School Days!

Its raining cats and dogs in Mumbai, and my office being in a low lying area, I need to wade through the stagnant water. I hate doing this over the years given that I was twice marooned in my home in Chennai, and just that the whole thing is something that spoils my mood. Not so long ago, I loved doing this. Wading through the waters to reach school, and discovering that its a holiday, literally had me in seventh heaven. There was no greater pleasure than that, in those days. My school in Adayar(Chn), had this rather crazy policy of awarding a holiday to students whenever it rained between 7 and 8 am on school days. They would take a decision that since its raining heavily, it would continue to do so, and students may suffer. More often than not the sun god would suprise our school management, by showing its face after 8 am, while we exhuberantly keep spreading the word around that " Yay! Its a holiday", through the new found sexy gadget of the yesteryears-The BSNL Landline telephone(1992-98 around that time).

Rains have ceased to bring that streak of adventure in me anymore. I have begun seeing it as a chore to wade through waters and try my best not to get wet. The other day, I had left my umbrella at my doctors clinic in Bandra, and I had gone back from home to get it, and never imagined it would rain. But Mumbai being highly unpredicable, let out a roar through the skies and I realised that I anyway have no option but to get wet, so instead of rushing to a shop nearby and competing for inchspace I was the only one who seemed to be smiling and getting wet. People were thinking I was mad, but I enjoyed getting back to being a child in those few moments.

Oh Those Lovely school days

A few days back, during a huge power outage in Egmore for an hour,I decided to spend my time fruitfully and in peace.Generally for a short break, I'd prefer the groundnuts available on kennet lane in egmore,or a saunter along the egmore railway station.I wanted a new place to explore, and decided to pay the age old museum, that lies in the same as road as my office, a visit. It sure was a trip down memory lane, seeing kids out on a picnic.These kids, although policed by their teachers to form a straight line and walk quietly, walked haphazardly, chatting with an oblivious joy of being outside school and of course with the off dose of mischief.The kids reminded me of the lunch bag with a small lunch with three boxes,which I used in school.All of them assembled on the lawns and were making quite a noise during their lunch.My school, before its revamp was typically a gurukula, in the sense that parents used to meet their children at lunch and feed them, and for lunch we had some awesome spots under the tree,under the lovely shade where we used to have lunch. Sadly all the trees and the spot called the jungle gym, are all done away in my school, expanding it for more classrooms.

This is at the musuem,where the kids assembled for lunch

Walking in a line, a 100 diminutive kids clamouring past the 'finger on the mouth' orders seemed like life on a rewind mode 15 years back.It is the very innocence and simplicity of this school life that one misses, in our day to day life which is pretty stressful considering the pressures of work,appraisals and the 101 things that we plan to worry about in a day.