School days - walking down the memory lane

 Our school requested us, old boys, for articles for school magazine. Only after penning my piece, I was told they need a 300 words one against my 1000 words piece.

Why waste it when I can use it to make my friends suffer ! Here is the long piece.

Walking down the memory lane

Having spent six years from 1970 to 1976 across three sections, where do I start my memoirs ? After some thought, I have chosen our days in class XI as focal point.

I had taken my own sweet time to switch to long trousers. I wore shorts till class X. So when I turned up after summer holidays in full length trousers in XI E, some friends made some appreciating noises to the effect that I was finally growing up !

Class seating was in strict alphabetic order and found myself sandwiched between Sasikumar and Suresh Thomas. The seating was a single seater row, two three seater row and a single seater row adjoining the windows. As befitting my name, I was towards to fag end of the class.

There was a choice to make for non Christian students in the weekly period termed “Scripture”. I attended the moral science class only once. On discovering that it called for a text book and notebook while the Bible class for non Christian students at visual hall did not have such academic rigour, I switched to Bible class. I recall all students in the school receiving a free copy of pocket size Bible by Gideon’s International in this academic session.

When we ruminate the lovely days spent at school, some people dominate our thought. It is natural for us to be impressed by some teachers in those impressionable years. I recall lovely story telling by Mr. Clement Felix, our headmaster,based on some episodes in The Bible in Scripture class. Equally interesting was his weekly once English poetry class. Interschool cricket matches used to hold our attention. If our school was in favourable situation, the interval duration used to increase if Mr Felix was watching the match from his perch on second floor above “the wrist watch” shaped clock. Our batch mates would recall his running commentary from the steps standing behind a rostrum at the steps when we were in middle school.

If we were to be asked which day in the academic year was the best, we will plumb for “polishing day” . We were instructed to carry some rags from our home for this activity. All of us would carry our chairs to the corridor outside the class and stack them neatly. We would then collect emery papers and scrub our table tops clean. This good practice persuaded us to keep out table tops clean of ink marks and stains. Our craft master used to inspect our scrubbed table tops and on his satisfaction, the next interesting session would commence- polishing. Though the final result was well polished table tops, good proportion of the polishing lacquer used to end up in dollops on our friends standing with their backs to us ! And “polishing day” was the only day we used to play the game of kabbadi. It was a no holds barred game with some players hiding behind the students watching the game and pouncing on the unsuspecting opponent trying to touch the “eru kuntham”line.

After the polishing was over, it was time for us to crowd around the sports room for “Sports auction”. Old cricket bats, baseball bats and footballs used to be auctioned with school leader in the company of sports markers. Some of the ‘’speedier” guys used to hang around in the background. Every now and then the markers used to throw old cricket balls and base balls over our heads and guys used to scramble to get hold of them. These served as freebies to maintain enthusiasm among those with empty pockets ! These days quiz masters chuck chocolates and candies into the audience now and then for the same effect.

There was another mandatory activity which seems to have vanished over the years- Physical efficiency test. This was a half day event once every year from class IX to class XI. It was combination of short and middle distance running, cricket ball throw, pull ups, sit ups and broad jump. The readings recorded finally made it to our SSLC books.

Our school used to make all class X and class XI students write United Nations awareness examination ( all the questions were on United Nations and its sister organisations ) and UN General Knowledge examination. These examinations were held on normal working days with all of use seated in our classes. I can not forget some of our friends free riding on those who had prepared for the tests and one could hear “Methuva ezhuthudaa( write slowly ). Don’t turn the page” in hushed and sometimes threatening tones. Why were such requests made ? I leave it to the imagination of the readers !

Chetput where our school was situated had a small pool of our school students walking to the school. Vast majority of students used to travel to school by school buses and suburban trains. I was from the train gang entering the school through the back gate on McNichols Road ( extension ).

A group of us used to travel all the way from Tambaram- the terminal and six years of travel made us close friends despite being from different sections. We were a disciplined lot – always seated on our way from Tambaram in the morning and trying to find a seat on the way back. None of us used to hang out from the doors.

We used to be jealous of the vendors and urchins sitting at the door in gay abandon with their legs dangling. The day our school hosted “ social”for us in the final term in class XI was when we quenched our jealousy. The “social” was a English feature film projected on a screen on the ground with all of us seated on chairs on the steps followed by dinner. The program ended around 9 pm- a time when most trains used to run empty toward Tambaram. We boarded the train, sat at the door away from the platform side with our legs dangling. We felt we were in heaven for that next half an hour and more !

We are lucky guys to have studied in a wonderful school. Name of our school -Madras Christian College School