On Serving The 14 Year Term

Finally Over

We are finally over and done with it. We have diligently served out the last term of our 14 year sentence meted out to us by our parents with our first tearful entry into Prep-I...and all the time we were in school we couldn't wait to rule over as the 'senior-most students. But now after having actually crossed over the edge, a feeling of "wish-1-was-in-class-three-again sweeps over us. The friends we met and the 'not-so- close friends who were bound by one common word scribbled on the last page of a copy will now be rolled into a pulp and tossed into the recycle bins in our brains-only to be opened for the bliss of solitude' Now that we are beyond this threshold, we have stepped into a world brimming with corruption, cruelty, rat-races where one has to fight for a living....(well I don't want to sound like most concerned parents!). where nothing below 95% is acknowledged. In all probability in the next fifty years, we will never get the opportunity to do those foolish things that we had the authorized freedom to do in school.

No more .......

No more of bunking classes, hiding under desks. giggling about crushes-shrieking wasn't he cute? No more of plodding after teachers for just-half-a-mark-more-ma'am No more of band practices in the music room. No more of childish fights and misunderstandings and gossiping No more groans on winter mornings with chattering teeth barely managing to say L.do..don't...wanna..goooo... toto school... No more missing the school bus. No more being scolded by the teacher for long nails or crumpled blouses. No more fests and no more making blunders onstage. No more of that absolutely unhealthy' junk food outside school and those hangouts after school.

I still remember fondly that one summer afternoon when my band-mates and I strolled into the shopping mall with only the bus fare in our pockets There we were-randomly trying out the costliest dresses, complimenting each other taking pics on our cell-phones, in general behaving like millionaires and finally coming out buying a pair of socks! This is one particular trait that we all seem to possess the misleadingly innocent expression. This quality stood us in great stead even in the school especially when after having finished our own we waited for the best lunch boxes to be opened or when swinging on the swings strictly meant for the kids or surreptitiously scribbling phone numbers on sweaty palms, on raising a ruckus in the class-room on Children's Day. All these have now become memories. Even that stuffy feeling in the classroom-on a hot summer daywaiting for the announcement of summer-school or the unbearable wait at the water-cooler or the wiping of dusty desks with a middle page for from our school prescribed copies after the vacations and the perspiring return from school would seem sweet and pleasant a few years hence. The unladylike yawning in class without even bothering to cover our mouths, the short PE. dresses or shouting your lungs out on Sports Day cheering our houses: or running into a noisy classroom shouting- "ma'am is coming" and the pleasure of watching everyone run helter-skelter to their places - will become just fading pencil sketches very soon. No more of strolling to the audi' to catch hold of an announcement or being late to chapel or getting others excused from classes for "fest practice. No more of singing the school song during Investiture practices. No more of incomplete homework and pinning our hope on the teacher's short memory.

Classmates, juniors, bathroom-buddies, pen friends, bus-stop mates - all got swept away as soon as we stepped out, like paper-boats meeting gigantic waves. The remaining flickering rays of the sun disappeared as the window slammed shut, plunging us into our own selfish, conceited holes. The memories of these days will only help us to add a touch of fun and a splash of laughter in our lives, capable of making us lie back later on with closed eyes and a smile on the half-parted lips, even in our gloomiest days, with something to "flash upon the inward eye."