“This is where your dad and uncle finished schooling”. You should be proud and aim at continuing the legacy. My mother told me this, on my way to principals office. St. Marry’s Orphanage & Day School, this is where I studied till the third standard. Yes, you are right you judgemental bastards, it is ICSE board and a catholic school. I am in awe with the selection process of the school for the students. The parents are interviewed initially, post which the student has an interview with the principal. It is the principal that decides whether the child should be accepted or not. Not many schools have such a criteria in place.
So there I was in the principals office. The principal was also a father. He was very sweet to me throughout the interaction. He asked me a couple of questions and I must say my parents did a great job in terms of preparing me for the interview. I apparently knew most of the answers to the questions he asked. Post the interaction father met my tensed parents. Somehow getting into this school was big deal for them. He was able to calm their senses by saying that I made the cut. I remember my treat was a 300 ml Thumbs Up and a Monginis muffin on our way back home.
The school was amazing. It was bigger than the last one. This school had two play grounds. The last school I was in had only one marry go round in their front yard. You don’t get to step onto it during recess because there were so many students. I had the jitters when I entered the class. I didn’t know anyone. The first day was quiet amazing. I made a friend. He had an amazing pencil box which had Optimus Prime on it. I remember going home and asking my mom to get me the same pencil box. The only annoying thing initially was the auto ride in the morning. We had to take an auto from home till school. I was made to sit on my mothers lap. I didn’t like it as I was a big boy now in my head.
I come from a brahmin family so I had never encountered chicken or mutton bones. During recess, while playing in the ground I used to see a lot of bones lying around. I was sure that somebody here does black magic and stuff like that. Yes, you would think how is possible for me to think like that. My answer is Zee horror show and Aahat were prominent while I was growing up. And Ramsey was not leaving any stone unturned to scare the shit out of everyone with his horror flicks. As in when the days past I encountered more bones in and around the school ground. I told this to my mother and was assured that those were not human bones but animal bones. I was not convinced. I was expecting to encounter a human skull in the ground sometime soon. i so wanted to prove my mother wrong.
My friend Kumar Gaurav started acting weird one afternoon in the school. I thought he was being funny, but to my surprise he walked out of the class while Mrs. Davidson was still teaching. My jaw dropped and so did Mrs Davidson’s. I had a crush on Mrs. Davidson. I even used to copy her signatures. Now that is a little creepy, I know. But in my defence, I was just 6. And every one of you must have had a crush on your teacher, so cut me some slack. Coming back to the goon who left the classroom. He comes back with his shirt all wet. When asked where did he go, he said, “I was feeling thirsty” and sat in his seat.
Next day in the morning we exchanged a trump card. He gave me a Ajay Jadeja against my Debashish Mohanty, which was an amazing deal. I mean Mohanty was fairly new and Jadeja was going all guns blazing back then. He even captained India in a couple of matches. During recess the we were playing in the woods when we came across a couple of bones and when I showed them to Gaurav he started acting weird. He picked up a rock and started threatening us. At first I thought he was joking. But when he threw the rock at Sylvester, I was shocked. He was fortunate that it didn’t hit Sylvester. Otherwise Gaurav would have been expelled for sure. Forget about the police charges. Next moment he was running after me and cornered me and took the Ajay Jadeja trump card from me. Fortunately for me the recess bell rang which distracted him. I pushed him and ran towards the class. I didn’t mention it to anyone as I thought people will find me crazy as Sylvester didn’t utter a word to anyone as well. I had my seat changed.
In the coming week I saw a couple of more such instances but I distanced myself from him. Making sure that I don’t get hurt. One afternoon I was drinking water, and the moment I turned around to go back to class, I saw him standing behind me. He asked me about the seat change and weird behaviour of mine. To which I told him everything and even threatened to go to the principal if he tried to hurt me. To my surprise he started laughing. He told me that all that was just for fun. He told me that he acted like that to even a score with Sylvester and a few others. He also offered to give me the trump card back.
But I made my distance from that goon and never changed my seat. I left the school next year. I happen to visit the school once during fathers alumni meet. To my surprise he was still studying there. Our paths crossed, we exchanged pleasantries and we went our own ways.
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