My Student Life - Part II

Luckily for me, I had to bear the torture for just eight years as in class nine my father was transferred to South Delhi and I could happily leave my old school. Now a lot wiser about the dangers of having an elder sibling in the same school, I decided to ensure that we would not land up in the same school. As a result of my self-sabotaged performance in the interview and my brother's impeccable performance (as usual); he was selected in Sardar Patel Vidyalaya, Lodhi Road while I got admitted into a school much closer home, Apeejay School, Sheikh Sarai. At last I was free from the clutches of the ever domineering shadow of my elder brother, but well maybe I was still to endure something more sinister.

I walked into class IX - B and was introduced by the teacher as the 'New Student'. Having reached puberty and sporting a newly grown and as yet virgin moustache and oiled hair, I looked as a perfect mamma's boy standing there in front of the class. As my teacher pointed towards a seat for me to sit, I turned and there she was. She, a student in my class, with long hair, light brown eyes stifling a giggle as if she had seen a clown. And from that day onwards, everything changed. Yes, my first crush had hit me. And boy o boy, was it a heady feeling? Oh Yes!!! Those sneak peeks between library sessions, those awkward moments when I used to stand like a statue and my friends used to gawk at 'her' as she used to walk past, giggling along with her girlfriends… Yup, even I used to think that I was in love. Well, she left the school after class tenth and it ended in the sorrow that was supposed to come some time or the other.

The last two years of my school life were by far the most fabulous and I was fortunate to make some great friends with whom I am in touch even today. However, good things have a tendency of coming to an end very fast and soon it was time to take that last walk back home. Trust me it was the longest walk I ever took and each and every step is etched in my heart still. Yes, there have been instances when I wished that I could be back in school. But well, like water under a bridge, time which has flown does not come back.

This Fest is killing me(Part I) - By Pallab Roy

Episode 1

Ring… ring… ring…

It’s 6.30 am and there it goes again

“Hello”

“Dude please come for some fest committee meeting ASAP”

“What right now?”

‘Yea man. Half an hour or you are out”

“Yea yea whatever”

(I haven’t picked up the phone. But this is the conversation that is going to play out. I know. Trust me on that.)

So here I am. A ‘fest committee’ member by default. (Not by default actually but by my fault.).  Sundar has taken it into his mind to hold a management fest and we

, his loyal friends are being slaughtered. That reminds me, I have to talk to my sub ordinate. A more listless fellow I never met. During his fest interview we asked him why he wanted to join the fest. He replied,

“Dude I wanna miss the test

And my family thinks I am a pest.

I jus wanna do the fest”

All of it rhymed of course, so we decided to take him in.

Anyways I called him (actually I left 17 missed calls which amounts to calling him) got up, got ready and left for college. Of course there was nobody there and even the gate wasn’t open. So I clambered over the gate and dropped down on the other side.

Suddenly a voice boomed,

“Ke kar raha hai chorey?”

I looked around and saw two police man making their way towards me. I hurriedly typed a message to sundar that I would be late and looked wearily in there direction.

Episode 2

Sundar in the meanwhile was suffering from a bout of depression. He had said 6.30 am instead of 9.30 am on the phone and knew that this was a crime unpardonable. Now he had a habit. Whenever he suffered from depression he ate extra large burgers to drive away the guilt pangs. So he had already finished three and was contemplating a fourth one when Reepu (the local chaiwalla cum restaurer) said that he was out of credit and that if he (sundar) didn’t pay up soon he would extricate all the burgers from Sundar’s stomach. This had the miraculous effect of bringing Sundar down to a more relative plane of existence where he made some excuse about the global recession and a severe liquidity crunch and walked leaving Reepu hurt and fuming.

Before we take the discussion any further it becomes necessary to talk a bit about the other fest members who we had the honour (ha ha. Notice the sarcasm) of working with. Most of them were our juniors from college. All of them were excited about the fest and all of them were absolutely clueless as to what needs to be done. But then Sundar believed that the way to success was to start by scratching your head and to keep on scratching till a plausible solution came up and so it went. (if you were to visit our college one of these days and saw a lot of people sitting together and scratching their heads don’t be surprised. It’s only the fest committee at work.)

(To be continued as per convinience of Author)

My Student Life - Part I

Is it just me or does every one feel that the last year of their educational life should be memorable?

Every time I realize that this is my last year as a student all memories of the yesteryears come flooding back and leave my heart heavy and eyes moist. Yes, now that you have guessed it, let me accept that this is my last year as a college student. Not that I am a stranger to the life after studies. Having worked for two years in sales and marketing, I do know the charms associated with earning loads of money and having all the freedom in this world to spend it. But given a choice I would choose to retain my student life any given day.

For those who have begun thinking that I am a teacher's pet or some one who went to a very fancy school please think again. My schooling started with me being admitted to Sanctuary Tagore School (now Lancer's Convent) next to Deep Cinema in  and my school going days started with me bawling my lungs loudly enough to wake up the entire neighborhood. Luckily for my neighbors, my father's job shift made us move to NOIDA which was in its initial developmental stages in 1989 when we moved there. I got admitted to Somerville School along with my elder brother but my habits stuck. As a newly acquired classmate cum neighbor snidely remarked in later years;"I never needed to set an alarm from class one onwards, I used to know it was 7 a.m. whenever you started crying, 'Mummy aaj school nahi jana.' " Such was the effect I had and well I am not very happy about such an impression. But I guess I can be forgiven for being innocent or childish. But in case you are thinking that the daily bawling was my only bane of school life please do read on.

 All those who have had the misfortune of having an elder sibling in the same school will agree with me when I say that this is one of the biggest curses that you can have. The times when you work your @$$ off hoping to get an 'A+' grade but the teacher gives you an 'A' just because two years ago your elder sibling made something better or the times when your favorite teacher remarked at the parent-teacher meeting, "Neerav is a very good boy, but Saurabh (my elder brother) ki toh baat hi kuch aur hai..." and crumbled your tiny little heart. Yup, I know these words are like déjà vu to almost everyone who had an elder sibling studying in the same school.