1991-01-18 - Sports Meet and working for school exhibition

 

This is a photo from a much later visit of Yours to the school, from this article.

One of my memories from grade XI was working for the school exhibition with Shailesh sir. Though he was not teaching our batch XI Physics theory classes, he was taking lab for us. When the school decided to try and have a science exhibition and invite You to visit the school, Shailesh sir was to help set up some science demonstrations. And he took the help of us XI students, since the XII students shouldn't be disturbed too much from their board exam preparations. Prbr Mty (who sadly passed away at home in the holidays between our grades XI and XII) and I were two volunteers from XI who were interested in electronics and who were actively helping out Shailesh sir. The preparations for the exhibition were around the same time as the preparations for the Sports Meet by all the other students. In those years, the school would ensure that all the students would get some prize or the other, because You would come and personally distribute the prizes. Since I couldn't participate in any Sports Meet activity, I was made to receive a prize in 'Electronics' from Your hands! This was probably in mid-Jan 1991. The principal and others would ensure that it would not take too much time for You to distribute all the prizes. It was to be very organized, one behind the other, with names read out in rapid-fire order - they would make us practice also - so that we went up to You onstage at the College auditorium, accepted the prize and had padanamaskar in one motion, and gave way to the next student, with the entire list of 300 completed in 25 minutes or so, less than half an hour!

Coming back to the Exhibition preparations - Shailesh sir and I would work late into the night at the school Physics lab on a lighting exhibit which would change intensity based on the beat and pitch of the music being played. Since I don't remember specifics, checking with him in 2020, he said that finally the exhibit did not work on the final day when You came, but later it was set up as a demo in the lab. The interesting part was that we would sleep on the lab tables around 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning when we were exhausted, and I would wake him up by 4:30 or so to return to the Hostel and attend Suprabhatam! This sort of feverish activity went on for 10 days or two weeks or something like that.

Another memory is that since I was not good at marching - my hand-swings were not getting properly co-ordinated - I was deputed to hold the house placard instead for the Sports Meet march-past. I'm not very sure whether this was in January 1991 or 1992. And I seem to remember that I had photos of this. But can't seem to find them right now with me. There was also this incident with Anil Patle's motorbike jump which I seem to remember as being talked about at that time. 

Since this post mentions the Sports Meet and so on, I'll add something here about my competitive spirit, or lack of it. Since this is not something which I have written in my diary, there is a possibility I am attributing thoughts which are currently in my head to the "me" of the past. But as far as I remember, this is correct - I was not very much bothered about competing with "others". It was more of "try to excel in whatever you do, because that is what is desirable" rather than competing with others. I had been in the school choir at "Junior school" in Calicut, and would sing the school anthem which had the words "Give your best in all you do, that's our golden rule..." And You had blessed me with an attitude of not caring too much "what others would think" rather than doing "what was right". Sometimes this would lead to friction when my immature reading of "what was right" ruffled feathers. But that did help in not being bothered too much about whether I stood first in class or not - I would only be bothered about whether I had scored as much as I should have, not whether someone else had scored more than me. So, this leads to the interesting situation where I don't remember what I scored in particular exams like XII exams and so on, but my teachers do!

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