Clay court stories

This was started with (now they are not a part) - I was told a few days back that my writing has lost the 'spice'.. I didn't understand what they were looking for, so no special care goes in here... Writing pleases me!

11. Clay court stories

Clay basketball court, BSRKV... This court was the reason I got those unending oral recitations from my mother (my white shirts used to end being close to saffron). This court was one of the reasons I was given the special treatment on the last day in school (Ms.Nagamani promised me that she would ensure that I don't get the hall-ticket for board exams... I can tell you, the last day couldn't be more memorable. That fear still manages to pain me sometimes, though I claim to have become "numb"). This court was the reason I had to lie to my mother innumerable times saying that I had some special class. This court was the reason I hated Uday & Vijay (I liked them otherwise)... :P. This court was the reason people could bet I would fail.

Getting back to school... I sometimes feel my "soul-searching" would end somewhere around the clay basketball court of our school. I guess I have enough reasons to hate this place enough not to go there again! If I was ever asked to name the best places on earth... this will be among the first 2 or 3. The good times out-number the bad-ones by a convincing margin. Here are a few highlights the players wouldn't have missed...

• The biggest complaint - bench-mates, team-mates and what not - Uday and Vijju, the two people whom I hated most in the ground - they never played against each other or should I say, they never played without each other... that more or less decided three fourths of the team. As the days passed the teams did become a tradition like in football!
• The biggest asset - Everyone of us would take pride in the fact that we never discussed rules. They were there, not to argue, not to be written down. Three boxes on the pillar are the wickets, a measurement (which only Vijju knew!) was the pitch length, some idiotic shapeless stone was the bowler's end stump, over arm throw, speed objection, the kho-kho court the boundary etc. etc. One very funny thing was the no off-side runs... and more over they were given out.. :P
• Cricket is a gentleman's game... no one would disagree. There were these "jingli" Purri, Sastry and sometimes Arvind... who wouldn't play anything other than football. But they were forced to play cricket.. (no one played football then.. they had no other go) and what was interesting was the Purri - Sastry fight for the deep square-leg fielding place.. (where they thought the ball would be least frequently.. thanks to Uday and Naveen they proved it wrong). Purri was a lost character in that world... neither did he bowl nor did he bat but he came for the comedy of Sastry. The aspiring mafia don Arvind proved he was worthy of it.. hit and scare.. and what not!
• Our un-invited guest when we were in 9th and 10th was Mr.Madhubhaskar who had once vowed to kill all of us for torturing him when he was our maths teacher a year before. He was a great sportsman and used to treat as his equalls on ground. Now-a-days when we talk of him, I feel sorry for him.. one thing that pains me
• Hot-spots... Ramu was always the wicket-keeper, he used to run till half of the first ground to collect the ball.. and a throw from there would invariably hit the board and bounce back and everyone used to shout!! Uday and Naveen always in deep mid-wicket, Buddi always in long-on, Uppi and Vijju, the strategy GODs, always at mid-wicket. The most sought after place was the 'dressing room' under the trees.. a boulder to accommodate two.. the commentary and jokes flew from that corner.
• Action.. It was never shot off! Vijju's awkward bowling action.. don't know where he mastered it, Uday's mastery in batting, Naveen's long long sixes.. I used to run and run to get the ball.. Hutch copied that 'dog' idea from here, Nili's lefty 'off-break'... never really turned actually, Ramu's bowling straight and fast... and an action as if it was base-ball, Buddi's innocent bowling which surely had the most expensive as well as the most economic figures, running for water to Avvi's house or college campus, Vijju's running between the wickets tactics... always ensured to get strike at the end of the over... well this is an unending list! But the best action was celebrating a wicket or victory... show your fists and yell... killer instinct, we learnt it here. There were skills we leant.. I guess we mastered.. sledging, cheating, and slogging.
• Infrastructure... Uday's bat and ball.. the brand was Wills (made for each other.. how true!).. sometime Tija's ball took the place... others came in and went.. these stayed.. and will be played with till the very end..
• Repent... there are a few things I would always feel bad for... I never ever hit a six there (I was hit for three). There were matches I scored most of the team score (57 runs out of 65), there were matches I was duck.. I had every experience.. but never that of a six... May be the next match... I will make amends! There was one match I was out in Uday's bowling after blasting him in two earlier matches... he came to me and showed me his fist... SHIT! I thought he would kill me right there... I gave away my wicket.. it won't be that easy this time..

There were matches we won with 20 runs to defend, matches we lost with 70 runs to defend... but we always won the entertainment and the desire to play again and prove a point.. we were the "B-section"... we grew up there, we fought there... that muddy court, surely the place to be...

