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Where Flowers Blossom (Ajith Karunakaran, Nov 27th, 2007) |
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Wintertime in Bahrain was always special for me. I could put on my favorite sweater and go to school then. My mom used to wash it and keep it ready for the first sign of winter. She knew, no matter how many sweaters I had, I would only wear this one. What she didn't know was that it was special, for a reason. Someone had told me that this sweater looked nice on me. That was enough for me to wait every year for the season to begin.
My earliest memories of school are vague, but not vague enough for me to recall the glimpses of some of the earliest friends I had. The earliest among them, that I recall was Vinitha(Ranjana's cousin). She was first of the friends pack who used to pick on me a lot. She always seemed to know what was right and what was wrong and took it upon herself to guide this stray lamb and tell me what to do and what not to do. Being the timid child I was, I used to obey without question.
Other longtime friends who were co-travellers in the journey of my childhood from Kindergarten onwards were Ajith VV, Ranjana, Reshma, Sandhya and Anith Philip, whom I used to know not only from school, but through our family social circles as well.
ISB was the only school I had attended, and has by far been the biggest influence in my life. From 1976 when I walked through its corridors, to the time I bid farewell in 1990, the school was always my 2nd home, one that I miss every day in my life now.
My earliest flashes of school life is that of crying amidst a bunch of Morons who just stared at me and showed no human emotions whatsoever. Now as to the background of why I was crying is irrelevant at this point in time, but the least I had expected was some compassion from my comrades. I dont recall their names for the sake of rebuking them (after 33 years). However as and when I recall the faces, I shall strike.
The earlier years in school were a bag of mixed emotions. On one side, were teachers like Ms. Indra, Ms. Swarnakumari, etc who were my favorites, and on the other hand were teachers like Ms. Chowdhury who, for me, was the Bahrain equivalent of Count Draculla. Not only did she have striking resemblance to the Demon King but she used to behave like one, by imposing the physical torture of pinching the ears of her students till the blood oozed out. Needless to mention, I used to have sleepless nights on the days we had her classes. I even recall rejoicing on seeing her crying once in the airport. The occasion, I was told later, was the departure of her son to India for higher studies, but I wished at that time, that she came to the airport everyday to cry.
School was not the only source of my childhood joys and memories. A lot of my friendship blossomed outside school, in clubs like Bahrain Sports Club and Kerala Samajam. Ajith VV and me were the most frequent visitors to Kerala samajam. We used to participate in almost every sport they held. When it came to sports, he was always the first and I would always be the 2nd , in sprint competitions. During the awards night, both of us used to walk up and down the stage alternatingly sweeping up many of the sports competiton prizes relevant to our age group. He was always faster than me, no matter how hard I tried. The need for a pair of new Nike shoes was felt at the time, as if it would keep me a 100 yards ahead of him.
Anith and Ranjana were other less-frequent visitors to the club. Anith, being a girl, was surprisingly faster than me in sports, one that embarrased me so very often. But then luckily she never aired that superiority and would always give me the false credit of being faster than her. Ranjana was more of the intellectual kind, and after having experiences with her cousin, I used to wonder if this lady would also start imposing her sense of ethics and righteousness on me. But Ranjana was not like that and was very cordial and friendly.
Among the teachers I was always considered a favorite, and my mom used to do considerable amount of campaigning for me among the teacher community. So I was always assured of special treatment. Added to this, I had a born skill of drawing oodles of sympathy and kindness from my teachers. Many times, I have been skillfully able to manipulate the support of the teachers to my side in very delicate situations of mild arson and violence. An occasion that immediately comes to mind, was when Timothy was engaged in mischief with everyone around him. At the time, I was seated in front of him. There was no teacher at the time as it was in between class hours. Seeing Timothy engrossed in pun, I decided that I would nag him to while away my time. While he was getting back into his seat, I pushed his table into him and he got it in the midriff. Timothy, not being a person who knew what it meant to lose tempers, decided to payback in a similar fashion, and pulled my chair just as I was about to sit. I fell not knowing that the chair was not under me. As luck would have it, Ms. Swarnakumari walked in, saw me squatting on the ground, deduced what Timothy had done and gave him a strong rebuke. I doubt if Timothy remembers the incident, but I was laughing my guts out, so that it etched pretty well in the inner recesses of my brain.
On the academics front, a person who left an indelible mark on me was Ghulam Moinuddin. He was kind of a role model to me, since he could study, play football and excel in sports all at the sametime! He was truly an inspiration to me and I used to hang around with him a lot thinking some of the greatness would rub off on me as well. Others who excelled in acadmics were Praveen, Fathima Ruknuddin, Roopa Bhatt and Fiaz. But again, they all excelled "only" in academics. Only Ghulam was a star in all spheres. Fiaz was one person who had a great way with words. He would come up to me and tell me quite frequently that he is PERFECT . And that would set me wondering if it was because of something clumsy I did. Apart from that, he would always challenge me that he's gonna beat me on marks, and ofcourse he always did. But he was a great guy to have as a friend.
Seejo was another good friend I had who used to alternate between bouts of silence and hyper energy. He would do something crazy and then on his flight from the scene, would knock us all down.
What is school life without outdoor activities. One of the earliest pastimes, till the concerns of my future career caught up, was football. From 4th std to 10th std, we used to wait eagerly for every opportunity to run to the ground, place stones marking the boundary of the goal, select our teams and start kicking. While I believe I was an above average in the area of soccer, some of the bright players that come to mind was Ghulam, Mohd. Adam, Yohanan.
