My School !

Disclaimer:Dedicated to all my school friends out there on FB and Whatsapp

Early morning 5AM, spending time on one of the joy full hobbies is bliss . The best part is that  everyone at home are sleeping. This early morning silence is one of the beautiful thing that I admire daily. I have been thinking of writing about this since long back but this post is not about that  and this post is about my school, “St.Antonys Girls Higher Secondary School , Mandaveli”. 

One of the best moments in life are to live the memories once again. It can be anything like talking to your school or college friend, or childhood friend or visiting your school or college. Whenever, I talk to my BE college friends, I feel so happy as its clearly an unconditional happening. I strongly believe in unconditional policies.  Nowadays, I feel people have a condition or expectation to even to converse with you!  But Yeah, I am so lucky to have a pure list of unconditional friends since schooldays to SRM.  I think I am deviating as usual. 

I got so lucky to visit my school to write my Teachers Recruitment Board exam . The moment I saw the venue of the hall ticket, I was flying in the  air and the immediately  I rang my parents and brother to tell this and as I expected they also reflected the same happiness. I had studied in that school from 6^th to 10^th. My LKG-5^th standard schooling was done at Bon secours convent which is next to my Antonys school and they both are sister institutions.  My school has a long history as they celebrated its centenary year when I was in my 7^th standard in the year 1995.  I gave my exam on October 22^nd and I could not wait to visit my school since I got the hall ticket. It’s a government aided school and I was thinking It must have got old and I was having similar visualizations in my mind. To my dismay, my school was standing proudly  as a lion with the same old building neatly maintained. We are polluted with the wrong mentalities that private schools provide good infra structure and discipline and I felt so guilty to have missed to provide such a disciplined education to my daughter. We were welcomed by the NSS team of little girls (Hey my juniors !).  I could see the same old disciple from the way they guided us. On a Sunday, they are doing to this duty dutifully and I cant expect this from my kid who is doing her schooling in an international school.

My eyes searched for all my classrooms.  I could see my 10 A class room which was the last class room in that school.  I was searching for my teachers but I could not recognize any of them. But that day was a complete lucky thing. I saw a teacher who was giving instructions to  us. I dint recognize her in the first sight. The moment she walked, It stroked, Yeah she is MS. Vasantha Kumari, my teacher who turned my life up and down. I  went to her and she said,  You should not stand here and should sit there. Oh wow, she is still with that same strict policies. I asked her if her name is Vasantha Kumari. I can’t be wrong. She said yes. I told her that I am her student and obviously she did not recognize me. I told her about me and What I am doing now. She felt so happy. I got her blessings and she was in tears. I felt so guilty to have made a person to cry who was sincerely doing her duty and did not expect that. I quickly went back to my place and she also got into her work . Those few seconds are  priceless, I would say. Meeting a person who is there still in  your roots holding it tightly is surely a blessing. Only a parent and a teacher can be happy to see you grow better than them.  It happens in our college often. When students come and say that they are placed in companies for 17 lakhs per annum, there is no little amount of jealous involved and only tons of pride involved that my student whom I taught has achieved this.  Proud to be a teacher. VAsantha Kumari mam , Ranjani Parthasarthi mam and TV Geetha mam (Anna University professors) are the golden teachers in my life!

Back to the post. Vasantha Kumari miss was my 7^th class teacher and she was the first one who recognized that I could orate.  Many inspections will be there at my school. On  One such day few students were asked to prepare little talks and I was one among them. That day she said you have capabilities of orating clearly. After that,  I was given few opportunities to give speeches in functions. I cant forget my first speech on Teachers day when I was in my 7^th standard. My father writes the content and he had written about an incident about Dr.Radha Krishnan in that speech. While taking about that incident I got blank and stood still. Few seconds later, I continued my speech which I considered as a big failure on that day .The whole day I was crying.  I still remember how my friends were consoling me. I was surprised to  receive a call from the Head Mistress to give a speech on Childrens day on the same  year followed by my failed attempt on teachers day. We should give rehearsals before our HM . She said you are speaking well but you not giving any hand gestures and  taught me how to  give hand gestures while talking. I use to talk in Tamil those days and I was not fluent in English. I picked it up only in BE Easwari college. Thanks to my friends who always spoke in English and corrected me whenever I spoke with grammar mistakes. Back to post! Back to post! I remember my father will include many thirukkurals  and other Tamil  quotes in my speeches. I will mug up them and speak.  I took part in many speech competitions but I don’t know I could not win them but I continuously took part as I like it.   The only price I won was that second price in the school’s centenary year celebration. May be one of the reasons why I like teaching is that I love giving talks. This quality was recognized, taught and  developed in my school  and Ms. Vasantha Kumari miss is main person behind.

One more rule my school had was to make the students sweep their classes after school hours. We had four groups . I am not sure of the name of the groups. Can any antonys school friend who is reading this  remember that? Each group takes in charge of cleaning for a week.  I also remember that students from various economical back grounds studied in that school from Higher to lower level. I remember daughters of the then state ministers and granddaughter of the late Mr. Moopanar studied there ,when I was there.  I doubt the private schools if they can teach such a discipline to students today and I blame the  current generation parents for the same to raise the child without feeding the disciplines, responsibilities and the necessary  requirements to lead a happy life. I am happy that my school taught me. I also have the responsibility of transferring the same to my kid and if I could do it to her, I am done for the life.

Good Luck to me and Good Luck to you too. Thanks for Reading.