My friends say that I have this incredible talent of remembering old incidents and penning them wonderfully well which enables them to revive their nostalgia…Even then I would say its pretty difficult for me to re-collect events on a particular day, after more than 8 years …
Well from where should I start with?…Ok..our pre-tests were scheduled to be held from the mid september time-frame…so it was decided by the school authorities that september 7th would be the last day for the class X students of the HSLC batch of 1998, allowing them one week of study leave to mug up the courses learnt during the almost 2 years of studies.
I was very happy hearing this….We don’t have to get up early and come to school every morning..we don’t have to wear school uniform …we dont have to sit in a class-room for 6 hours each day…
September 07, 1997:
The day began as usual with me reaching school before the morning assembly. But that day I noticed that the guys who always used to be late for the assembly or classes had come much before me. As the assembly dispersed and the students of class X trickled into the room, the ever constant chatter that was present before the class teacher used to come for the first class was absent that day. That day, it was replaced by a hush of silence.
First the roll-call happened which incidentally was the last one in school and Anjana madam summed up the social studies course and wishing the students best of luck for their futures. It was then that a sense of voidness began to creep in me that my very last class of social-studies(which i by co-incidence liked so much) was over.
Then came maths and advance maths. Achyut Sarmah in his typical nonchalant style gave two problems to work on and went back to his momentary comatose with eyes wide open.
Then came Baruah madam and her english class. She had already finished the course long back. That day we could see her moist eyes and a sense of grief at seeing one more batch off from this school. I have seen her exhibit this attachment in case of previous batches also. The normally dragging english class seemed very short that day when the school bell rang indicating the lunch break while at the same time waking up me from my recursive thoughts.
Unlike other days when we used to finish tiffin early, we took a little more time in finishing off our tiffins and went around the school campus, which was basically a structure built around the lovely pond, even with the widest stretch of imagination. The basketball court brought back the memories of the school week when there used to be intense rivalry for the inter-class matches, the kabbadi matches :-))…and what not!!!
The afternoon session started with the assamese class where eleven students went, rest stayed back for hindi. Speaking about studying assamese , i still remember the terrorizinf effect Saikia madam managed to influence upon the students of assamese class. Her favourite targets were Chandan and Nabarun….Even that day she did not spare either of them..and made some sarcastic remarks…but that only manage to make us laugh even more…
Soon, the Grammar class taken by Bagchi madam commenced. My favourite madam who used to love her students like her own children…After the class, Subroto madam and Bagchi madam both gave a farewell address to the students…and soon the clock struck 2.45 p.m….the time had come….
The time had come to depart from the confines of the class-room and go out into the outside world…The time had come to leave for home…
We don’t have to get up early and come to school every morning..we don’t have to wear school uniform …we dont have to sit in a class-room for 6 hours each day…
But instead of joy and happiness, we felt a sense of null and voidness that have crept into our lives… the same students who used to rush out not wasting even a minute when the clock struck 2.45…remained in the classroom till almost 45 minutes after that…
The same Topu who was deemed as a bully in school burst into tears and touched the feet of Bagchi madam…some others followed suit…meanwhile the girls had already created puddles of saline water by then…slowly everybody started venturing out of the school gates for their respective destinations…..destinations which were divergent and may not converge again in their lives…
As I was coming back from school to home, even I felt the goosebumps…but felt that life has to go on…
October 18, 2006:
8 years later, when friendship has been reduced to online communities like orkut, yahoogroups and unknown people chatting with each other….I felt like writing this blog..as a tribute to my class-mates from that batch, some of whom I talked with and others including the girls of my batch, whom I never talked with….You guys rock…we may not come again across each other in our life…but if you happen to see this blog..and wondering after seeing the familiar names, who this author is , I am Pranjal Choudhury, Roll number-002,HSLC 1998 Batch,St Stephens EnglishHigh School, Christian Basti, Guwahati-781 005….