One of the worst players I had seen at the time, was, Ashwin ( Hope you don't mind, Ashwin). I recall all of us laughing our guts out, when Ashwin was a goalkeeper and unceremoniously let the ball go right under his legs into the goal. Ashwin, however was made of material far greater than a football sport. He often impressed me with his knowledge of things far bigger than our textbooks. He had his lighter sides as well. Once during our social studies class, the teacher asked him why Africa was called the Dark Continent. He stood up and pat came the reply.... That the sun never rises there. The class was stunned for a second, and so was the teacher.
Post 10th std., football lost its appeal to a new sport that I loathed. Basketball. I just hated the game, more so because I could not really get myself to focus on getting the ball into the basket. Nevertheless, the game had achieved stardom and some of my leanest and meanest classmates were its star players. I was forced once to participate in an inter-house competition of basketball. We had just one star player among us, who was Bhaskar. The rest of us were mere headcounts in the game. Pit against the stars of the school those years, our team was disposed off rather ridiculously.
A turning point in my quest to be a physically superior being, was my enrollment to karate classes at two different phases of my childhood. The first phase was initiated at Bahrain Sports Club. After a couple of classes and one-level graduation into the orange belt, I had to discontinue because of technical issues, as the Sensei ( Master) ran away from Bahrain. Hardly befitting a Leader, I felt at the time.
The 2nd and more severe phase began under the colossal leadership of Mr. Goodino. Mr. Goodino, as per my analysis, was built of mortar and bricks and he would offer every kid a chance to punch him in the "Solar Plexus", a technical term for the mid-portion of the stomach. This portion was specially built of reinforced steel in his case.His classes were gruelling, and slowly all those tender limbs began to assume He-Man proportions.
I was kind of a favorite for him as I was "technically" perfect in the steps of karate. But when it came to physical demonstrations that required more brawn than brain, he realised that I wouldnt stand a chance on a strong windy day. Thats when he personally came to my rescue when Kaitano(of our class) once punched me in the "Solar Plexus". I cursed the guy who coined that term, since I actually saw the Solar system spinning around me that time.
After some words of encouragement from Mr. Goodino, I resumed my classes under his watchful eyes not knowing what lay ahead for me after a few months.
Another demo class, the usual drills, and the mock demonstrations were done. Then came the one-to-one combat. I was particularly fearful of one person, Vikram Kacchwa, who would stoop to any level to get across his point that he could swing his feet like Sunil Gavaskar's cricket bat. When we drew lots for pairing up, it dawned on me that my time in this sport had come. Vikram was otherwise a very mild mannered friend, but when he came to karate classes, the sport took him like a possessed being. That day, he showed me the "Solar system" and punctured a hole in my lips, using techniques, I would (to this day) hardly classify as a karate kick. It looked more like out of a street fight scene. Post that day, my parents declared that the pen and the book would be my companions going forth.
To induce the students to think in supernatural ways, the school once brought the Mathematical genius, Ms. Shakuntala to the campus to hold a one-day workshop that was designed to get the kids thinking of how to stimulate those extra neurons in the brain.
The workshop, I recall, started with Ms. Shakunthala displaying her acumen for numbers and calculations to win our praise and accolades. Then it continued with a lot of concentration exercises and these little brains of Indian School hardly knew how to spell " Concentration", least of all, get the brain to focus. As the hours drew by, she took a fancy in me as she was short of an assistant who could do things for her and get her stuff. Though intially, I took up the job for the attention it got me in front of a 100 students, I later vehemently opposed when she got me doing too much. One of the girls from a junior class, I recall, was subject to too much Concentration, that she got to pee right in the hall.
Come 11th std. Ghulam left and needless to say, I was depressed. But not for long, as I quickly gained new friends in the form of Govind and Amol.
Others I vividly remember having great friendships with are Vikas, Vishal, Anoop, Bhaskar, Richard, Sunil, Ajith VV, Baiju, Darius, Manish, Prince.... and the list goes on. Names are really not important. Memories are.
Vishal, I recall, had some distant relationship to Namrata Shirodkar, a fact that he was embarrassed of and I couldnt stop making fun of.
The school bus, as many of my friends have pointed out, was a catalyst in making new friends. One of the very good friends I made during the school bus ride was the Ms. Chatterbox (read Vaishali) and subsequently her coterie comprising of Carol and Dipti. Ms Vaishali had this gift to talk, scream, laugh, shout and giggle at the sametime. Much so, she kept me busy figuring it out. But she knew something better. And that was how to be a great friend.
This about sums up many of the rememberances of my childhood years. As our lives drag us forward, it leaves behind a trail that we cherish as lessons from our past. It reminds us that we were all once innocent, something we lost as we grew up. It teaches us that childhood is a journey with friends, teachers, with parents, with loved ones. A journey that teaches us, among many things, to love, to respect and to help others. What we choose to keep, and what we choose to forget sums up our character as we grow older.
We all were children once. And many of us always wish we were children again.
But something that I would truly wish, is that if I was ever a child again, i want to be among friends like the ones I had at Bahrain.
To all my childhood friends, my life would have been incomplete without you. Those were the years that the flowers in my life used to blossom the most.
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