School life Vs The rest, etc.

nostalgia...

Which is that period of life that you will cherish till you die? “School Life”, would be the unanimous answer. I beg to differ. Call me a black sheep in the herd, but I have plethora of things that don’t go in tandem with the rest of you. What are you going to do, outcast me?

One of the reasons why my school life falls short of the first spot in the long list of enjoyable phases in life, is because of that word which frequented the nightmares of everyone that age – ‘Home-work.’ Planning ahead to select the snack you will eat while watching a football match during a weekend is the best I can do. Scheming a modus operandi to pass the calculus exams the next day or picking the best person to copy the organic chemistry assignment from, is definitely not my cup of tea, coffee or whisky.

Getting up every morning, rushing to school after bath and breakfast(both have literally stopped appearing daily in my life), encountering the empty basketball court(which we usually use to play cricket), the empty stairway(which used to buzz with activity once upon a time), empty park(home to swing-cricket, a patented Udyogamandal school sport), and a group of uniformed girls and boys piling on a rainbow of assignments to be completed in 15 minutes is not a pleasant sight.

Many guys would consider a co-ed college with the male-female ratio as 1:3 as the closest thing to heaven. When you get suspended for admiring a girl( in the trrrrrrrrrue sense of the word), the heaven image gets tarnished in a second. It is as good as Anna Nicole Smith nude and horny in front of an impotent man. Against all odds, I had fun like never before. Lack of pretentious displays of attitude being the main cause - due to the lack of proximity of the opposite sex.

A chained dog is more dangerous than a stray one. This is applicable in humans too. The opposite poles attract, and here too they attracted with vibes and vigour. A few hearts broke at first, a lot many followed. A very few survived; but fun it was. An attendance shortage with a record breaking 23% should substantiate my claim – a renegade’s dream.

Exams came and went unnoticed, like the hero’s friend in teen movies, with a loud ‘I came, I saw and was ignored’ written all over their faces. I claimed another instance to fame with a miraculous, fastest ever exit, from the exam hall. ‘Gone in 27 seconds’, they called the phenomenon. A few of my friends consider this achievement as a direct reflection of my unscrupulous life; the paper if you remember, was ‘role of ethics in the society.’

I came across the wonders (not listed in any book of records, quite sadly, I must say) called cigarettes and liquor during my graduation years. They were branded evil(what a sinful thing to say!) during school days. This is just one of the few lies taught to us; damn the education system. How untrue our text books were, I ponder as I walk down the memory street (I am tired of using the ‘lane’) with a cigarette in my hand and a few drinks in my belly.

‘Girls are god's worst mistakes’, a popular belief until the 10th standard. The line loses all its credibility as you enter college. Moments of joy and innumerable disappointments that even Shakuntala Devi’s math genius will fail to keep numbered. In large probability, your first kiss – a smooch to be precise, is very much likely to happen (this is in a purely conservative south Indian context- for all those who chuckled and thought out loud, ‘what about the DPS mms clip?’).

Motor bikes – a faster, flashier and a noisier version of your school day mode of transport was also available. Bicycle bells cannot even scare mice away, air-horns on the other hand, can disinfect a jungle.

A great bunch of innovators for friends, ready to venture into the unknown, brings some zing in contrast to another bunch who head home at 5 in the evening to finish the math assignment. Journeys to as far as the center of the earth, or to be honest, as far as your motor bikes would take you when run on fuel that is entirely dependent on the perpetually limited capacity of your wallet, are memories that remain.School life was an unforgettable phase of life. But in the long run, like in the movie ‘eternal sunshine of the spotless mind’, if I were to chose one to be erased from my memory, I’d erase school.

Arguments are not welcome, coz this is a blog.