I am still hanging around there somewhere... I guess we all are..

--buddi

0006

18 - 07 - 2009

Tea served hot..

10. Tea served hot..

All of us talk about being in the wrong place... at least I do. I have written a hundred times about it I guess! But there are few people who choose not to complain and even fewer who make their way out... he is one of them...

Purri was one guy who always made his presence felt, this holds till date. Once in a while he reminded the teachers that he was there in the class with his laughter, his left-footed tackles and soft finishes, his participation in the cycle-meetings outside the school campus... he was omni-present! Well... in most of the cases he found himself in the “wrong” place at the “wrong” time...

How many times did he get thrown out of the class because laughed at some joke from the one and only Sastry? I am sure Purri didn't know so many numbers back then... oops! no, he was good at mathematics as far as I remember. Courtesy: Tution Point. That place had an epic in itself, do ask purri about it... I somehow believe that the 'little flesh' you see in his cheeks these days is because of the swelling he carries from those days...

Purri was a creative genius and continues to be (if PSG has spared him)... almost everyone knew what he was good at and what he was really bad at. Now how good would he be at remembering things.. take history for example.. he was a horror for the teachers! He struggled in exams, often setting the lower cut offs no would could ever cross. After repeated requests to improve his scores he was under real pressure... then he did the inevitable.. Came up with his answers. Creative answers.

For a question “Write short notes on Boston Tea Party”. He went on write that “Boston was a scientist who gave a Tea Party after he got the Nobel Prize for his scientific discoveries...”. The answer was read out loud and clear to everyone in the class. Everyone laughed... we laugh till date. It was emabrrasing for him... I wish I felt sorry for him. Purri carried his creative talent to PSG and is popular around there impressing upon the faculty. Back in school it was Social studies and today it is Very Large Scale Integration (that VLSI in short.... Purri did you know that??). His creativity is definitely taking him places...

After all the years I have known him... I can say that he may not be the best academic I have known, but he is surely among the best friends I have made. He is among the 2 or 3 people I know who misses the school days... who wants to be back in school and play football... who remembers every single detail of every single day just as it happened...

--buddi
0537
23 - 4 - 2009

Two statues outside the museum..

9. Two statues outside the museum..

Class 9 had a disastrous start for us.. few of closest classmates like Vijju, Avinash, Tija.. among many others were thrown into the newly created E section. Lots of attempts failed to get them back to the best B section!! However, that year was arguably one of the best years in school for most of us.. as Vijju had confessed recently that section had helped him a great deal in 'all manners'... you should be intelligent enough to guess what he meant by that!

What follows is just one more of those memorable experiences... some where in between the academic year, we had an excursion to Nagarjuna sagar dam. When we started from school, Vijju and Avi joined us in our bus while the rest of their section was in another bus. The class teacher of their section, Ms.Geetha was very friendly and was our class teacher in Class 2. For her it was pretty obvious that these guys would be along with us.. and she never had any objection.

On the way, we had good fun.. occupied the last three rows of the bus.. Naveen, twins, Uday, Tija, myself, Sastry and many of whom I missed here, were there.. we got some cards from the bus driver (thanks to me) and had a long journey till there. I remember sleeping in the last seat of the bus and infact I fell down while i was sleeping.. :P

At the Nagarjuna Sagar, we got into a boat and went to some island.. don't ask me what was there.. we never cared! After reaching there, a head count was taken.. Vijju and Avi were there in the E section lines for the second time during day.. then we were taken into a museum, all it had was the statues.. half of them didn't have heads while the others didn't have limbs... it was boring, to say the least! Then Vijju puts himself into work.. he calls me, uday and Avi and says "lets go have something..". And 4 of us silently slipped out of the museum, went to the nearby canteen and had some samosa and followed by a drink. When we were done, we started back and then vijju says, "You go ahead, i will have something more and come"... explainable from his apetite and his liking for food. Vijju and Avi stayed back..

As the rest of the students came out of the museum, Uday and myself joined the lines and all of it went unnoticed. Then a head count was taken, 2 boys missing from the E section.. Geetha ma'am came straight to me and asked were they were. My reply was a broken line.. I don't know.. she knew I was lying. Meanwhile, these fellows were seen walking back casually and one teacher after the other took turns to shout at them... it was funny, and even more funny when we thought of how we had escaped. After the drama, Dattatreya sir was asked to take care of them... and..

