6. End Of The Road

If you go around asking, when students are (more correctly, should be) in their peak sincerity during their school life, I am pretty sure most of them would answer Class 11-12. So after almost chilling the hell out for the entire class 11 when the final results came, we were shocked that even after not giving enough time for studies we had performed poorly. We had to pacify ourselves by saying “अबे 11 का result कोई देखता भी नहीं है main class 12 है”. And so, we as a class (Batch 2018) decided that we will have to mend our ways and study seriously for class 12th. 

Arrived the very first day of class 12 and I knew a lot of things were about to change and I kid you not “a lot” was to change from here onwards.

We started off with about 44 students in class 10 and then the number went down to 24 in class 11 and then to 19 students in class 12 (reason, our school did not have an arts stream so students who wanted to opt for arts had to move out). This major wipe-out broke quite a few pairs of friends and some of the most well-known groups. And so basically, there was no option for the last remaining nineteen of us to be picky about whom to talk to and whom to not; which does in no way implies that we all suddenly became best pals or anything, we all still had some unsaid and conventional rules about whom to sit with and where to sit; all this major cut down in the number of students did was got us talking with guys or girls we did not talk much. And I don’t know why but some of my friends will claim that it turned out to be quite an awesome thing for them (wink, wink). 

Now for the two or three of my friends from college who are reading this (unbelievable, why would you do something like this), I did my class 11 and 12 from a high school and not my +1 and +2 from a junior college and so morning assemblies were a thing that we had to tolerate through the last 11 years, and I don’t know what kind of assemblies you had but we had a long and elaborate assembly programmes starting with the ‘prayer song’ followed by ‘pledge’, then ‘thought for the day’, ‘daily news’ a ‘special item (whatever that means) all these going for 20 mins and then for the next 20 mins a speech by some teacher or the principal himself and all these going on while we were being baked under the scorching sun, some of our comrades fainted in this heat, others perspiring enough to fill a puddle. So, when we reached class 12th and heard that we no more needed to attend the prayer I can tell you most of us were elated. Rather, now onwards we were to attend a 30 to 40-minutes extra class, which honestly, I don’t think is a bad bargain in any shape or form. 

The change was in the air once we reached class 12, suddenly teachers became extra serious with our curriculum, extra classes, monthly tests, extra classes by cancelling summer vacations, practical sessions in place of winter break, you name it, we had it. I remember the amount of flak our principal had to receive for his decision of having our summer vacations cut short and conduct extra classes instead, all the students vehemently and logically opposed and countered the ideas (in his absence obviously).

And so we had to attend those extra classes, almost every day of the summer vacation and since it was just a few of us going to school we had to find ourselves a common mode of conveyance and it was when I was introduced to Khaled (or Khalek or Halim whatever, I still have no frickin’ idea what his name is ) and his Maruti Ecco a white mini-van and boy was it a comfortable ride. The van had a seating capacity of maximum eight people and were twelve grownups in that car and how do you think we solved that issue, using the simple rule “If you need a room, make a room”, so very naturally a wooden stool was brought in, the thin guys had to adjust on the laps of the not so thin guys and the front seat was shared so one guy was sitting squished to the door and the other guy had to spread his legs on either side of the gear stand (that sounds wrong). But boy did we have fun, singing all the way, playing some music, random jokes that made no sense and what not! It was just awesome!

Being in class 12 also gave us the power to do something bit unusual, think of it as a special incentive. We got to boss around quite a little bit. The hierarchy was the Principal at the top followed by teachers and then the class 12 students followed by other classes. And how that helps you ask, well it didn't help us per se but gave us a few privileges, the privilege to learn a few top secrets and some hot staffroom gossips. We sometimes got to be in our bossy pants and boss around give out our entire 12 years of your experience to the gullible juniors “अरे ये स्कूल पहले ही सही था, the teachers we had earlier were the best" and “Arre you know what the actual study begins from class 11 before that it's all fun and games" also the classic one "class 11 is much much easier, come to class 12th and you will understand this whole ball game” and never to forget it gave us the prerogative to let out a sigh of disappointment and say “हमारे बाद एक भी ढंग का batch नहीं है! Our’s was the last good batch!” (And very honestly, I won’t like to start a kerfuffle here but it’s actually true)

But on a serious note if there is something that I owe to this whole class then it’s clearly for getting me into the habit of group studies. Class 12 was the time in our lives when we really got into group studies and group discussions. Just us sitting in some random free period and solving questions from either maths, physics or some other subject. Whenever stuck with a doubt going to a friend who you know can possibly help you and placing the notebook in front of her not giving a damn about what she was possibly doing and asking her to solve it for you. And I don’t think anybody has intentionally turned down a request ever, we tried, we tried our best to solve whatever was brought to us, we were in this together. I remember at times preferring to come to school in between the breaks during exams rather than being at home to study cause that’s how much serious and studious the environment used to be. Also, a comparatively lesser number of students studying sincerely obviously meant a treat in the canteen from our English ma’am and thus clearly a win-win situation and these are the things that I absolutely cherish till now. 

So as days went by in this blend of fun and studies there was a lingering sense of sadness somewhere that very soon these will all end. This 12 years of seeing the best and worst of everyone, 12 years of growing together, these years of running jokes all will come to an end. And as they say, time flies faster when you are having a good time, after our preboards in January it all ended rather quite abruptly. Now we had to go to school just for the practical exams and our farewell. And so did the order follow, we had our practical exams (which I am sorry to mention but are nothing but big shams, cause almost magically nobody scores less than 25 out of 30) and then on 14th February our farewells, teachers talked about how our batch was an awesome one, some of us talked about their journey throughout, I was awarded the favourite “Bhaiya” award (Yeah! Not a title to brag about). But you know when do you get the feeling that school’s finally over? It’s after the last exam, we were delirious cause the exam was over and at the same time, there was a tinge of sadness because this was the last exam of our school life. 

We ran out of the school gates planning how we will spend the short vacations after the entrance tests, we shook hands with our buddies we made Whatsapp groups and bade each other goodbye and we promised, we promised that we will be friends

So, I guess that’s that………… 

With this last story, I guess I will put an end to this whole silliness of blogging and to this pretension of treating this thing as if it’s being read by hundreds of people. Cause it’s very clearly just seven or eight of you who accidentally clicked on the link that I shared and got redirected to this blog. Out of which to the four or five of my school friends who are actually reading this and have made it this far I would like to thank you. Thank you for being my companion throughout this. I know we don’t hit it off much nowadays and that's very natural cause we all got busy with our new college life, assignments, submissions, new friends and whatnot. 

But whatever be it I will always be thankful to you guys for being the builders of some of the most beautiful buildings in this memory lane of mine.