A trip down memory lane..

It was in the month of April when my uncle called my dad to tell him that my cousin was having the thread ceremony. That certainly gave me a lot of possibilities streaming in my mind. Exam time it was and so it clearly ruled out the possibility of me having to tag along. The decision was made with appa and patti being the main speakers and amma just feeling so bad that I can’t make it. She hugged me and said that I was unlucky and will have to stay back in the school hostel during that period. While she felt awful about it, I was inwardly jumping in whooping joy as this was an opportunity to have fun in the girls’ hostel along with my best friends.

As I lived pretty much in the same colony, I was walked to the hostel with amma who went non-stop about how I mustn’t fuss and eat well. She kept insisting that if I did not eat well, I can’t write exams well! Well by now you know that she is obsessed about how well I eat always…something like the way I do with R now. For what seemed like a gluttonous mom’s conversation to a ever-starved daughter, she ended, “Sleep on time and wake up early! We will call you once a day and you must be a good girl!”

Minutes after she left, our hostel incharge who was also our fantastic English teacher, walked in. Drama begins. I obviously was going to share the room with my 2 friends who had just got up and had apparently missed breakfast downstairs. She stood at the doorstep and looked hard at us. She then went non-stop about how untidy the room was, why they hadn’t gone down to breakfast and just how immune they were to her words! While this was happening and strongly considering the extremely picturesque colony we lived, one of my friends who got up and stood near the huge French windows suddenly got distracted by the chirping of a bird on a tree. She peered out in curiosity and yes the decibels rose higher and a punishment was meted. The other friend of mine had just stopped staring at the book she was reading, kind of finally book marked the “Stephen King” novel   and looked up in remorse. This whole episode ended with a meek ‘sorry’ from them and our teacher walked over to her daughter’s room from where we heard louder words!

The scene in our room slightly changed now. There was reaction other then curiously peeping at the bird in the tree and getting buried with Stephen King, clothes folding started that to me seemed forever. We all folded and folded clothes. While the cupboards were being cleaned we giggled about the morning scolding and speculated about what her afternoon mood is likely to be. I was appointed for asking her permission for going for the evening open air movie of which we did not even know the name!

The open air theatre that served awesome channa bathura!

We all went down for lunch much ahead of time and I was clearly instructed by my friends that they will tell me just what is edible and the rest can be skipped, “And BD don’t make it obvious…but don’t eat the rasam. If maam sees then just take it in a katori but don’t eat ok. Sometimes sambar is also not ok. Just take rice and chappathi. We will tell you what to do”. It seriously scared the wits out of me. I just decided to follow them every step of the way. Finally the fruit for the dessert was my solace. Through the balcony where we sat, the girls threw some stuff to a dog that came by. The doggy sniffed a long time and then walked away. An uproar of laughter was in the air! Dinner pretty much was more pathetic but as we had permission to go to the movies we ate our hearts out there(Channa Bathura by Kumar anne(that’s what we called him) in Madura Club!) and finally at about 10 pm we sat to actually study. Less than 30 mins had gone when one of us decided we were sleepy and so must have a good bath. Finally after all the activity we got hungry again and this was my highlight! We sneaked down to the fridge and found some custard that certainly was not enough. Quite a brainwave occurred to SS and she suggested to us that we can try the 10 big green plantains on our English teacher’s room . Well to put it straight we all ate the stolen plantains to our heart’s content. There were only 3 left over.

The entrance door to the Hostel..shot after 20 years!

The side view also taken after many years.

We ran back upstairs when we heard the watchman banging and whistling. Life surely was adventurous. We then talked about the day in great humor and of course SL read out a few scary lines from the Stephen King and then we actually slept! A lot of laughter, play, lazying, pretending to clean and study, late baths, stealing food, pocketing the dosa before running to the morning school bus, giggling right through study time, hearing ghost stories and alerting each other of the teacher’s room visits! Amazing memories and when we went there for a class meet 2 years back we stood outside and clicked a lot of pictures and one of my friends actually sneaked out alone to click more with memories streaming in.  

 It was careless fun and laughter that warms our hearts even today as we put these stories together on Facebook and I am hoping this post will trigger more!!