Years Before The Rest Of Our Lives.

Had a busy day. It was sunny but the clouds helped once a while.

On my way back home I stopped by the mall to pick up some grocery, but more importantly, slow walk in the AC to kill the heat. And as I checked out the new chicken nugget arrivals in the chiller I felt a rough voice calling my name behind me.

“Rahul!! WTF bro how long has it been..how’s life man!!!”, he said. This was an old friend that I knew but it took me a second to realize from where.

“SCHOOL !!! of course, how can you not remember that you idiot!” my brain exclaimed. This was Sumit, one of my old school mate who apparently looked like a full grown man now (considering the fact that my beard has a poor growth rate).

Instant flashbacks.

There I was, standing on the memory lane, running those dusty old recorded memories in my brain, all over again. (Poetry unintended)

All the laughs, the morning prayers, the lectures, the heavy school bags, the recess, the tiffin boxes, the fights, the first crush, the names carved on the benches, the hearts drawn on the walls and broken on the last day, And the bell that marked the end…

There’s no shortcut or a standard points list with which I could comfortably complete these thoughts (this blog, technically speaking). So I decided to put it in the most normal ways as we all remember these memories.

• THE TRAVELLERS

  

  Where it all starts, the first time you travel with strange kids and unexpectedly fall in love with those little stupid things. School Buses, Rickshaws, the walkers, anyhow it may be. First, they are your companions, later they become the reason you go to school. Those reserved seats for the love birds and the gangs in the bus, those intentional long route walks just so to spend more time, these habits turn to rules before you know it.

• THE ONES WITH A PLAN

  The ones who can write a fully fledged essay on “The adult stuff I’ll do when I grow up”. The ones who’d study the textbook more than the ones who wrote it. I never understood the fact behind ‘ revising 10 times ‘, doesn’t that only prove the fact that you don’t understand things even after reading twice..??. The teacher’s apple of the eye, you know who they are…just by the way they tell you what you don’t know.

• THE WESTLE-BLOWERS

  The snitches who always got stitches. They naturally get a habit of back bitching your secret plans to your immortal enemies a.k.a teachers. Although you can’t hate them for being like that. Maybe someday they all grew up and realized how stupidly pointless that was.

• THE INTROVERTS

  

  Highly misunderstood for “selfish” or “over-smart” or “they think they are better than us”, today I understand how wrong I was (or we were) about the ones who wished to be with themselves. If I could go back in time, I would go to the moment I troubled my introvert friend, apologize and tell him that I get it, if you want you can enjoy your solitude and no one would disrupt that.

• THE GANGS

  The brothers from various mothers ( and fathers respectively). the unbreakable bonds that were created then, some of which survive forever. They get punished together, they get rewarded together. I still remember our gang members were named with a country from WW II (also our trick to remember history answers on WW II). We all have our different stories but what involves everyone else is always a better story to tell.

• THE BACKBENCHERS

  The ones who always get caught, even for the things they don’t do sometimes. Why? because they are backbenchers. Of course, you must have read tons of pieces about backbenchers (Ohh! and all those youtube videos). All of it just to prove that they are smart, they are loyal, and A.P.J Kalam agreed to this point so I think that explains everything.

• THE SPORTS QUOTA

  As the myth says, Not everyone can be an athlete but every school athlete is a certified stud. All the girls humming around them and all those pseudo-rumors of affairs. Sports week was always fun. All that spirit and ugly fights, funny commentaries and punch lines that everyone shouted, it created the atmosphere of togetherness, true democracy,

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  Of the Children – For the Children – By the Children!

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• THE “FIRST SITE” STORIES

  Most of the time it fails, but some rare cases survive. Mostly because we as children never preferred to judge one’s character. All we know is what looks good is always good (some still live in the same Dilemma). We are naive, we are honest, we are optimistic, we think we know it all. It’s funny how we constantly try to learn from the mistakes we didn’t even realize we ever made in the past. But it is special, maybe not the person, but the feeling is always “special”!

And before I could finish those thoughts in all those Microseconds I realized my old friend was about to leave (Yup…i completely ignored everything he said for those microseconds) and we wished each other good luck because that’s what grown ups do.

The-Life-Cycle always goes on and on…

So before I end this thought of ending this blog, I found some great thoughts of some much greater people that you’d like to give a read. (please excuse the excessive use of “thoughts”)

 

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1. Research shows that there is only half as much variation in student achievement between schools as there is among classrooms in the same school. If you want your child to get the best education possible, it is actually more important to get him assigned to a great teacher than to a great school.(Bill Gates)

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2. You are always a student, never a master. You have to keep moving forward.(Conrad Hall)

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3. I have learned that, although I am a good teacher, I am a much better student, and I was blessed to learn valuable lessons from my students on a daily basis. They taught me the importance of teaching to a student – and not to a test.(Erin Gruwell)

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4. One of the very important characteristics of a student is to question. Let the students ask questions.(A. P. J. Abdul Kalam)

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5. The higher the social class of other students the higher any given student’s achievement.(James S. Coleman)

 

 

 

 

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