Showing posts with label Memories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Memories. Show all posts

July 31, 2021

Fleeting thougths

Despite of all the avenues, social media available 2 years 5 months and 21 days have passed since you guys saw each other or even spoke...

Coincidentally, your paths cross now... gazes meet, and you hear "Hey"! , just that after all this time.... there is an under current of emotions swirling in your thoughts, to ask- why you were pushed away....why this treatment was meted out to you... why this.. why that... but all that you could mouth as a response was-"Hey, how are you doing? How you have been holding up? Trust everything's great with you!" …. just this, even the mere idea of slapping them across their face to vent your feelings gets thrown out too

You start conversing, and you begin to absorb that affectionate voice reverberating in your mind... the one you have been longing to hear all this while and you have the bonus of having them sit right across... you start soaking up every minute detail of this occurrence for you are unsure of it recurrence...

You shake hands and you feel that warmth of their hands and reminisce the times you guys had fun together, did things together, look for that sparkle of mischief in the eyes when about to do naughty stuff... a gush of warmth envelopes you and you feel lighter- for a burden has been removed... you begin to wish for this scenario to play in unhindered loop, and remain unchanged forever but the very next moment your trust in your fate to play things smooth and hand u happiness in abundance isn't pretty cordial...

You pinch yourself to assure it's real....and it is 2 years 5 months 22 days... alas it was just a dream... ever so good for the period it lasted... but now you have that longing voice filled in your mind to your hearts' content... that should last you for some time! 

Happy Friendship day, "Dear Friend!"

November 24, 2011

School Days - I


On my way to the office happened to cross a small ground where kids were playing, I was a bit taken aback 'coz it wasn't even half past 8 in the morning and they were already in the ground, if we can call it so b’coz it was just a basketball court. That reminded me of my school days, where we used to wait eagerly for our PT period--- a 40min window for playing in the ground...during THE school hours!!

The earliest of school times which I can recollect are I guess when I was in 2nd or 3rd class may be, they were the days of 'BIG FUN'....I remember begging, pleading n crying for ...wud you believe me, a 50 paise to buy one...all for the CRICKETING HERO within the pack! There was this shop within our colony near the school; fondly called as '4th line shop' it was THE buzzing place for all of us. It had stock of all the goodies which any kid would crave for the chocs every variety, chewing gums, Gooseberry, Guava, Stickers (He-Man, Spiderman, WWF..), biscuits and the necessary stuff like pencils, sharpeners, Pens, MAPS, Plain paper sheets... u name it they had it. All that one needed to do to reach this shop was..... just squeeze through the bars on the fence and there u were!!

And then there were promotional events for products aimed at schools, like- stretching the AASA choc wrapper to the maximum length possible, I don't remember HOW MANY of these I bought but I remember stretching one to 33cms only to be beaten hands down by my classmate Kumar who stretched it to I think 44cms :). AASA guys promised something...I don't think they gave what they promised. Ohh yeah there was also the competition of--- return 10 Maggie masala covers and get 2 packs or something free. I remember us kids scrounging through thrash everywhere just to find a few covers...:D.

Our daily routine begun with assembly which had a prayer, pledge, some other activity like news, a short note on great personalities and rounded it off with the National Anthem. Just can't express the pride in singing the Anthem. Everyone of us were encouraged to present one activity in the assembly daily, kids were elected by teachers randomly and the whole purpose being to remove the fear of public speaking and gaining a little bit of knowledge on what's happening. Ofcourse there were a few naughty guys who skipped the assembly ... to finish off homework of the FIRST PERIOD!!

I remember my first ever class teacher who I am sure was the favourite of the whole school, she taught us Social and Hindi when she wasn't teaching girls to be strong ---She was our NCC ma'am too. Another Ma'am who happened to be our Class teacher for 3years in middle school taught us science and later Biology too, she was my favourite. She taught science in such a way that I just didn't forget ANYTHING she told even today. Our whole class worried during assignments time, we don't our HW properly or don't write assignment in time --- She just took our PT period as punishment!! Then there's my Hindi teacher for seven straight years, she was very friendly until we screw up annnnnnd THUDDDD!! We all loved our Hindi periods 'coz we had to go to another room owing to the majority of class taking telugu as second language and us the minority had to move out in a single file.

