THOSE WERE THE DAYS

"Good old days" is the first thing that comes to my mind when I think about my school times. Though I've studied in Mumbai and Delhi too, I'd like to talk about my school times in Hyderbad in particular! I came to Hyderbad when I was in my 8th grade and joined Chinmaya Vidyalaya. The first day, when I walked into the gates of the school for the first time, I met C.Abhishek and Chaitanya and asked them where the classes for the 8th grade were! I was a little excited and scared at the same time. As I had seen C and Chaitu already, the 2 known strangers, I went and sat into the C section and I'm really glad I was a part of that wonderful section. Times that followed were blissful.. I met wonderful people while I was at school. There are some fond recollections and a few things I'd be talking about!

First and foremost, the class itself had a wonderful feel, it was nice associating with new people. It was fun talking and sharing experiences and the journey began! It was fun initially, flurry of extra-curricular activities, loads of events, the fun of being in a house.. Satya house it was, that I was in! I remember participating in creative writing, essay writings, caption making, and many such events. I remember that the 6 of us, Sudhakar, Shravya, Deepika, C.Abhi, S.Abhi and I went for an essay writing competition to a school(name I don't remember) and the 5 of them wrote on the topic 'Air pollution' and I went out of the line and wrote on 'Disaster management'. Abhishek Sreedhar came back to my home that day and told my mom it was a dry topic. We didn't expect any prizes but I managed to get an LED torch as a prize and was totally elated and flashed the LED in people's eyes :P and kept bothering Abhi with the 'dry topic' comment. I had a passion for writing and the writer in me took shape here. I realised that I had some talent and I worked towards it. A lot of credit goes to Jayanthy mam, who inspired me immensely and all my other classmates who also happened to be good writers. This encouraged me and brought the shy Sahil out of his shell!

Another part of schooling life was quizzing. The boys in our class formed a quiz group with Keerthi as the quiz master. I always teamed up with Abhishek Sudhakar, the other teams included C.Abhi, Navin, S.Abhi, Roshan, Ronack, Jaya, Ambreesh and others. Our team name was 'Sahil' and we always won the quiz(almost always). We hit the table hard(make-shift buzzer) and indicated we knew the answers. We ended up with red hands after all the bench-smacking we had done. We were caught innumerable times by teachers and scolded but we laughed it off always :D.

One of the best part of my school life was football. It was what I lived upon and one of the things I loved most. I skipped most of my meals to play football in the lunch time. I played left mid/winger for the school team. It was great, I remember attending only 1 session of school football training and never managed to get up at 6 for it! :P.. I remember running  to play football every free period we got and Principal mam scolding the crap out of Vineeth(bechara used to die always). I remember the amazing crosses I set up for Navin and Navin heading them into the goal. Few unbelievable shots that I managed out of fluke sometimes(trying to be modest :P). The in swinging corner kicks that I managed so craft fully! Football surely made life better and it was my way of expressing my emotions and helped a lot in building confidence and character.

There are so many other little things I recall, Ambi's superman and 'paper' dialogue that had us in splits. Football and cricket at Minister's road that was so essential at the end of every week. Meetings at Navin's home that had become a regular habit, playing with his adorable dog, Roger which was nice. Sudhakar's point to point mugging, Ronack's crazy jokes, C's height :P, Zeeshan's crazy logics, Bala's troubles with Hindi and his long full name, Susheela mam's teachings, Babita mam(naam hi kafi hai :P), Jayanthy mam's classes that we all enjoyed and the poem I dedicated to her that I still posses, Asian paints library incharge, Sudhakar's favourite Prasad sir(whom I loudly called 'sar-dard' in class but he never listened :P) and other fun stuff. Jumping off the school wall and going to Deepak store, Hanuman chat Bhandar and the million bucks we might have spent on chat there!! Green Olympiad at St. Ann's school and our blank shocked faces while giving that exam(we hardly knew few answers out of 100 quest), The field trip to Kerala which was just amazing(so much I'd like to say about it but would stretch this too long), those crazy fights with each other, those loud and rather offensive debates. Those sharing of lunches(mine was always eaten thankfully), the stinky classrooms after PT, those long walks back from imax alongside hussain sagar were all so special. The crazy link ups(the way I used to go red with anger when teased with the innumerable girls back then.. silly :P), Suri babu, our PT sir and his sad stories about his wife running away, singing janmadinamidam in full swing(we sang this instead of happy bday), kids fainting in assembly, principal madam's long speeches, going to dhyan nilayam for all pujas and events .. I can go on and on and on, there was just so much that happened!

School times were one of the best times of my life! There are instances when I want that back so much when we all bonded well, looked out for each other, had that amazing understanding of everything, the little innocence(that has surely disappeared by now) was something out of this world. These memories are locked in a corner of my mind which I will preserve and cherish for all the days to come. They make me smile every time I recall them! Wish I could go back to those days again when life was simpler than it is now, days were better, a smile on the face was natural and we lived life our way! Honestly, Those were the days! :)

Dedicated to all my school pals, the 3 Abhisheks, Kanta, Ronack, Deepika, Shravya, Shruthi, Chaitu, Ambi, Shashwat, Vineeth, Navin, Jayawardhan, Chaitu, Balakrishnan, Roshan, Ashwin, Zeeshan, Ritika, Apoorva, Hasitha, Nishchala, Pooja, Kruthi, Thisa, Syed, Suchitra, Sharil, Devender, Mohommed, Arthika and all the others I might be missing here