The Radio show...

5. The Radio show...

9th Class..
I can bet everyone has loads of memories of this event... I am among those very few who don't remember much... I will try to put down as many things as possible...

PRE-SHOW PLANNING - what all should we have in the show... and as usual "girls" came up with some hopeless ideas... a few got approved... then Ms.Rajeshwari comments "boys in this class are useless" (not the same words but something similar)... well the warm-blooded guys couldn't take this... then began the real show... the Veerappan interview, all the adds, every single joke enacted (i think a few were given by those girls), the game show, the music show were planned and done by "us"... all that was left for the girls was some background score which was copied from "jingle bells" tune, announcers and lots of places on the dais to be occupied just to add to the confusion...

full credits to Tarun (tatvit das) for that Veerapan interview... he wrote the dialogues.. he became the interviewer and thanks to pp and purri for suggesting that Sastry would play the lead-role... few things from this event... the Khakis which were very lose for Sastry, the fake moustache we had it drawn on his face with pencil (that belonged to a girl).... the famous lines "amma and appa used to call me Veeru", " if you come once again I will kidnap you", the gun which slipped into his pants, the way tarun shivered to gather his kerchief... and the most important part of this was when Ms.Preethi Baskaran, our maths teacher, came to know about Sastry's role and she warned him, "If you don't submit your notebook by tomorrow I will not allow you to participate in the event" and then she turns around and walks into a class.. then Sastry replies quite loudly.. "If you don't allow me, I will kidnap you"... GOD save Sastry!!!

the adds... most of them were recommended by the TWINS and Tija was their actor... headphones which convert teacher's scoldings into sweet music (Krishna was a member of the ELITE group which regularly got a scolding... may be this inspired him to think of this),
some shoes for fast walking (well, the twins joined the lines after the assembly... i don't remember a day when they attended assembly in 9th and 10th... another inspiration)

the music show... "D-section".. if such a hopeless section had it, why shouldn't we have it... for them Arun shankar played tabla... for us the professional Nili (too-much dressing sense i should say) played the violin and believe me it was one of the best part of the show...

the jokes: the casting included naveen (i then called him "bunny"... now i call him "the smiling long man"), tija, dharmendra, myself...(i don't remember others).... I made the announcement "today we are here to entertain you with a few jokes".. but the strange thing no one noticed till date... i was never in any joke...

The anchors were Nirukta and Arpitha... the second one came with a sleeveless yellow dress... i heard some one say "apne aap ko kya samaj rahi hai re!!!".. i think it was uppi... I think there were other girls but it never made any difference...

the game show... A-section had tried it and failed terribly... so it was first ruled out but Tija wanted it badly... so the last day of the rehearsal uppi, tija and myself stayed back, we planned to have one... what about the events??? we had no idea.. "ok lets have some shooting event".... and some other event.... then i told, " i have lots of marbles at home... i will get them, we will see what we can do"... and then we packed for the day...

why did Tija want the game show??? a secret then... he had a crush on Padmini of E-section.. he wanted to have her on stage somehow... but that wasn't very pleasing for me, I thought I will do something for Vijay then... even Vijju was behind the same girl... so we found out their roll numbers... Next day we had some arbitrary shooting event in which the winner shot one balloon (the reason being the balloons were losing air and they didn't blast)... now came the most important part... Uppi called out the first team... on stage the proposed event was - one of them had to throw marbles and the other had to catch them with a bowl... then I thought of something worse right there... one would hand over the marbles one by one, and the other would run across the stage to drop them in a bottle.... Uppi was a silent spectator of all this, he didn't know what was going on... now the job was to see that this team loses... i started the stop watch and called out after 5 seconds "start"... at that very moment i knew it was job half done... i had to call the other team onto the stage... I had set aside the 2 numbers the day before when i made those tokens... I quickly pulled out the numbers and called them... there was a big roar from the E-section... Vijju managed some decent number in the running... and they won... Who do you think was our chief guest??? it was none other than TIJA, he bought big DAIRY MILK chocolates for the winners, all from his pocket money...

the interesting thing was people never thought I was the culprit in the whole thing... Uppi was getting the stick from everyone... in fact he even got a comment from the teacher on this... everytime I heard about this, I had a rather big smile on my face.. no one ever noticed that also....

