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Me, Myself :
Having studied in a convent with girls, female teachers & nuns all around, U could say I was deprived of the opportunity of having to fall for someone in the name of first crush. Yet, we had our moments 😉 Believe it or not, I was one of the naive-est of day-scholars, the typical bookworm whose world existed in her books, borrowing library-cards from everyone in the township of my school, to get as many books from the library for a read, as possible, with Maya mam, the Librarian, going gaga over me and eulogizing my reading-habits and the rest of the class smirking & turning up their noses. I had a minimalistic number of similar sincere bookwormish friends. Luckily, for my soft-spoken nature, above-average academic performances, good writing skills and quiet, disciplined habits, I was a favourite with “most” teachers (mind U, not all! ) and was also under the protective wings of some of my powerful peers, particularly a pair of twins who would try save me from the wrath of the snobs and bullies of the class.  

Inking Elders’ Antics

I still haven’t gotten over the dread of the blue-black ink that was insisted upon by my Hindi teacher. When we began using Fountain ink-pens in class Five instead of pencils, I often spilled ink on the floor in my attempt to fill the fattest pen’s tanks. Fattest pens were our unwilling choice because we had to write endlessly, it being ICSE board. Working late into the nights to finish my endless homework (there was no Mr. Sibbal to come to our rescue then :-/), I would often end up refilling my pen several times. Once I spilled the entire Ink-bottle and soiled the new flooring of our sitting room (never mind the little soiled hands. :-|). I was very scared of mom and dad scolding me about it. But guess what? They didn’t, instead, my granddad did! :O :-\ Then, he advised me to use Royal Blue ink (an instant choice even otherwise, except for the Hindi teacher) and Chinese Fountain Pens, an expensive choice, but very easy to fill and also good for handwriting. However, the biggest problem was that all good stuff got stolen from your pencil-box and the thief was caught more often than not! 😦 I wanted to use Pilot-Pens but they came to me much later for use. Kids today are luckier with the widest range and assortments of stationary at their disposal.  

I loved studying English & Hindi and both the subjects’ teachers forever refused to believe what I had written as my own penning. God Knows why, but they had this stupid idea stuck in their heads that I couldn’t have written what I had, as an essay, and recalling my works, I do admire my writing prowess then! 😉 I still have that essay saved (an article on History & relevance of Indian culture) where my English Teacher wrote a lengthy comment to my mother, refusing to accept the work as my own. I hope someday I dig it out of my archive boxes :P,  scan it and put it up here. 😉 In fact, I’ll also add here, some of my class experiences, esp my Hindi, Geography and English class experiences, in that order. 🙂 

Sports, Infatuation, Idolisation.

I was termed a “careless natural beauty” then & incidentally carried the label up to my teaching days. A good sports-person, I was into high-jumps and long jumps but dropped out of these two athletic activities, after, once in class VIII, I got hurt badly on the nose by one of the high-jump bars and while my nose bled profusely, our games teachers didn’t even bother to get me the first-aid. Despite being the most acclaimed of the schools with the best of facilities, I wasn’t taken to the infirmary (medical room) and instead was directed to go wash my nose at the water-tap. I felt so disgusted, disappointed, disgruntled, disoriented and most of all, disillusioned by this incident that I stopped participating in these two activities.       

March-Past at 12 in the noon was sheer torture with the drum beating right into our heads and through the mike right onto our hearts, with most of us spinning and swooning to the ground after being pulled up for dancing rather than marching to the beat and being the most lousy of marchers! . .  😐  

Although an average player, I also used to play volleyball (OOh! The punch still hurts at the very memory of the game!) and basketball as it was one of the more popular sports of our times (I never ever managed to basket the ball!). There was one more reason behind that. Some of our most idolised hostlers (the very special God’s own children for the rest of us ordinary mortals called Day-scholars) used to play the game. And of these, Leenika Berry deeds (as we would call the didis then) and Sunita deeds were my favourites. Mukta Punia was a brilliant player but she was not my types. A crude rude kinda rough tough girl, she was more boyish for me to hold any charm. I liked girls to be as delicate & fragile-looking as me, yet were tough enough to play basket ball in the evening-practices day in & day out, and I missed not a single opportunity to watch the matches they played. My slam-book craved for their “autographs” and succeed did I to get the best of the fill-ins in my slam-book. 

High Headed High School Bad Hair Days! 😉

Complete with a pic & all, I considered myself the luckiest girl as I got the opportunity to visit Sunita Didi, the one I idolised, at her home when her parents moved into the same city and she took up a house very close to my residence. She was such a darling, very friendly and this meeting made me calm down my excitement for her. Blushing a lot between her pimples and acne, she told me it was me who was often the cynosure of most eyes and also the talk of the bus we travelled in! My friendship was sought after and considered coveted esp by my juniors while the senior girls were often JLo. I was taken aback. We became real good friends later on and slowly as time moved, we too departed to move onto our destined life-paths. Leenika deeds, who was an ace basketballer, was someone I was infatuated with. Tall, with beautifully slung, shoulder-length hair, she looked like a twin but younger version of Kittu Gidwani to me and being a senior prefect (later as the Red House Captain) added to her charm. She was a bit of the high-headed types but we all thought she deserved to keep her nose in the air for all her attributes. I got my slam-book filled by her and was extremely delighted to have her autograph at the end of the fill-up. That day I literally danced on my toes! She was fond of me was evident from the smiles he threw at me whenever we crossed paths or her kind pardon if, per chance, I, the most prim & propah girl, made an error in her behaviour. She didn’t seem to mind exchanging a word or the usual greeting with me. But she took serious offence when she got her hair cropped short to small(est) steps and I, all heart-broken, after having gathered enough courage to be gutsy enough to tell her that the new style didn’t seem to suit her much. She told me candidly, it was HER head and her hair, she would do as would please her. Much as it annoyed me, it broke something in me and I meandered off to find a better idol for myself.

Do drop in for a read of:

Growing Reflections Of Time Pic(kl)ed & Bottled

https://puplumages.wordpress.com/2010/06/19/growing-reflections-of-time-pickled-bottled/

&

Colourful Reflections Of Time Pic(kl)ed & Bottled 😉 ~

https://puplumages.wordpress.com/2010/06/19/colourful-reflections-of-time-pickled-bottled/