Back-To-School: A Trip Down Memory Lane

 

Good memories often make us nostalgic. Some of my best memories were made when I was in school. I was in my alma mater, Fr. Agnel School, for 14 years, and there is still no better place I’d like to return to!

This article is a reminiscence of some of my favorite childhood memories. Now there are so many things I want to talk about here, but I think I’ll restrict myself to the best ones. I’m sure you’ll be able to connect to quite a few of them. Happy Children’s Day! 

1. Book fairs: Okay, so I’m a geek (as the name of my blog suggests), and this characteristic isn’t new. I’ve been an avid reader since I was able to read! From bunking classes (more on that later) to spending more time in the library, to dragging my parents in early for all the PTA meetings so that I got to browse through more at these book fairs, I’ve grown up surrounded by books. The book fairs on the school premises used to be my motivation to get better grades. From Goosebumps to Harry Potter.. *sigh*

2. Mid-period munchies: For most of us, the tiffins we got from home, hardly ever made it to the lunch break. Eating, either our own or if you had friends just as rebellious as you; eating our lunch tiffins in between the school periods was a daring task, that only the brave-hearts could carry out without being noticed by the teacher. This of course was a waste of time if one smarty pants in the group got aloo parathas with aam ka achaar. *facepalm*

3. Bunking classes: Okay, if you’ve never bunked classes in school, did you even go to school? Whether you’re a nerd, a geek, a dud, or a complete brat, everyone used to bunk classes; that was a done deal. Where you went after leaving the classroom, now that was the interesting question 

4. The Chemistry lab: I was a science student, so I was always intrigued by what would happen if I mixed the clearly labeled toxic chemicals or hopeful that one rebellious from my class would blow up that crystal experiment. Whether these actually happened or not, I’m not sure I should say now, but science or commerce students, we’ve all smelled the god-awful Hydrogen Sulphide gas (the one that smells like rotten eggs) at some point in our school lives.

5. Homework & Projects: Homework that you either made your mom do or copied from your friends early in the morning (or zero periods) changing just the first and last paragraph to cheat the teacher; have been a cherished memory for everyone. Holiday homework was different, almost never remembered until the night of the last holiday. And group projects, that nobody wanted to work on in the first place (unless of course our friends or crushes were a part of them), were ultimately only done by one person, while the others just took the credit.

6. Birthdays: Celebrating birthdays, while we were in school, was probably the simplest we ever had it. From ditching the boring school uniforms to flaunting our best casuals; to the entire class singing the Happy Birthday-To-You song; to the chocolate distribution that followed, we’ve all been there. Not to mention the extra sweets that went out to our friends and favorite teachers.

7. Assembly (Morning Prayers): Trudging down the stairs and standing in queues on the school grounds for morning assembly irrespective of whether it was scorching hot or spine-chilling cold, with a daily dose of, attention..stand at ease…left right left... And as if this wasn’t traumatic enough, there used to be in-house prize distribution ceremonies, that went on for what seemed like hours!

8. School houses & elections: Every Friday, dressing up in colorful house shirts, were a thing of pride, and the arguments that we had in class regarding which house rules will always be cherished. With weeks of house captain and vice-captain election propaganda, that followed the prestigious election day, we’ve all made and broken friendships, just for the better perks.

9. Slam books: Those were simpler times. Before Orkut and Facebook hit us, slam books held our ultimate secrets. From crushes, to ‘real’ life ambitions, to profound life philosophies, it was all available in one small book. Some of them even had locks on them!

10. Exams (and cheating): For some exams and tests were upsetting, for some it was a public platform to flaunt our skill sets. From last-minute studying to making notes (for the love of highlighters) to making cheat slips and writing formulae on hands, to the secret cough to signal your friend for help during the exam, each of us had our own exam mafia growing up.

11. Stationery: Transitioning from pencils to ink pens, constantly scarring our clothes with ink, to upgrading to that fancy-ass ‘Parker pens’ showed your parent’s status growing up. We’ve all had parents dissuading us from using ballpoint pens as apparently they ruin handwriting. We all borrowed stationery with no intentions of returning them; wondered what the ‘divider’ in the geometry box did; admired (or got jealous) of the pencil boxes our classmates carried.

12. Canteen: The school canteen wasn’t just a place, it was an emotion. It's not just where we went to have food; it was often the best spot to hang out with our friends; an underground club for escaping boring classes, a safe haven for passing love letters and catching up on all the gossip; the ideal location for project discussions; the best environment to plan trips, events or hypothetical pangas. Every school canteen has its own memories.

13. Katti & abba: When making up was as simple as saying katti & abba. No ego, no fuss, no drama.

14. The Fish Market Concept: Making noise, with teachers shouting, calling the classroom a fish market (wondering why they were so regular at these markets in the first place) I think there has always been one class in each batch that has been called the “worst class” ever. Haha.

15. Backbenching: Fighting to sit with your friends in the last seats of each row, whispering and chatting in between classes, being civil with the class monitor (read teacher’s pet) so they don’t change our seats, being labeled as a “backbencher” this term has had a different meaning for everyone.

16. FLAMES: Before the internet and Tinder, this is how we decided how our relationships would pan out. The last page of every copy when not covered in random plays of zero-kaata was almost always covered in FLAMES, sometimes for friends, sometimes for the one-sided crushes, and sometimes for a weirdly mesmerizing teacher *hush*

17. Early morning History period: Its common knowledge not every one of us was a morning person. Then on top of that, if you had a History period right in the morning, the chances of you surviving the day were practically nil. And God forbid, there was ever a double period, of any subject for that matter..yikes!

18. Punishments: From standing with our arms over our heads to standing on the chairs, to holding our ears in front of the whole classroom to being sent out for being a complete abomination (of an ideal student) we’ve all grown up.

19. Fights: Long before Game Of Thrones, there were pen fights. The meaner the participant, the heavier the pen. Often to level the playing fields, pens were replaced with rulers for scale fights. If the teacher (and the class monitors) weren’t around it was common to have duster wars. Chalk pelting was often another great time pass in the classrooms.

20. Farewell: In all likelihood, in some corner of your house, carefully wrapped away, still lies an old school shirt scribbled with farewell messages from all your friends. The farewell day was the official last celebration we had with our friends within the school premises.

Do share which ones made you smile (or nostalgic) in the comments section below. Thank you!