These were a few moments from our radio-show... once again we proved we were the best one of all sections... 'D' managed a decent show, 'A' put up a bad one... but these were before ours and once we were done with ours.... I didn't care to attend the others...

You would have observed that this article was a bit anti-female.... hehe... ya it was intentional... that was the state of my mind at that time...

NOW.. I don't know...

I tried to copy "VIJAY's style" in writing this... but I don't think I did it with much success....

P.S: sorry, if i have hurt you.. that was then... not now...

The most feared moment..

4. The most feared moment...

10th class...

there was a row to the right of the class directly facing the window beside the board... It was ours...

Ajinkya and Rahul in the first..
Ramu and Tarun in the second...
Nili and ?? in the third.. Uday and Vijju were seated behind them while uppi and I shared the last bench... It was the best seating arrangement possible... these pairs had been formed over the previous couple of years (the first bench was new to school...)... not that we didn't like the others but we had that extra bit of it for our partner...

I should admit that I was a bit jealous of Uday... he had pulled Vijay towards him... he had pulled the Vijay with whom I spent every moment of school till then... (vijju and me had been classmates since LKG...).. uday and vijju were so much attached to each other that they would not play any sport if they were in opposite teams... well the distance between our places was less than a feet but it mattered...

Even Uday meant a lot to me... we had done wonders in the 3yrs of our friendship (though we were in the same class for 4yrs..) in fact I and Vijju moved to SM because Uday was in SM, and for that I had to give up SV... I had been in SV for 11yrs.. some special liking for it..

we all had big plans for the new year... GEOMAP, Inter-House, Class Football, other team events...

we all had this habit of teasing some guy or the other... all of us would unite to tease one... Nili was the most frequent sufferer... he never replied back... one day it became a bit too much... everyone could see the change in his face, most of us stopped.. but uday went on, vijju had become a bit concerned over the whole issue... he asked to uday to stop at once... in fact it was quite loud... but uday had got carried away... this resulted in a heated argument... the only thing others could do was watch, hoping things will settle, they were the closest of friends.. no one ever expected this...

around the same time, we heard the school bell... there was silence, shock... Vijju left off without a word... then Uday came up to me and shouted, "it is over ra... no GEOMAP this year" and then he left... I couldn't utter a word... where did it start and where did it go... everyday Vijju, purri, uppi and I went home together, but that day Vijju went alone... Uppi and I went together that day... both knew what was running in our minds but we couldn't talk to each other... near Uppi's house, on the road Uppi finally came up with a few words, "everything will be alright, I am sure you will get a call from both of them, by the time you go home"... Tears were ready to roll down... I somehow managed to hide them from Uppi...

After I reached home, I went straight to the bathroom... sat down weeping... many things seemed to run in front of me... the COKE tin we shared, our runs on the roads of Osmania University, the wonderful SHADNAGAR trip, our celebrations after we won GEOMAP the previous year, the LAYS packet uday used to buy every time we went out... I thought it was all over... after about 15 min my mother asked me "what are you doing for so long?? theres not even a sound..."

After I went out, I heard the phone ringing... I prayed to every GOD that it should be Uday and it was... he was sorry for what had happened.. he had talked to Vijju and everything was fine... I was relieved!!!

and then everything went back to normal... in fact we had a small laugh over all this the next day... but it was the most feared moment of my life... many things happened after that, but this was the worst...

Well, Uday was right... fights strengthen friendship... and this story should be a memory not something you would feel bad about every time you thought of it...

today I can bet you wouldn't see a better trio than ours... you wouldn't find any in future...