Don't know why but I always loved the subject of English at school, maybe the simple pleasure of reading stories was the driving factors. We had very good teachers there too, our principal used to take this subject once in a while and damn he was good...naah the best at it. He loved to teach prose the best being "I wandered Lonely as a Cloud" by William Wordsworth. We used to have these nice activities of Elocutions to hone our command over the language and MY CLASS had great orators at that-- Sasank (kept it so short n simple but darn he had amazing command and conveyed the message superbly), Anil Pappu (He was awesome, his script was the best and he was so animated that he could convey the meaning of every word literally through his actions), Sri Sri (His script had examples which conveyed the message), Krishnamohan Menon (loved his accent).

Hisstory...as the mis-spelt name suggests is a story and ought to be taught as such. We had great teachers who read us through - start of civilisation- Harappa & Mohenjadaro, Mesapatomian, the Incas, Mayans, the great Indian dynasties of Mauryas, Guptas, Chalukyas, Cholas, Marathas, Vijaynagar, Mughals, The rise of East Indian company, Battle of Mysore/Paniput and then the Independence struggle, the civil disobedience movements, the 2 world wars, the treaty of Versailles, the axis powers etc etc. Everything was etched in our minds because they taught us so and not because we read through them.

Maths was, for some reason an unknown devil for me. We had good teachers for that too, but I somehow was #@!& scared of that.... it was one subject that always pulled my grades down. And, here too there were a few guys in my class whom I wanted to emulate Vishnu and Kumar....damn they were just Genius at this subject. They ripped apart any problem thrown at them in moments.

All our teachers commanded a respect which everyone of us obliged by free will and not because they imposed upon us.

There’s much more than just this study part..... I will leave the rest of it for the next part. Hope to write that soon.

June 3, 2011

Summer Vacation- I

I was just whiling away the time, suddenly something stuck my mind...this is the month of MAY!!! A decade and half ago this would have been the most awaited time in of the year.... the long summer vacation after the sort of feared "annual exams". Lucky for me and my bro though we had very good teachers at school and never really had to fear exams, ofcourse Maths was an exception for me then!!

The preparation for the month long vacation sometimes even more, rushed through at frantic pace with mom having to do all the packing with me and my bro playing around after the exams. The 4-5 hrs of 'Himsadri" a.k.a Simhadri train journey was always filled with, me and my bro fighting it out for the window seat, if we got only one. Our refree, my mom used to time it- say 20 mins each at window ...thinking about that now makes me smile at all the goofiness we used to display...shamelessly!! And yeah, pestering, begging n sometimes even threating (fake) mom to buy the 50ps samosas or those batani packs :) and all this started with a Frooti packet bought by dad & may be a Chandamama or Tinkle or Chacha Chaudhary ....At the end of the journey, we used to be excited at the prospect of taking the rickshaw ride as always back to my ammamma & tata's place going all along the banks of Godavari... just the very thought gives me goose bumps !!

Once home, we used to rush through the neighbourhood, to find who all from our gang of cousins made it there by then. My grandpa's side was a biiiiiig joint family, so in all there used to be close to 25-30 cousins around almost all within the same age group, that was excluding our pinnulu, mamus, babais, attas who are just a bit more elder than us only the number in age was the differentiator, they were hard to be picked out from us once the fun started!! RJY is quite a hot place in summers, and our elders did had quite a hard time restraining us from venturing into the sun--- to play!!

The day started quite late and the mornings were usually confined to the house and indoor games, few of which cannot be named due to embarassment :D ...we were treated to sumptuous breakfasts ranging from pesara punugulu, chapati, poori, dosa etc lunches n loads n loads of summer spls. Escaping on to the terrace along with cousins in the noon when elders were sleeping just to put our feet into the cooler and sometime flying kites, playing cricket before one of our moms used to get the stick (bettam) and everyone used to scurry for cover.... Due to sever heat everyone used to get blisters and in the evenings everyone used to be covered in BORO CALENDULA powder, resembling white scare crows!!

The wonderful time used to be while playing Housie, around 40 or more used to play until late night and yeah the winner had to buy for the rest!! Spending times at our cousins places, the eagerness to buy our new uniforms, shoes.. the Karachi sweets maan the hot hot pakodas, mudda kova, kakinadu Kaja... the rose milk center, Hanuman Temple, the DeviChowk temple, Ajanta Biryani, boat rides in Godavari wish I could get back to those days, with all my cousins!!

To be continued later........