SVCHS - School Vth CHaracter(S) !

I come from a big small school in Hyderabad, Andhra pradesh. The school went by the name "Swami Vivekananda Centenary High School" and was a fascinating place. It was small because the cost of education was minimal and affordable to all the middle class families aspiring to good education for their kids. It was big because it had (at least during the time I studied there) very good human beings as teachers, large play grounds and an elaborate ritual to begin the day with. The ritual included a unique prayer praising Sri Ramakrishna, followed by Jana Gana Mana and finally, for reasons unknown, some drill with one kid yelling "Stand at Ease" and "Attention" for all the other kids to play around with their feet in amusement. This ritual in the play ground was followed by a walk back to the class and a loud reading of the 'pledge' in each class room and then, the day commenced. If the head master had an announcement to make, he'd walk into the play ground just before the kids were ready to disperse. He'd be followed by an attendant carrying a portable loud speaker so the message would reach kids standing the furthest (These were usually the tallest of the lot). Most of these messages were fairly innocuous, though delivered in a stern tone. The formation for this ritual was also quite interesting in hindsight. There were columns of kids arranged first in the order of their class (10th, 9th etc) and then within the class hierarchy there was the section hierarchy (A, B, C). In each column, the shortest girl would be the first one in line followed by the next tallest and so on ending with the tallest girl at the back. The boys' turn started after the tallest girl, repeating the short to tall arrangement. One could easily make out where they stood in the class vis-a-vis height. The shortest guy behind the tallest girl would have been the most conscious of all (And in my class, it was me more often than not). It was fun.

Why am I giving such an elaborate description of what could be a routine in any school? Mostly because I want to rekindle the nostalgia in my target audience - my school mates of the yore. One fine day during the past months, I realized that the year 2007 marked 20 years since I graduated from that great school of ours. I wanted to reach out to my bench mates of the past and poke their own memory of the "happy days". So I started making phone calls and was able to get hold of a good number of them, but still a lot of them need to be traced to make the reunion complete. As I tried to call my friends, some of them I have not spoken to in 20 years, I realized that not only could we be unrecognizable to each other physically but we cannot have a conversation lasting more than 5 minutes even if we meet. There seem to be unseen walls that we built in these 20 years around ourselves due to the rut of daily life that makes our mind recognize only those who have a role to play in our present lives and, of course also the greatest curse of them all - lack of time!

How do we reinitiate ourselves into our glorious past? How do we open the door into that past and then once inside be part of the surroundings and not detachedly amused? Can we refamiliarize ourselves to ourselves of 20 years ago and then take it from there?

If we have to do that, I think we should each write a brief note about ourselves and what we could remember from those school days, who we remember, and finally when could we make it to a reunion in the same school.

So, here is a shibboleth to my school mates. Please use this blogspot to post and share your memories. Send this idea to as many of our friends that you are still in touch with as possible. Lets try and make this reunion happen in 2007! Start now !!