World Cup Fever!

With the world cup in full swing, One funny thing we used to do at school while playing football comes to my mind.

If there is a foul by a 'handball'.. All of our guys used to scurry around the hapless soul who fouled screaming Hands! Hands! Hands! And here comes the funny part.. We people used to say "Five feet, Five Hands" and some other brilliant chap would actually measure the distance from the ball to the first opponent nearer to it using his hands and feet counting five units each!! Funny times, Nice memories nonetheless!! :-) :-)

Numero Uno!

I remember the time when we got our hall-tickets to write the government controlled exams. Our guys would add up the individual numbers of the Registration Number and would give their opinion on the total! A total of 8 was considered unlucky with people booing guys who got an unfortunate '8' that they would fail in the exams! All for the sake of a few laughs, but nobody was taking any chances! Ha ha ha!

I remember Syed from my batch, he got an '8' I think and he was nervously walking around, asking everyone who came across whether it was alright if he had a total of '8' in his registration number! Syed, are you there??? :-)

The Skeleton Room

All of you guys must remember "the skeleton room"! That is the room that was in the small building housing a water tank between the First Standard Building and the Higher Secondary(of long back! The whole layout is changed from 2004) The room where late kitaan used to keep his belongings and which was an electricity control room of sorts. Our(my batch and below!) good ol' seniors used to scare us by telling us that there was a skull or a complete skeleton inside that room.

All of the tiny graders used to scurry off whenever we came across the open door of the building! So funny to recall everything now!

Also, the lower kindergarten and younger standards teachers used to keep pupils under control by scaring them that there was a huge dog that was tied up in a Dark Room near the Games room and that they would throw us into the room if we were upto any type of mischief. The actual location of the room was a mystery, But courageous young kindergarteners would look into every room around the games room area. There was a dog, but not of the type that was used to keep us in line! But the scare was enough to keep us in check! I really dont know what they tell now to keep the students in check, Rhinos in the staffroom maybe!(no pun intended)


Come to think of it, there was a good ol' carpenter named Pete or Peter, Dont know what happened to him, During many of our investigations to find the mising Dark Room, we'll go near his residence(behind the former canteen near the ground) and he always used to shoo us off, going to such lengths as to throw pieces of wood at us!(I'm not sure if I remember this part correctly, Could have been a whacko classmate too!!)

I even remember those reddish orange gulmohar flowers embracing the former canteen in a warm hug, with students scurrying to buy samosas and whatnots in the small window of the canteen. Staff used to get first preference and they used to sit right inside the canteen. Some of the students who made friends with the canteen guy used to use the narrow escape at the side, the door near a huge tree to get express orders! The mad rush was not because of the time constraint that our fifteen minute break imposed on us, but it was rather the shortage of "pups"(that triangular samosa, not anything else, you dirty guys!) and other eatables that would get over soon!!

Some girly guys even used to pick up some of those flower buds and make "nails" out of it! Pasting them on thier hands!!

After school, usually we used to play games in the ground. That was a different story, We actually had to shell out a few coins to get a "Ball", be it a football or a basketball or a volleyball! And that too, only a few known people had that type of authorization!!

Volleyball was a very good past time that the Higher Secondary Students always had a hold on, maybe all of them(us - at the time that I am thinking, I am a smaller chap), maybe all of them had put on weight and had some difficulties playing other games that required some extra movements of the limbs. Or maybe they just would not take the risk to tire themselves out as they had a monotonous study session up ahead for the Grand Finale in the end! But volleyball was a game that the twelfth standard had a hold on! Many younger chaps would wait upto 4:30 or so to just play a game after the senior annas have finished!

Cricket was allowed, but using the BasketBall posts as stumps were banned as students regularly broke the shell apart when playing with "Cork" balls. Hand Cricket was allowed though!!

After playing, water at the taps.. Nice and cool!!

Games period!! Getting beated up red and orange on the underside for not wearing the proper uniform such as absence of Canvas shoes, Shorts(though full lenght trousers were allowed in the higher standards due to.. hmmm.. Never mind!) People used to stand in line, then according to some rotten schedule, each house got to play some game. After that, our beloved Kulandhaisamy master or Lazer or the late Vincent Master would blow the whistle. Some rules were imposed during our last few years, like a first whistle would announce stop of play and we were supposed to stay put at the same place, a second whistle to form a line and a third to start running towards the main gathering! Then there will be the queue with one half going to the restroom and the others to the water tap. During my time there, there was a funny incident when Master L in some thought said "Go for water, Drink Toilet", Loud guffaws could not be suppressed and everybody burst out laughing much to the chagrin of the staff!! Ha ha ha ha!! :-)

Nice memories, And to top up all of it, I found a few CDs of mine, some three years old, having quite a lot of photographs of my batch, Found a photograph of my batchmates taken during the the Sports Day Celebrations, someday in August 2002! I'm the first Britto guy at the bottom if taken from the left! Click on the image for a larger preview! Enjoy!

ABCD...
School life was and will be better than anything else. I have seen people complaining about education and academics when I was actually studying at Carmel saying the standards have gone down and the like. But Carmel really does make a big difference.

Last week, Google had come searching for potential employees at my college, The initial test was a grammar and punctuation test, which I could figure out with relative ease while all the others, even those from reputed educational institutions(I dont like to name them) struggled to take the test.

I dont necessarily have to mean that only Carmelites top english.. It just shows the effort and pain that our teachers of yesteryears took to get us moulded.. Because, normally, it is best that we get our spoons of english right at an early age instead of trying something later on(though it is possible). By the efforts taken by our teachers, we are already one step ahead! This was confirmed by Sidharth Ramakrishnan, a fellow carmelite who attended the same test and observed the same problem among the others! Our lower grade teachers do make a lot of difference! And they must get recognition for thier work!

I remember Ms.Mary who corrected me when I was in the first standard: I spelt 'island' as 'issland'. Instead of just telling the correct pronunciation, she called me aside and briefly explained to me that there were words in english that had so called 'silent' letters which weren't supposed to be spelt out.. like 'hour' and (well.. i dont seem to get any word in my mind now! :-D) so on.. I understood something that day and it has been with me till this day and will be.. They take great efforts and they must be recognised, in some form or the other!

Nostaligic Recollections

Carmel Garden, the great place on earth, the origin of my education and most importantly the place for all fun and frolic of my lifetime. Carmel Garden, my school, presents nostaligic moments that still fill me with fun and laughter when I just retrospect those lovely school days. There are quite a lot of fun to share about the happenings in Carmel, what shall I say now, shall I say about being bashed for eating the banned chewing gum inside school during those days. Or shall I tell about being caught and punished by our teacher when I stuck a long paper tail to the pants of my friend. Ahhh!!! those days........., still evergreen in my memory when I recollect them in my leisure. And it goes without saying that Carmel did really lay a great foundation to what I am now. I hope that I would blog all those fun filling moments in the days to come. Until then...