The English 2nd Unit Test...

Just another act of Friendship... but it went the wrong way...

3. The English 2nd Unit Test...

RIBBIN - fair complexion with a few extra pounds of body fat and many extra tonnes of friendliness...Once he borrowed a pencil (new one) from me... by the time he returned it, at the end of the period... it was hardly 2 inches long... I knew I was going to have a tough questionnaire on this at home, I laughed over my helplessness and this guy cut a sorry face for me... it all began there... we went on to become very close friends (until he left the school)... When our teacher asked some one to help him in his acads, I volunteered to sit beside him and help him... we ate together, wrote notes together, played together...

ENGLISH TEACHER - sorry to say but I don't remember her full name... she was new to the school... was our class teacher... part of her name was "chakrabarthy" according to her... I argued a lot over this with my parents that it was a 'b' not a 'v' in her name... she was very very friendly... I used to help her in totalling the marks for the report cards, the moment I finished mine she used to write rank 1 beside that (before finishing totalling others..). she used a "HERO" pen with red ink... one of the first ink pens I ever saw, I was so impressed that I decided that I would only write with an ink pen... in fact I stuck to my decision for over 2 years, even today I have a modest collection of about 15 ink pens... just a bit lazy to fill the ink frequently...

AKANSHA PRAKASH - plays the traitor (sorry for that!!)... she joined in 2nd or 3rd... she was good, friendly (not bad at least..).. her name was under research in our class, why does part of her name match with the tube light brand 'Prakash Surya'... ?? If my memory doesn't cheat me... she was using 'APSARA executive' pencil through out (which no one else used..).. she had a scissor which cut paper in some design and a sketch pen set which was different from everyone elses...

Class 3... 2nd bench... English 2nd Unit Test... no seating arrangement..

20min into the exam... Ribbin asked for some help and I didn't hesitate... in fact before flipping pages I confirmed from him that he had finished... After the exam, I was very excited that I had helped a friend, then I did the mistake (??)... I told Akansha about the whole thing... and she promised me that she won't tell anybody about this...

A couple of days later, the teacher asked me if I had helped him... the answer was a stubborn 'NO'... but Akansha testified that I had helped that guy and that I asked her not to tell anyone... I stuck to my answer... meanwhile she called up Ribbin and made him write the exam again... he only managed 3 marks against 19 he got, with the same question paper... I felt terrible... I thought I was going to get a beating... It didn't happen...

after that day... it took me around 7 years to get back to those habits... this time at receiving end (Vijay was the one helping me in a Hindi exam...)...

well I feel I did a mistake... you are not always helping your friend... sometimes you cheat him tooo..

today I have no idea where Ribbin is.. neither do I have any idea about that teacher... I hardly talked to Akansha after she moved to another section in 6th... thanks to her, she sent me a scrap a few days back...

people come into your life, people move out... but only a few leave these everlasting impressions... they leave these MOMENTS OF YOUR LIFE for you to look back to, for you to relish them... All this is just an attempt to keep at least a few of those intact...

thanks to Ribbin, Akansha and the teacher...

--buddi

The "ROWDY" Class...

"violence is a fashion,
violence is a passion,
violence is a wakeup call for the destruction..
jaga jaga mantha jagadam"

2. The "ROWDY" Class...

CAST: ujwal (dada), vijju, avi, uppi, koundi, tija, sandy, ribbin, shiva, thumesh, buddi... (i am sure i missed a few)

TAGLINE: put chutney in their eyes

PLOT: We were a small group of guys always fighting with the A-section fellows in the lunch break in 2nd class. Though I don't remember much about our opponents, I can recollect a bit about those tussles. It somehow was a matter of pride for us with everyday points and yearly championship...

