In those years, the school garden was not yet developed. Some of our school teachers with green thumbs used to patiently put in many hours of work for the garden, which is now the green oasis you see today. There was only red earth and the blazing sun when we used to go to school or for darshan to the mandir.
The front facade of our
Our principal, Prof. Habbu, or Habbu sir as we used to call him, was a strict disciplinarian and a patriot, with a heart of gold. He would conduct the morning assemblies, and give short talks for special occasions during the assembly. His level of commitment was such that he would visit the Hostel every single day, at night during study hours, and go around each and every room of the school students (or perhaps only XI and XII, I don't know), ensuring that all were studying properly, that all were maintaining proper discipline, and also so that if anyone had any problem, they could tell him. I was generally in his good books since I was academically competent and also well disciplined, but I was disciplined by him on a 2-3 of occasions which I will narrate below, to illustrate his high standards.
At the beginning of the school year, the freshly joined students were supposed to undergo a medical test - a general physical checkup. On that occasion, Habbu sir noted that some of us were not wearing vests underneath our shirts. I had never worn a vest before, I was used to just wearing shirts directly. But he pulled us up after the checkup, admonishing us to wear vests. So that was when I started wearing vests. And, during his Hostel visits during study hours, he would insist that students have their hair neatly combed, after applying oil to it. Again, I had never applied oil to my hair before, and it was his insistence that made me do it. He explained that this is the well groomed look that You expected from Your students. Near the end of my XI class, I again 'deviated from the norm' by Habbu sir's standards by getting my head shaved. I was not a fan of getting my hair cut by the barbers at the Hostel, nor was I fond of having hair fall over my ears. So, I thought I would take my short crop to the next level by asking the barber to shave everything off. But Habbu sir was not amused, especially when another somewhat naughty junior of mine also followed my lead and got his head also tonsured. I learnt that shaving our head was also not expected of us, unless there was some bereavement in the family and or family traditions required it.
In my earlier school life up to tenth grade, we would just sit in one classroom throughout the day, and teachers would come and go. With XI grade here, we were supposed to go to some classrooms for certain classes, and to other rooms for some other classes, like English was combined for MPC (Maths Physics Chemistry) and BiPC, Sanskrit was in a larger hall due to a larger number of students as compared to Telugu, which was in a smaller room downstairs, and so on. So, we did have occasion to go outside the classroom, even if it was not recess time. Sometimes, You would go on a round in Your car along the road or in the stadium. We would then have the license to crowd around the windows or hall corridor and watch You till You turned away out of our sight. In those years, Your movements would not be announced by police sirens or anything like that - just Your car moving silently and nothing else.
There would be many activities in the school, like putting up essays on the school notice board, having a science exhibition and inviting You for it, having quiz competitions, bhajan antakshari and more, along with the jogging, sports and games in the mornings. Inspired by what You had spoken about 'talk less', I had practiced a month of 'mounam' or a vow of silence, talking only for essential things like to teachers in class and so on, and wrote an essay about it for the notice board. The exhibition would probably merit its own post. We would also do some seva when possible in the Sanathana Sarathi press which was next-door, as narrated by Shiv Kumar. Overall, for an introvert like me, school life here was quite enjoyable.
Comments
Post a Comment
Comments will be moderated. If you wish to contact me, you can email me at hn_88 at rediffmail dot com.