My School Days

School days are one of the best days in any one's life and I am no special. I had always loved to go to school. I believe that some of the things we develop as habits in our school days will never leave us. It is always everyone's first exposure to the most important elements one has to deal with in one's life, TRUST. We develop friendships based on trust and we believe in them to be with us during our thick and thin. I always think that we always feel the most secured when we are in school than in any part of our life just because of our lack of knowledge of outside world or belief in our parents that we can grow as they did without knowing the pain they underwent.

I too started developing trust making friends right through my school days starting from the day I took the entrance exam to the day I left school meeting some of my other friends from other sections (whom I later met back at my engineering college). I still remember most of my school days studying for the exams, playing bet cricket matches with other sections and having lunch with my classmates everyday same place. We were a group of five: Chaitanya, Pavan, Sharath, Shirish and Me who were really close to each other. There were some picnics arranged once in a year to near by recreation places and we used to have all the fun in the world.

Girls, girls, girls.... hmm I remember Supriya one of my best schoolmates who used to call me everyday till we were in 8th standard and we used to talk about all things that happend in school. Later I dont remember talking to her that much on phone but certainly in class. Sabina was another girl who was too sportive and we had jokes all the time. I enjoyed talking to both of them.

I have always kept away from mischief done in class and was always scared that school teachers would beat hard if you did any mistakes. By the day I left school it became a different story as I too was participating in enjoying the class eating white Peppermint and Amchur we used to get in our school canteen for 25pc each. We used to get a lot of them and pass to others during class hours to keep ourselves waken up after lunch as we had all the Social studies and Biology lectures in the afternoon hours which were quite boring.

I still remember my Mom asking me to top the class at least once and wear the Red Badge with "First in Class" letters printed in gold over it. I am always my Mom's pet (till date) and used to study in her presence and I always knew she had all the belief in the world that I would do what ever she said. It had boosted my confidence and gave 100% all the time but made it to the top only once and it was that time that the batches were never presented. It was one of my most happiest days that I at least knew that what I was capable of instead of getting recognized by people with that batch (for the record it was during the Half yearly examinations during the 10th standard). I finally topped during the SSC examinations too but there weren't any batches anymore.

We always enjoyed the Maths slip tests and Biology quizzes conducted during class hours. Math slip tests were always fun as whoever completes it first can go and sit outside do nothing for the rest of the class. We used to have fun outside and chit chat all the time as soon as we complete the test. Biology quizzes were more involvement oriented as we needed to pass answers to make our group win (team-effort). Wow it was all fun those days!!!

In eighth standard I suppose we had a new Telugu teacher Kanaka Madam. She is the one who toiled me to death for improving my Telugu and English handwriting. I remember writing a page of Telugu and a page of English as imposition till I improved my handwriting. I started hating her because I was deprived of good marks because of my poor handwriting in her subject. Later I started to realize that she had been doing all this for my own benefit and started to put interest in improving my handwriting and that way my scores in all her exams. I remember scoring 98 in her subject and she was so happy for me that I never broke her belief on me.

I still remember days when I used to race the auto rickshaw with my bicycle on the muddy roads we used to travel as it was a shortcut to get to school. Skidding with the bi-cycle on muddy grounds was one of the most cool things we do when we are in school. I had my bicycle tires replaced about 6 times in 2 years.

I never knew what would I become one day during my school. All I wanted to become was a Doctor as he is the only person whom we meet quite often and that was the only profession that we knew when we are kids. It was always growing up without thinking. Just learn and enjoy, no more responsibilities. I still believe that 99% of people who thought of taking up some profession during school days actually have not done that.

"School days are the best days of one's LIFE". At that age the mistakes we do knowingly or unknowingly would never effect our life as much as they do today.

That is why when ever we do mistakes we always say to ourselves....

"Give me some sunshine, give me some rain.
Give me another chance, I wanna grow up once again...."

Signing off,
Srikanth Kambhampati