Our captain was Ujwal who led us from the front... "put 'chutney' in their eyes"... those were the instructions we got. Ujwal was the naughtiest guy in our class and hence the most capable leader there. I don't remember a day when we lost under him. He fixed up a kind of honour code to be followed strictly... part of it was a compulsory bubble gum in your mouth. Koundi almost always invested for most of us... he used to buy those colourful POPS.. which costed 25np each.

Our standard (mutually agreed) fighting grounds were the back gate and the area around the auditorium (which was under construction). Special matches were organised in the small pit, in the shape of a heart, to the right of the auditorium. We even had peace treaties and ceasefire when the participants were less... and all this was handled by Ujwal himself.

When Ujwal was absent, no one even dared to go any area close to those above... But, Ujwal left the school that year..

Then I voluntered to take the hot seat... in fact I had to convince each one of them telling that "I am the topper in the class, so you should follow me"... but physically I was the weakest in the group... always stood behind everyone... couldn't run fast when were being chased... in fact I got caught a few times... even before they did anything I started crying and shouting "I will tell to teacher"...much to my relief I some how convinced everyone that fighting is bad and it was over... I was the ASHOKA of B-section!!!

well those were the days...

---buddi

The wishing chair...

1. The wishing chair...

does the photo above ring some bells???

To mark the beginning of this series, I wanted to start off with something very positive and something people would hardly remember...

I was never a big fan of any fancy story but this was destined to be one of the most memorable experiences of my life...

A little over 13 years ago we were sitting in the first room to the left, in the Sharada Bhavan... expecting a new class teacher. We were all very noisy, after all we were meeting after a long vacation. I particularly missed Vijay, it seemed to me, that I was meeting him after ages. Then entered a lady with a couple of books and a long "register" which meant she would be ruling our class for the next 8 or 9 months. Then she introduced herself. It was her first year (and perhaps her first class) at school. She never seemed to be a strict teacher.

One day, she asked us if we were interested in listening to a story and who would say "NO"... it was the last period of the day and I was almost half-asleep. Then she started with the story of JACK and THE BEANSTALK... it was sufficient for a period but by the end everyone of us had realised that we should have more of these... it was fun, it was interesting, above all what really mattered was the interest with which she told us the story..

As days went by we started demanding for more stories... then began the story of the "WISHING CHAIR... the adventures of PETER and MOLLY" this story went on and on for weeks together and no one ever wanted another story...
So much was our attachment to the story and the teacher that... when she once came to our class for substitution in class V or VI ... we asked her to tell us that story again... She would never say "no"... and then she started with the second part of the series of the WISHING CHAIR... and then... you know!!

In fact when my brother bought the third book last year... it took me less than a day to finish it off... well, it was too small a book and above all it was definitely for me... but that was the interest, that was the level of desperation even years after I heard it last... I wish every subject I ever study would be made so interesting...

And why did all this become so memorable??? It was the teacher who handled it... Mrs.Geetha. She taught me English 13yrs ago (after that she came to our class only once as a substitution teacher) but even now she remembers my hand-writing (she was describing it when I met her last July). What else could you ask for from a teacher... surely some one whom I would remember throughout my life..

Thank you Ma'am


--buddi

LOOKING BACK...

Well yesterday was a day full of questions. Questions ranging from the simplest to the toughest to be answered. Starting from...

• What is happening in my life?
• What is missing in IIT?
• Am I at the wrong place?
• Will I ever cope up from my defeats?
• My defeats - my losses - What are they?
• Where did I lose myself?
• Where did things go wrong?
• Where did my promises end up?
• Am I so worthless?

After the above lines I know you would be ready to give me a lecture about waiting for the right things to happen in life... but I am not a believer of such stuff. I do things i like at that moment. What I learnt today was - Live every moment of your life... Don't think about tomorrow...

Just to relish a few of my Golden Days I have begun this series of write-ups... i hope you would like them. They are dedicated to all my classmates who would figure in these write-ups in some way or the other. These are for all of them to read and have a smile for atleast a couple of minutes for every time you read them...

Always yours
buddi