Sanatana dharma Vidyalaya.

My School has a beautiful name, Sanatana Dharma Vidhyalaya.When my mom inspite of all her struggles to meet ends and means took me to my school, My leg getting suffocated in the black shoes, my neck almost feeling uneasy by the tie and my heart beating. ..yet I answered all those questions with poise of using language, making an impression on my Anglo Indian teachers. .there started my school life.

My school was different and we were made in to different and unique beings there. My initial days were with Miss Bout and Miss Vaz and then it took years to get Sarala Miss and Lalitha Miss as my teachers. School did not have paid seats nor religious quotas then. .

My daughter was surprised when I once touched Sumathi Miss s feet right in the middle of a road before she left. ..I could not make her understand those times, Teachers were Guru's, and they despite of the factor that they are not greatly paid gave themselves to the profession.

How could I forget those days when she taught me in my school days. That by lighting lamps, I cannot remove the darkness that loom, but I need to aspire to bring down, the mighty stars skies and by uplifting the humble earth.

Oh those were days and that was the school who never made us see Geetha, Bible ,and Quran were anything different but we were children of one great country where I took the pledge for 14 years of my life. I learnt to speak out in public and the power of speech.

I had to let lose my black long wavy hair as my grandmother did not know to tie hair, and my aunt got married and left, I remember a me advocating for myself and my Leelamma Miss walking out in tears. .I had to tell we lost our mom.

School also reminds all days dad dedicated to feed my brother instead of other kids whose mothers bought lunch.

We were the children who attended the cities posh school, Paid fees and my father a telephone inspector walked miles to get that dream of his wife come true.

I scribbled my first poem there recited my first verses there, danced, sang and celebrated the friendship and life, though I had my struggles. School made us learn to keep journals and I wrote to my satiety all I have to say to those little books.

My childhood and it's innocence still has the fragrance of my friends who would watch movies, tell stories with whom I learned to love, to fight to give and take.

We were never bounded by geographical boundaries and I had friends from different states of India and truly the pan Indian mosaic culture taught me or any one to be culturally tolerant and non judgemental.

Shiyas Basheer made me believe for quite some time that dragon birds existed in Gulf countries. .and I laughed to myself about it all the 20 years I spend in middle east kuwait.

I read Mills and Boons and Nancy drew from the library there, I still remember library Miss with whom I had great chats, I started reading selective, I don't know...when,  Anne frank was in fourth standard and then the Tale of two cities leaving secret seven and famous fives..it made us those days quite adventurous. 

In our school we never had anything to do with Genders, we were kids being a boy or girl was not the matter it was friendship. Though huge buildings came latter we were with nature, initially, crows at times made our life difficult in lower classes and later, I do remember catching grasshoppers and identifying the small male grasshopper and seeing the meiosis under microscope.

If it was not for the schools beautiful competitions colourful social days I would not be having this mind set at this age too an urge to live, a passion to interact with people, a mind that seeks stories.

It made me a great teacher, my students loved me, although I taught a different specialty. I wanted to be an English teacher, it was my dream to learn literature, dad erasing it made the rift in our relationship. 

He was the very dad who waited outside the school when I wrote my tenth exam patiently. ..and I remember those days that had smell of acid and alkalis and solving the mystery of potentiometers and dissecting frogs safely and flagging organs .

School remembers me as I do ... my siblings were my siblings and I enjoyed that little fame of being some one special.

I had my friend circle, yet I was lonely wolf. .was it my wounds that made me so. .but school healed it My school made best Doctors, Best of best professors, scientists and I reckon a silent boy who was not a  front bencher  of class never talked much, but later doing TV shows as an IAS officer.

My schooling was different enabling to talk different languages and enjoying that unity in all its diversity. It made me a patriot, though I don't think Gandhiji and Nehru were greater than Patel or Sawarkar. ..my civic sense was and is different and my choices.

If school never taught us, I would not have appreciated Hariwamsrai Bachan, and would not have consoled my self with his words on sky not crying over its broken stars and the Madhu shala not Heaving for its glasses that cracks. .nor would have cried each time on hearing Bachan ji recite. .tum muje Kab tak rokenge...it all sharpened the sense and sensitivity...which my teachers having delivered to us with all emotions and  the respect the words deserved.

Shakuntala miss and her hindi classes taught me to dream to look at the seasons the nature in a way I today feel proud. School also taught us of people in this country and world wide who left their marks on this great planet.

Shaksperean days paved way to days of Churchil, Yet Yeats and Keats were my favorites 

It taught us to flinge, learning the bombing of Hiroshima, it challenged us with last leaf and God sees the truth but waits...making us better human being who could or would try to do something to make a difference in the community all the time and never fear failures..

My school...how much more should I scribble on thee. .my teachers how much you all have influenced me and my friends how much we owe each other, in that togetherness 

I can't stop thoughts emanating about that Alma Mata, but I need to conclude. It was where the wonderful sculptors, the then teachers selflessly moulded future. ..my school. We went out helping people in floods and rains, we learned to build gardens for old age homes..we. ..evolved there..as what are. ..a true human being ..who dare . 

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