Both of them were made to kneel down in the lawn, infront of the museum, in school uniform, at a tourist centre for about an hour... photographs were taken of them not only by us but also by tens and hundreds of other visitors. No one passed by with out laughing at them.. it was fun, it was humiliation, it was one of the golden moments...

If you were ever talking about interesting punishments, I can bet on two things - this would be right on the top and the second, Vijju would figure in every single event of that list..

Lots more to be written...

--buddi
2340
04 - 03 - 2009

The Tiffin Box Story

8. The Tiffin Box Story

Tiffin boxes form a very important part of everyone's schooling... I am sure no one would disagree on this. Our story was no different, may be more eventful than what you would have expected it to be. We were special!

Two rules were almost always followed - everyone liked the others' more than theirs' and everyone shared theirs' (I think the first does guarantee the second!)

This would be a list of whatever I can recollect about our tiffin boxes -

• Starting off the with the most famous - Idli's idlis - for almost 3 - 4yrs everyone saw the same thing... no wonder he looked like one! Then there were the 'kutty idlis with a fork' of Naresh - more popularly known as 'button idlis' as Idli had named them... not to forget the leg-touch game we used to play just outside the class!

• Next best according to me was Uppi's huge box - which weighed more than the books in his bag and he weighed less than anyone in the class! The most remembered of his was the dosa.. he continued his legacy with serving us dosa on our trip to Shirdi (Note: He made / cooked / .. them!)

• Then my box - most awaited was the biryani! It didn't come very often but when it came it used to turn me into a sprinter and Uppi & Vijju into businessmen... It is true that I was forgiven for an overthrow in a cricket match the moment these guys came to know that I had brought biryani! I think this continues to be the dish everyone likes even now.. Uday keeps telling me that... next time all of us meet at my home with a huge dish full!
  

• Uday's and Sastry's most common - chappati with pickle - both of them ate very less of what they brought! Uday used to get a huge hot pack when ever we went out for some competition. Out of the 3 in our team he was the most sincere one opening the box first... but as a ritual, he used to eat just 2 spoons of whatever he brought (most often - lemon rice) and then used to survive on LAYS for the rest of the day... he made me eat so much of LAYS that, what was once a hatred is now a liking!

• Arvind's box in box - his was the most unique one... a rectangular box having another rectangular box for the curry... mostly chappati with a curry (I don't know what they call it) which almost everyone liked..

• The most famous incident - Vijju dashed into *******'s brother on the staircase and said saale... everyone of us followed... Vijju meant it!!!! For further details contact Vijju - vijay7287@gmail.com

• The most infamous incident - Class 2 - I was being chased by Tija for a share in my box... running and fell onto a concrete block... deep cut on the head... severe bleeding. Most irritating of all - the never ending lecture by one of the teachers!
  

• The daily routine - Get out of the class.. check how many stairs each can jump at a time... run to the ground, put all the boxes opened on the wall... eat whatever you want, clean up all boxes.. go play football!

• The best use - If you can't tackle, throw the box at the ball... while playing football with the small ball! Most of our boxes were shapeless because of these... ramuk yaniv, ramu, uday, vijju, tija, kozi... were among the most popular at this art. I had tried it only twice.. once I missed it by a huge distance and the second time I hit Naveen straight on his knee... that was the only time I ever saw him angry!

Other participants included pp, purri, tarun, nikhil, nili, laxmikanth, srikanth, twins... unfortunately I don't remember much of their tiffin box stories! Laxmikanth had to listen to our complaints about Mrs.Veenarani everyday during the break... after all, she was his aunt..

I am sure I had missed a lot..

This was the last post of the year..
Happy New Year! May it bring in loads of joy and memories..

--buddi
2359
29 - 12 - 2008

A Book of Knowledge

7. A Book of Knowledge

This one is going to be a special one...

This story dates back to my seventh class (98-99). It was an eventful year and it was the starter of the big feast that followed till the end of my schooling. I still remember the small class in the first floor of Ramakrishna Bhavan and those 3-seater benches. I used to sit in the second bench along with Upendra and Shiva. Upendra and myself were benchmates in school for almost 10yrs, right from the day he joined the school to our last day in school. He is a very very special friend of mine... I have loads and loads to tell about him and I fear this blog would never be enough.

Shiva was a new to our class. He was a different guy - never got along with our batch well, kept things to himself, hardly talked to people, struggled a bit in academics but hesitated to ask for help, was good at sports but not many knew that... It took quite a long time for us to become friends. There was something in this guy... the more I was getting closer to this guy, I was getting away from the rest of the batch. It was only in the next year that I realised that... after Shiva had left the school and suddenly I was running short of friends (but it wasn't for too long...)

