Hindi,classes and few other stuffs as well!!

I had a piteous Hindi then. Studying in Kendriya Vidyalaya we got to have some knowledge of our mother tongue. I did struggle conversing to my class mates(in the initial 1 year), especially to the North Indians since not everyone would know English. Every time i needed a translator, i used to pester my mallu friends on a regular basis over this. All i knew was this, if someone asked "tumko Hindi maloom hai" and i would deplorably say "Thoda thoda" and try escaping from any further conversations. I could also answer questions like "Naam kya hai?" and "Ghar kidar hai?".

I used to sigh away from people who would come and criticize and say "Isko Hindi bhi naheen aata." . And i would remember the story of the Chor-Kallan. Soudamini teacher narrated that to me. I (even many in my batch) were actually too lucky, till that year KV's followed a Hindi medium but then just that year they switched over to English, thank God. 

The Hindi classes were even pathetic, my Hindi teacher was a North Indian. I don't remember her name(blame it on poor memory of mine). She used to converse in only Hindi(woh toh Hindi class hey,she had to do just that), as always i(we) seldom listened to what she said and being  regular back-bencher(s) she used to give us more care as well. But we kept ourselves busy with some mischievous activities, and got caught very often. And i can never forget this incident. 

I had a slam book that day and i wanted Ali and Kannan to fill it, and Ali wrote first. We didn't really know what a slam book was all about then, i just saw one in my nearby shop and bought it. We didn't even know what a sun-sign meant. Ali just signed in that place which said sun-sign(he changed it later on after knowing what it really meant and i changed it for the rest of them verifying their b'days later on). He wrote his weakness as beautiful girls, it was interesting since we were doing this during the classes. Then it was Kannan's turn and he wrote all about his love to Divya and everything. And then we 3 sat together and were comparing their answers, we got caught. My Hindi mam snatched the slam book from us and threw us out of the class. Oh we 3 in front of the whole class it was miserable, and even more miserable was that the slam book was with our teacher, what if she opens and tries reading it. Arey she is a Hindi teacher and hence doesn't read any English, we could have said to ourselves but these KV's have quality teachers with good English as well. She returned it back after some 2 days, did she read it? It remains a mystery. 

We would plan of the cricket match and talk of sports and stuffs or about girls as well. But then the topic on girls never took the priority over others then, it was just another topic to gab with. My friend Ali would then start unwrapping his philosophical talks. Oh God, its so damn boring that we never let him carry on with those talks for too long. Once we did and it would have no limits, he definitely had a wide knowledge of  variety of subjects . And Kannan always used to be the first to start the conversation on girls, he would complain of Ali saying "Ali tends to be too humble in front of girls" being the gigantic guy he is, it never looks nice on him. 

We considered Ali to be the strongest in the class, and every-time we played Kabadi* the team in which Ali played was sure to win. But the other team always gave a good fight. I was a good cricketer(then). At KV a lot of importance was given to sports. We did make the most of that. Every free period meant that we would direct ourselves to the ground to play some games.

And the days of inter-school sports used to be really nice, we had a national level athlete in our school and i remember the whole school crowding around the ground to see him stride. He was literally jumping around and not running, with such a long stride. We played an array of games from cricket, football and even Kho-Kho*. One of the best things about our school was the humongous ground that we had,  it could easily carry the entire strength of our school so easily.  

And next is the lunch hours, unlike many other schools we had the freedom to bring any eatables, let it be veggie or non , everything chalega. I didn't really enjoy that freedom in many schools i studied, most of them don't let us take non-veg to the school, not as if i followed that i hated to hide it from those spies in my class who always wanted to act as the good kid at school. Every school will have those kinds of people, they study a lot, (mostly)wear glasses, never play any sports, are teachers pet and just look for an opportunity to complain of others and even call the teachers everyday. And we had the liberty to go out and have the lunch, initially(few weeks) we had lunch from one of my friends houses next to our school but later on we found a place under a tree inside the campus. 

The lunch group consisted of me,Ali, Kannan, Manoj and Rithesh initially but later on a few more came along. I can never forget Rithesh's roti with pickle, his mom was good at that. And Ali brings some non-veggie often, his mom is famous among us for the cholesterol free fried rice she made. My mummy made good chicken, everyone liked it. More than the taste of the food, the feel of having it in such a place made our lunch a lot better. We anxiously waited for the lunch hour to come so that we could go out and have fun. It feels nice even now when think of those moments we had. We were lot good friends then but everything has changed now, i am only in contact with Ali and he seldom calls many of them as well. Our mechanical lives have won over us. Those moments would never be back.

