun, but things were never the same :-(

well, in 10th I lost majority of my friends to controversies and opinion differences. so skool memories bring back pain.

Glad that u had fun though.
Best was Art class incidents I guess, I had fun doing the art :-D
*nostalgia*

Rajesh said...

@Express
I was very poor at Art....m still poor though...anywaya thanks for reading...its alwaysd NOSTALGIC

Gauri Mathur said...

Very well written.expressions are too good:-):-)
School days r most memorable days..days wich v can cherish through out r lives:):)
nice!:-)

Rajesh said...

@Gauri
Thanks for dropping by and m glad that u liked it...yup...School Life is UNFORGETTABLE!!!

Anonymous said...

it ws a gud read..ur narration reflects ur innocence.art clsses were the same for me too..he he , i had been the laughing stock , de taj mahals i draw somehow seem to resemble a thatched hut! so much for my artistic sense. lol!
skool ws grt, collg is fine too..v still fool arnd, but yeah...somethngs amiss..

Rajesh said...

@Enchanted
Skool days were rocking fun...m glad that u enjoyed...and well college too s good but then SCHOOL IS SCHOOL

Anwesa said...

lyked ur post vry much,cherishing memories keeps it fresh...rite?