By the time we started going around together it was already December, time for the Christmas vacation! It was a long boring one for me and I am sure everyone in our class had felt the same. January 2nd of 1999 was a good day!! We were back in school talking to each other how we spent our holidays, no one had any big stories and very soon we were back into the routine - classes, games period, art.. going to Shiva's home... trying to study there for some time. Upendra, the mathematical genius, often used to help us both and I tried the same for Science and social. No one realised how time was running by, 3rd unit test already... hardly a month to go before the summer vacation.

I always used to spend every single day of vacation at my native place... this time I decided not to and plans were on. After days of arguments and proposals we finally decided upon something very interesting... a General Knowledge Book. We decided to make a GK Book that could be used by three of us. We had a good number of books but no book had everything!! So we decided to put together every piece of information we could gather. We divided the work among ourselves... I was incharge of collecting the information, Uppi the incharge for the paper and binding (his father was working in a paper industry!!) and Shiva was held responsible for printing.

None of us were good at computers, so the idea of typing everything in MS Word was ruled out. The house owner of Shiva had a type-writer and Shiva had asked his permission for using it during the Summer. Uppi got all the necessary white sheets... to make it look a bit attractive, we decided to put a green coloured page after every white sheet - effectively making the book have 2 colours! The size of the sheets was A5 (my love for that size and the green coloured sheets is alive even today!). I had collected some 6 books which included Manorama 1999, Upkar's etc. To keep the book updated, I got newspaper cuttings of all major news starting Jan 1st. We were about to come out with a book better than Manorama itself... the very thought was exciting! Just to add to our excitement, we got a few more books from the Librarian (they were Specimen copies, which were being cleared)...

By the end of March, we had finished all major arrangements... I had written down some 50-60pages which had to be typed, Uppi had drawn margins for over 200 sheets, Shiva was coming up with a schedule for our work. It was exam time again and for a few days we had to postpone work... When we got back to it after the exams, we were reviewing our work... corrections, updates, editing, formatting, cover-page design... the work was getting tougher, more satisfying... we wanted everything to be ready before we started the typing. I had started working in the nights at home and during day at Uppi's home. Things were ON.. full swing!!

The content was up-to-date, exhaustive, reliable, presented according to our convenience, table of contents, index, photos... you name it, we had it. It was going to be the best work of our lives.. Everything about the book was excellent except for one thing -

We could never type it!

I tried to carry on the work for as long as I could but somewhere things went wrong... the book is still waiting to be printed... I still miss our work... every time I am in a team working on something, I get reminded of my old days...

@ Uppi and Shiva - we will finish our book some day... I will pray that the day is not very far..

Few things I don't remember - The name of the book, the reason why we stopped, our budget, did others know about this? ...

--buddi
0450
24 - 11 - 2008

The Magical hand...

6. The Magical hand...

Its been a long time since I wrote one in this series and this would be a good one to resume with!!

This part of my life dates back to classes 6 and 7 (somewhere around 1995 or 96)... they were definitely great years and had a lot of happenings like my academic downfall, my extra-curricular rise to supremacy, my new team-mates, my new classmates and many more...

This one is definitely going to stand out. I hope you will enjoy this.

Like any other day school had ended at 1.40pm and Vijay, Upendra, Ramu and myself were among the first ones to run out of the compound wall and we ran towards the ice-cream vendor. He used to sell cones at prices starting 50np. The most interesting he had was the wheel (like the roulette wheel in casinos) attached to his vehicle. This wheel had 1s all over with two 2s and a 3 distributed randomly. With every cone we buy we get to turn the wheel once and if our luck favors us we might get 1 or 2 extra cones.

I was among the first few to turn it and as any one would guessed it it was a 1. As each of us took turns, there was a 2 in between and I found it was Vijju who got it. It was just a beginning!

As days passed by Vijju just got more and more lucky, if he laid his hand on the wheel it was a sure shot multiple!! Day after day for almost two years Vijju kept using his magical hand to put a 'treat' everyday after school. Every one was looking for him after school and even if he had just missed on any occasion he would fool the vendor by pushing the wheel again into the spot. It was all great fun then and we just liked it.

The magical hand never seemed to rest and even today it is being put into good use. But whenever I think of that vendor, I feel sorry for him... was it his bad luck ?? You know businesses can go wrong because of various reasons and what you have seen here is just another example... do MBAs help you face these? Lets wait for an answer from "the Golden Hand" himself!!

--buddi
1617
25 - 08 - 2008

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