The Assembly!!!

Assembling at the courtyard almost every morning was very motivating for many of us.It was always a wonderful sight to see students lining up and receiving the days message, news, thoughts, pledging their devotion to the nation, singing the national anthem with pride.I was no exception, in spite of the sunny mornings we always had a nice time there at the assembly, dressed in blue and white.Being tall i always stood at the other end, and most of our mischief were not much noticed by our teachers.

Now let me talk about the things that made our assembly all the more interesting,we start with the pledge(either in Hindi,English or Sanskrit,i still remember the Sanskrit version)then we had the headlines for that day delivered, then the thought for the day , then the special program (sorry am not getting the exact wording), then our school choir sang a song(mostly patriotic songs) and then our principals message followed by the national anthem. The special programs were very interesting at times, there used to be some quiz or a story and things like that to make sure that we were kept interesting.

Being a cyclic process even my class has had the privilege of hosting the assembly on a number of occasions and i have been a part of it myself.I still remember the days when i used to take down the headlines for the day from The Hindu, but i always made it a point to make sure that i never delivered the distressing incidents, i always highlighted the sports stuffs and certain interesting news regarding new innovations, they sounded better than the tragic ones and that definitely made my day a better one. There has been times when i delivered the thought for the day, and a couple of times i got a chance to host a quiz and tell story also.Though doing all this for the 1st time made me nervous, but then as time went by we got accustomed to this made us lose our stage fear.

Yeah forgot to say about the national anthem, it was the original version of the national anthem that was sung just after Independence and that same version was played in my school too. Does any of you know the time limit for singing our national anthem??It is approximately 52 seconds(for all of you who didn't know about it) and for those who know, see if you can sing it in 52 seconds.

On certain occasions, especially during the days of science festivals and days of inspection we had prolonged assembly, they usually consumed the first hour as well. Those days we were made to sit unlike other days when we were made to stand.On wednesdays(or fridays,i don't remember) we had compulsory exercise, OmG, they were baadddd, under the hot sun, exercising was definitely a pain in the ass.I always tried escaping from it, but our physical advisor never let any of us run away from it.He made one of us stand in the center and demonstrated the exercise for everyone to follow.

That's all i could recollect about our assembly hours, we even had a very good music sir and even our principal was also a calm and quiet person.

The New School!!

Well so i got in.I got into literally a new world,a school that was very much isolated from the town,next to the C.R.P.F(Central Reserve Police Force) camp.An hour long drive from the town of Trivandrum and so that meant getting up early and leaving for the bus stop early as well.Little did i know of this force before joining this school.The school looked nice.I just loved it the first time i saw the school and the thought of getting to study in there made my stars twinkle.

I really don't remember the first thing i did in there,i was happy that i had a company in Deepak and so i at least had someone to tattle.My class was a new one,with blue coloured plastic chairs.And all its inmates were new.The class was sound,like a busy market place.It was the best time for me to make some good friends and so i didn't wait for too long,so myself and Deepak set-off with the hope of getting some more guys into the group.

I was happy to know that my class was not dominated my we mallus and we had guys from this entire nation out there.This at a later stage helped me improve my Hindi.I made friends and most of the friends i made that day turned out to be my bus mates as well.Nice people,nice fun well its obvious.Then we had our first class and it was Mrs.Joseph who took the first period.She addressed herself as my class teacher,and she seemed to be a nice woman with a gentle smile and generous attitude(as far as i can recollect).

I wonder if i didn't look at my class girls,i don't really remember that though,but who knows i suppose i was a goody goody boy those days.Yeah in 6th you got to be an innocent boy isn't it?

So then we had teachers coming in and asking us to introduce ourselves.It was nice,nice to get the attention of everyone when you are talking,the reason being the anxiety among us to know of each other and to see if there are multiple students with the same names and to analyze the best-est of all names.I was annoyed to see the timetable,it said that we had a P.T period everyday.That info made all of us more happier.

We had our first P.T period on the same day and it was fun,though we couldn't find too many cricket bats or balls.we had few footballs and so we fancied playing football then.The girls went to the other side of our place of play and managed to play something.I could find few boys who went to play with the girls,though i wished even i could join them,i could only just wish.

