School days..when life seemed all rose and pinkish!

The boys were smartly dressed in light pink shirts and maroon trousers. The girls - some had pig-tails in place neatly tied with ribbons; some had dimpled chins, and they all were cute and smart. They bonded their mutual affection and friendship over the playgrounds and classrooms. That was long way back. That was when I joined Greet's Academy. It is now a pleasant recollection to me as I remain in retrospective of those years in my school when I would wake up at 7.45 in the morning to reach the school by 8.15.

I vividly remember Lilly Luiz Ma'm, our Principal, doing rounds with a cane always handy! She was strict, but caring.

The assemblies followed by the march past back to the classes were a daily routine. Those who adhered to proper uniforms would get back to the classes while the unfortunate ones would meet the P.T teacher on the way!!

Neetu writes in her webpage few lines of a song we were taught in school as kids:

"I am a promise
I am a possibility
I am a promise
With a capital P ..”

Reminds me of those scripture classes we had as kids, where we were taught the Bible.. And for the irrepressible children that we were, it never usually took long before chaos reigned the scripture hall. Eveytime we turned noisy, the teacher would try to counter it by uttering "Peace! Peace!" .. and hence we fondly named him 'peace maker!'

October 12th every year would see Greet’s Academy engulf in an atmosphere of jollity and boisterous bonhomie. The day is observed as the ‘Annual Day’ in alignment with the b’day of ‘Aunty Greet,’ as we fondly call our founder Ms. Edith Virgina Greet who hails from the U.S., and who is a missionary who came to India in 1947 to serve the poor and the needy.

And those interschool competitions, Science exhibitions, and other events where most of them would participate with enthu while few chose to be passive!

P.T periods were eagerly awaited and we would go for Basketball, Volleyball and Kho-kho. Unlike most of the schools today, cricket didn’t have much prevalence inside our school compound.

The library period on Tuesdays were occasionally taken over by other teachers whenever they were pressed for time in completing the syllabus.

Saphire, Diamond, Ruby and Emerald - the four houses and the competitons.

Thomas Kurian sir, replacing Lilly Luiz Ma’m as our Principal, instantly struck a chord with us students by the way he carried around himself. There was an indefinable quality about his face and body language that always evoked uninhibited admiration. Sadly he is not with us anymore.

And which Greetian can ever forget Leelammachechi & Mercychechi ?!

Everything just seems like yesterday.

I still remember like yesterday Jose dancing to the tunes of a Konkani song for a group event; Dhanya's Nagavalli performance; and those combined studies with Vivek and Ajeesh at my home which usually ended up as cricket sessions in the terrace!

Years passed by as new faces kept coming in year after year while some bid adieu, and then came '99 – the final year spent in Greet's.

Standard 12.

Extra classes after the regular 9 periods a day. Special classes on Saturdays. The P.T period on Fridays.

The excursion to Ooty.

The surprise class tests by Dominic sir where if you scored below 5 upon 10, you were awarded 0!! .. and then him being replaced by Radhika miss as our class teacher, the fun element remaining unchanged! .. All for which I was more like a silent spectator enjoying every bit happening around in the class.. ha ha !

Special classes mostly by Radhika miss and Sreedevi miss.

The farewell party.

And the final school bus trips to Bhavans for the public examinations, after the prayer in the chapel followed by the banana fries served by Leelammachechi.
Everything seems just like yesterday !

And then later on in the day you open your gmail to find that yet another person who had once walked down the corridors as a classmate, is on the verge of entering motherhood! How time flies!!! .. Just when one thought everything seemed like it happened yesterday!

Every single moment spent in Greet's was sparkling, something which you realise in its entirety only as you step out of the school and enter into a completely different world.

I was more of a reserved kind, but not once have I ever felt left out. Those days were truly memorable. There was fun, laughter, backslapping and humor, all for which I was more like a silent spectator enjoying a movie. And at the end of the day, the entire class would ring in unison "Thaankyeew teeecher" in a rhythm!.. Memories keep rushing in as my fingers strike the keypad and its becoming too difficult to marshal them.

Thaankyeew Greets Academy, for gifting me those moments which I would cherish as long as my faculties doesn’t abandon me :)


-Balu
15/08/08

‘Time doesn’t change, it just flows.’

Time has been defined and designed for our convenience.. Hence we have different time zones, clocks, deadlines etc. And we literally have taken "time" as something more important than life.

Even our body clock gets tuned to our feelings. We wake up, work, eat, play and sleep in a set routine, in a set time. Every event defined by time.

Now what if we remove time from our system? Say 15 years back your best friend was alive and today he is not present - if we take time away from the equation, then that just may be another world happening in our conscious mind as compared to the one we are experiencing at the moment. It may not even be 15 yrs ago at all - as everything is/was in the mind of the individual.

Perhaps this is why they say everything is an illusion? Perhaps!

-Balu

10/08/08

Everyone has a special ability, a special talent, a special goodness that sets him or her apart and it is these differences that foster the making of friends, besides creating a monotonous society as well. If everyone were similar we would be at each other's throats all the time.


Now I have friends who have great interest in photography.... but there are lots of people to whom a shutter speed is how fast you pull down a window when it starts to rain, me for instance!
Good, well-composed pictures are an enduring delight and it is photography that made the National Geographic what it has become. We all love to take pics and most of us are satisfied with the automatic cameras when we travel where all you do is point and shoot. Till we see pics of the same scenes taken by a person proficient in the art of taking photographs!


Different people have different aptitudes and interests.


How many times have we met people at little parties at home, who are unconsciously super singers and we ask them how come they don't compete? There are women I know who dance (not ball room, mind, but the classical ones of South India ) so well but they do it in the privacy of their homes or for their children and husband or mom and dad and siblings...and shy away when a lucky visitor suggests they perform in public too.


If you have long and slender fingers, they say you have a talent for anything that involves the use of the fingers like playing a keyboard, drawing, painting and so on...there are so many talents that exist unknown till a friend brings them out and you stand in admiration and wonder. (Recall Gray’s “Full many a flower is born to blush unseen and waste its sweetness on the desert air”).

Everybody has a special talent that sets him apart. Now when I say “special,” I’d really like you (the reader, if any!) to have a look at this amazing artist, Niall Young from the U.K, who makes pictures using ONLY millions of tiny dots!

http://dancing-for-beginers.blogspot.com/

-Balu
08/08/08