Back to the past

Some of you posted comments commiserating my present predicament at office. A few phoned. While I continue to suffer, I also realise that the show must go on. Hence we get on with the blog. Welcome back to a better and far more pleasant space time coordinate.

Holidays were glorious days. Schools in Karnataka, affiliated to the Karnataka Secondary Education Examination Board (to which both Saint Ambrose Convent School and Mount Carmel Convent were affiliated) normally closed on 10th of April every year with the distribution of progress reports. The distribution of progress reports were a source of great anxiety and expectation among students who thought ranks were important. I was one of them and while in SACS, I normally stood first with Geeta Menon or Rafique sometimes taking the honours, in Mount Carmel Convent, it was invariably Ramprasad who stood first. Inserting myself into the system at Class eight level was not easy but I did. Eventually I stood second to Ramprasad, with guys like Christopher sharing honours with me. One difference between SACS and MCC was that, in SACS first rankers were first rankers – whatever and were respected as such. But in MCC, first rankers were looked on as a bit of nerds, unless this academic achievement was backed up by macho skills like sports, interest in girls, bullying etc. for the guys and ‘look good’ factor and outgoing nature for the girls. On second thoughts, SACS had only kids, while I was there but my surroundings in MCC was predominantly teenaged –hence this difference was only to be expected. India was not yet shining then and hep accessories were not yet in. Also there was no media to talk about. The only way we knew about the outside world was if we listened to the AIR news on radio or if we read the newspapers which were delivered rather late in the day at about 4 PM. Telephones were nonexistent for normal people. We had to walk down to people’s houses to talk, which we did. If kids went out, they couldn’t be tracked down by mobile, and frankly parents weren’t worried about them. The worst that could happen to them was they could fall down and sustain a bruise. It was thirty years and 2000 kilometers away from Nithari.

By the way, there was an article in the Week recently, which asked why people insisted in calling the killings of the innocent in Nithari as the “Nithari killings” rather than the “child rapings and slaughter in Noida”. Why indeed? It happened in the heart of Noida mind you. The upmarket Sector 31. I stay very near and have visited the place several times for lunch etc during my wife's hospitalisation when Gayatri was born. Doesn’t the media want to admit that dirty things happen in the posh suburbs of Delhi? Shouldn't we then talk about the Chunnambukkalavai or Kottaimedu blasts, rather than the Coimbatore bomb blasts? Let’s admit. Behind the glitz and shine of the malls and multinationals, primitive carnal urges lie hidden in those upmarket urban agglomerations. Thankfully they didn’t exist in the Gulbarga district of 1977, and that delayed the greying of the hairs of a lot of parents of those times.

Sorry, I strayed away from the topic. As I said holidays were glorious times. Schools that closed on 10th April reopened on 22nd May. This went on like clockwork every year. There were no projects to be done, no holiday homework to complete. It was sheer fun. Also there was no Cartoon Network to be watched, and no computer games to be played, so sheer fun again. Books there were aplenty. We read Enid Blyton, Alfred Hitchcock and the Hardy Boys. Girls read Nancy Drew instead of Hardy Boys. We graduated to Agatha Christie and some other authors too. Suri introduced me to highbrow writers like Orwell and Wodehouse (Thanks a lot Suri). Also there was a lot of outdoor activity. For people like us who hailed from places other than Wadi or Shahabad, there were trips back to Kerala during the vacations. The planning for trips was elaborate and the trips themselves were much awaited and stimulating. More about them in the next post.