So that day was almost getting over and we were all busy bidding adieus for our new buddies with a promise of meeting the next day.The thing that i hated was that we had a stupid driver who was very slow in his driving.Even in the bus we were busy talking about each other and about our families and parents.A new experience,a new beginning.

The Tale Continues!!!

Early days at Trivandrum was not really great.Yes,we were at a different place and the people were different.They were not of our kind,we found them to be of the more selfish(might be a misconception) and rude kind(no offense).And its not always easy to get along with a different environment(though we are used to it).New school,new neighbors,new house(rented),and everything new.

But we managed to,that's what Indians are really famous for is it not?Indians are the ones who adapt fast,and we are Indians after all.So even we could adapt to that new culture pretty soon,though not a metro it had a bigger crowd and more density that the rest-of-Kerala (Ernakulam excluded).So we being from that rest-of-kerala crowd,we found it new.

And getting into a new school was not that difficult since i had already got a transfer certificate from the same group of schools in which i did my schooling till then at Palakkad.The school was fine,i managed to impress my friends with my talent in cricket,and few of my lies too helped me to get along with them pretty fast.Moreover i had 2 guys from my school very close by my house and so things were lot easier than i actually thought.

The days at my first school at Trivandrum was good going.I got a nice company there.But i had to part them by our quarterly vacation,because i applied at Kendriya Vidyalaya Pallipuram and so i had to join the new school.I dont remember the reason i chose to join the new school but i should say it was mainly because of the quality of education and an opportunity to learn our national language Hindi and being a central government run school the fees was also lot lesser.

And i heard everyone say that at Kendriya Vidyalaya sports is very much entertained and there is a sports period everyday.So the urge in me to join the new school increased a lot and i somehow managed to get in there,because it seems not everyone can manage to get in there because the priority is for the wards of central government employees and the others are not prioritized as they are.I was happy to know that i got into the new school.


The rest of the story in next post,please keep visiting.

The journey to trivandrum!

It was almost 10 years(a decade)when we packed our bags and left for the just heard of then city trivandrum.As a youngster it was a dream come true,and who doesn't love traveling(no no not me),i always find ways to travel and its a passion.And traveling in train makes it all the more exciting.It was a very joyful day(as far as i can remember...ummm yes a joyful day).The excitement in rahul(yes i,me,myself) and rakesh(my brother) knew n bounds.Even mummy was happy,she too wanted to escape.Yes escapism...escape.We tried to escape from the small town of nemmara to the bigger city of trivandrum(ananthapuri).
And we started from Nemmara,i guess we boarded a bus from there.The buses out there go at lightning speeds in the highways and i love travelling at high speeds.I put my head out and look at the face of the worried motorists.And after travelling for an hour and a half we reached the destination,the thrissur railway station.There were 5 of us me,rakesh,pappa,mummy and ravi mams(my uncle).We boarded the train.I forgot its name.Well it too had an engine and was red in colour and was run by electricity.Every detail of it said that it was a train.
And for the first time i was going to travel in an a.c coach.And the engine started,it started moving.Myself and rakesh were looking around and after sometime we slept-off.In between our journey,pappa called us up to say that an actor has joined us in our journey.One famous malayalam actor Innocent(though he is not really innocent,his name says so).We had few words with him and the smell of liquor came oozing out everytime he spoke.Does every cine artist drink alcohol?i thought for a while!
Then we took over our berth again and slept again.Then early morning again pappa called us up to say that we reached trivandrum(ananthapuri).Hey for those readers of mine who haven heard of trivandrum,its the capital town of kerala.With wonder i saw the places as the train moved slowly so as to give its passengers a view of the town.We took full advantage of it and just gazed and gazed at the landscape with curiosity filled up,what makes trivandrum all the more special.And finally pappa said that we reached the railway station.
Yes we reached.

The KV,Pallipuram story!

Welcome to this new blog of mine.
The reason i just diverted you was because i was addressing the more serious issues in life there and my old school days wouldn't be a serious issue anyways.
And it would be more of a fiction (though they are true happenings) for most of you,so i just thought of bringing you here where i would do my rest of the postings in the label KENDRIYA VIDYALAYA,PALLIPURAM,TRIVANDRUM in short kvppm.
Keep visiting for my next post dear friends,those were wonderful days that has created a void in me.