STARTING SCHOOL

 STARTING SCHOOL 

 

I distinctly remember that eventful day when I started school for the first time in my life. I can still feel the buzz and excitement at our house as my parents and grandparents took it upon themselves to get us, the siblings, started on the right note.

               Since there isn't much age difference between my younger sibling and me, we started school around the same time. Preparations for the ominous event began months in advance. School uniforms, stationery, and books were bought. A pair of colourful water bottles and attractive steel lunch boxes were acquired. We were extensively coached on how to address our teachers and ask for permission to use the restroom, if required.

              The D-day was a warm and sunny one as I jumped out of bed, eager to start what promised to be something new in our lives. My mother bathed us turn by turn, and then our ayah, Sheela, a local Khasi lady, helped us adorn our uniforms. Our Dad then accompanied us to the first school we would ever set foot in: the Seven Set School in Shillong. We were at the primary nursery level entrants, and the school would house us for a year before I moved on to St. Edmunds School, a school that had admissions only from class one, and my sister, who would also later move to Loreto Convent.

               A mass of small naughty children our age greeted us the moment we set foot in the school. A teacher standing at the gate gave my Dad the directions to our classroom. We made our way to the school, and then, with a reassuring tap on my shoulder, Dad left us at two different classrooms. ‘Come here, what’s your name?’ asked a matronly teacher, planting herself in front of me. ‘Abhishek, Miss, ’ I managed to blurt out. She then led me to my desk. All around me, the little toddlers were throwing tantrums. Most of them were bawling the moment their parents left them at the classroom.

I had entered the classroom in a jolly good mood and was quite looking forward, with anticipation and nervous childish energy, to what was to unfold. But looking at the mayhem and the ruckus the other kids were causing, I don’t know what got into me, but even I started bawling, mimicking the others. The whole classroom turned into a fish market with each kid trying to outdo the other in who could cry and howl the loudest. As I joined the other kids in this, I happened to glance out the window, and there I saw my Dad trying to peer in, an amused look on his face. Looking at him there, I stopped bawling. The young boys then got into fights with each other, each trying to be the superhero they had seen in comics and toys. Punches were flying around, as were flying kicks. Our class teacher, the matronly lady, was too dazed to control the toddlers who were going berserk at being separated from their parents for the first time in their lives.

 

Soon the bell rang, signalling the end of our first day at school. The kids lined up excitedly to rush back home. I looked up and saw my Grandad beaming as he picked me up from the class. We then moved on to my sister’s class to pick her up. We went to our Grandparents’ place and waited for our parents to come back from the office to pick us up. Our ayah had also accompanied our Grandad to the school, as on the preceding days she might have to pick us up, so she was getting acclimatised to the schedule. ‘What did you learn in school today?’, my Grandad asked me with a twinkle in his eyes. I had no answer to offer, though my sister had lots of tales for him to chuckle over. That night, I overheard my Dad telling my Mom, ‘Our boy is a well-behaved one, while all the other kids were going berserk, fighting with each other, he was sitting quietly in one corner. I was peering into his classroom today.’

 

 

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