Back to School... A Walk Down Memory Lane!!!

I walked into a Staples store the other day and there were these posters that advertised some interesting 'Back to School' offers. Colorful stationary, school bags and all other interesting school accessories. Wished I was in school still.

June is the month schools reopen in Bombay. June was the month I loved because of all the new school time goodies we got to buy. New books, new uniforms, new school bags [if we managed to wear and tear the old one ;)], new ribbons to tie our plaits, new pencil boxes, new fountain pens etc etc...

We are almost at the end of June and I remembered that I had promised myself a post on what I miss about my times at school. So here it is in completely random order... just as it came to mind...

• My school itself - St. Agnes Girls' High School, Byculla!!! I miss the huge campus walking in and out of its gates.
• Calling myself an Agnesian - especially in the presence of girls from Gloria's and St. Annes. (do not know why!!!)
• Red House, Blue House, Yellow House and Green House - Red House being mine and my favourite :).
• The colorful slides, monkey poles and the towering yellow giraffe in the primary school garden.
• The framed rhymes that were displayed across the hall in the ground floor of the primary school building. Somehow those pictures and rhymes always had me awestruck... I have stared at them endlessly.
• The playroom that was full of colorful toys and games. I guess it would charm me even now... as much as it did when I was in primary school. It's the kid in me to blame again :).
• The audio visual sessions we had where we were treated to some nice movies.
• Moral Science as a subject and the notebook with colored pages for it.
• The huge black piano and the 'singing' classes we used to have.
• The famous freeze-bell.
• Lining up on the grounds and the assemblies that followed.
• Sitting cross legged in those assemblies and the knee-fights that followed ;)
• Playing Sunday Monday on the building stairs
• The samosas, ragda and bhel in the school canteen - and the gossips about how someone found a cockroach in the canteen food :D
• Sports Day - and the compulsory attendance rules for non-participants like me :)
• The Inter-school sports meet (cannot recollect the name) and the endless cheering we did for our school.
• The Agnes-Mary's girl school - boy school fights and wars :)
• Annual Prize Distributions - and how my parents clapped with pride when I stepped up on stage to collect mine :)
• Open Days and the exhibitions of books, craft work and needle work and the complimentary packet of Simba wafers from mom :)
• Prefects with their sashes and belts - checking our nails, rolled down socks, shorts, badges and what not.
• Flag hoisting and singing the national anthem on Republic Day and Independence Day
• Taking turns in class to sit on the last bench - learnt to play book cricket on one of those days :)
• The entire class getting punished and made to stand in a straight line on the tarred road in the hot sun.
• The chemistry, physics and biology labs - including the skeleton in there :)
• PT classes, Sir Andrew and his English and the way the girls took his case.
• The green benches in the corridors that served as our lunch tables in the primary school and the huge lunch room for senior school too.
• All of the teachers there... they all had something special about themselves and that could make another blog post by itself!
• Baking classes and Ms. Farida and her ways!!! I remember we once ate up the extra cheese after making a dish. We got one of her 'You girls are made (read made, understood mad)!' for that. :D
• Color dress days at school on special occasions.
• Going around the whole school distributing sweets to all the teachers on my birthday.
• Standing in front of a whole class of girls singing 'Happy Birthday to Priya' :)
• Falling down, getting bruised and having that red medicine applied on to it.
• The morning prayers and news being read out on the intercom.
• The raffle forms for donations that we had to collect. There were another 25 odd Agnesians in the campus where I lived. Imagine rushing to every house before the others did.
• The science journals that we needed to complete in senior school with diagrams and experiment observations.
• The Science Exhibition we had in Class X. We went on to win it and participate in the inter school competition too. We did up something on Garbage Recycling and were super excited about it.
• The huge library we had and the librarian Ms. Pramila Pant!!! Some of my friends got her convinced that my classmate Sriya and I were twin sisters :)
• Polishing the black shoes and washing and applying white polish to the PT shoes - a weekend task that my sisters and me did dutifully to avoid lectures from dad.
• My school uniform - loved the smart white uniform-red tie combination.
• Waiting for the school bus to come and pick us up in the mornings and searching for the 'Blue' bus every evening :)
• Travelling by BEST to school after seventh standard.
• Walking, talking, breathing, road crossing with Nancy Drews and Enid Blytons!!!
• Different subjects like arts, crafts, baking, community living, social service etc
• Identifying hills, rivers and state capitals with different colors on the outlined maps of India for the geography exam
• Standing in line to collect our corrected answer papers. Totalling and re-totalling the scores hoping the teacher had made a mistake.
• The Khandala retreat in class X.
• Picnics every year - from Hanging Gardens to the Planetarium to Esselworld and Tiku-ji-ni-wadi.
• Collecting the hall tickets for the board exams, the school farewell and finally walking out of school with our SSC marksheets :(

I told you it was a long list. I am sure I have missed out a lot of other memorable things. Probably because I got carried away thinking about these. Would love to read your opinions on this.

Whether you were from Agnes or not, I am sure my school day memories would have taken you back to your own!!! Spare a moment and walk down your memory lane. You will come back smiling :).

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