Reminiscences of my Life : School days

School days... those days, when everything around you seemed so innocent, so lively, so colorful... School days... Tensions of studies, skirmishes between friends and patchups... competitions, sports, pranks in school ... those school days...

Rightly said, school days are the most memorable days of ones life... My Life?? Well i wen to 2 different schools... my first school St Anthony's HS Mapusa... I completed my lower KG to 7th std in this school... My uniform consisted of a white blouse and navy blue pinafore, a neck tie, blue canvas shoes and a house color badge, a blue belt and yeah a house color tshirt to be worn for Mass PT...

I dont remember many things happening in this school, thanks to the weak childhood memories. I can remember myself better through my 5th standard. Though vague memories of KG do linger around, they r not so strong so as to become the topic of my blog...

Well, i can remember my fifth standard and onwards, those class assemblies, Mass PTs, exams, sports day, annual day etc. I never took tuition classes during this time... so evenings used to be free to do watever i would like... and yeah... I dint make much use of the time tht i got in the evenings except for either sleeping or playing.

I remember having quite close friends during these times, but now m not in touch with many but a few ones... those ones i can count on my fingertips. Though friendships blossomed during these times, it wouldnt be considered to be strong one specially in my case. It was only confined to playing together, sharing notes and sharing tiffins. One funny incident i remember is: I came home with 2 different types of sandals on 2 feet of mine, one was mine and one was my bench partners. School days seem so funny now, we had someone like a class leader called "Monitor" to monitor the class, whose responsibilities contained nothing but to control the class when the teacher wasnt present.

St. Anthonys was fun, we had huge assembly, specially on saturdays when we were compelled to wear our "House" color tshirts and badges and be present for the 1 hour assembly followed by the 2 hour Mass PT... It was fun in its own way though considering now tht we had stayed for 3 hours continously in the sun tht time, its not possible for me to stay in the sun now even for 3 min...

The sports day and annual day used to be so much fun in the school with ppl preparing and slogging out jus to make their "House" win... eveything revolved around points given to the house... Green charts for green house n so on...i remember making so many charts for the class tht there was no room for others to put their charts... even the class ranks used to give points to the house...

Come my seventh std and the best part was the debate competition, and i used to love tht... but i was present only till my 7th standard so could participate only for 1 year... there used to be so many competitions singing, drawing, handwriting etc. My favorite competition was the Fancy dress competition. I remember on one occasion i had become a nurse and my father had all the way to go to his friends house to fetch met the nurse's cap. and on another occasion i had become a "bhajiwali" or "sabziwali"... and i remember i had cried out loudly wen the naughty 10th standard boys had taken away all my vegetables from my basket on the head one by one... but i had got the 3rd prize for tht... My writing hobby had begun wen i had got the first prize for the essay tht i had written for the School Eco club...

I never missed my first rank in school... was also the teachers pet... i still meet my school teachers, and believe me, its so nice feeling to meet your school teachers... It feels so nice when they ask you about your job and life... wish i could get my school days back... I had to leave St Anthonys for some personal reasons and join another school in a different locality, I joined New Goa High school in my 8th standard.

New Goa High school was a very memorable experience in my life... It was here tht i got some close friends who are still very close to me... Life here was no different from any other school, but this school had the most number of state rankers in the SSCE board and was distinguised as one of the best schools of Goa. Though the school was very old and the building dilapilated, the spirits were always high... the teachers were too gud, the principal very nice to the students...
My uniform here consisted of a blue and white chequered dress, a blue and white belt and white canvas shoes...

we had home science periods where we were thought to cook, do embroidery and so on...homely things... so i can say i got my first cooking class here... we also were introduced to Red cross here... The competitions continued as usual... Ranks in my previous school were converted to grades here, and i would either get an A or a B+.

The best part of this school was the Anand Bazaar... normally used to b held in Jan or Feb. Students had to put stall and be present there for 3 days... this bazaar used to b present for 3 days. We used to collect all sorts of books, soaps, biscuits etc to be given as gifts to the ppl winning on the stalls... This bazaar used to teach us "Business"... So much efforts used to go towards this... Coz finally the stalls making the highest turnover used to get rewarded, and also the points used to got to the "House"...

My friends... every one so close... we had cried so much on our last day of school... almost every student and every teacher... The teachers at New Goa had become emotionally attached to everyone of us... The teachers knew us personally, each and every student in the class... If students studied in New Goa's, it was because of the encouragement and pains taken by our teachers... i still meet many of my teachers, and they seem to be so glad to see us too... Wenever we meet, it comes to so much time of speaking on various topics... the pranks we played in school... the punishments we got... Life was so different in our school.

But alas... since gud times dont stay for long, we grew up and moved in different directions... and since it is rightly said, all things change... My school too changed in the course of time... the building is no longer rickety... It is brightly painted, and stands more tall... 3 more floors added to it... the board scraped out the state rank system and so, we no longer can say tht we hav the highest state ranks... Its just tht once upon a time... we did hav...
Most of the Teachers hav retired... so even if we wish to pay a visit to them, it has to be their home, coz now no longer we meet them in school... and ya... it feels bad to see them growing old...ofcourse, we no longer hav the Anand Bazaar now... and the school uniforms hav changed too

And... the biggest ever change?? My school lost its old name too... From New Goa HS, it became "GS Amonkar Vidyamandir"... what could be better described as a change???
New Goa will still remain as New Goa for us even though the name says something else...

Those memories of my school life will always be rooted close to my heart and die along wid me... But these words written by me will remain forever... even though after some years this site mite close down... It will still remain as backup data somewhere as my memoir... My School days... those unforgettable memories... those lively days... those pranks... Those friends...