Days in the old school yard

From the albums

(Top row, from left) Mukesh, Md Isaac, Sampath, GV Srinivas, Manohar, Sudarshan S, the author, Dilip, Praveen Reddy, Rajaveer, Jaikumar, two classmates and Sunder Perumal. (Second row) MC Shivakumar, MC Pradeep, Anantha Padmanabha, Amruthesh, two classmates, Nagesh, another classmate, Khaleelulah, Satish, Biju Kurien and Sukumaran. (Third row) S Ramesh, Hafizur Rahman, two classmates, Vinay Kumar, a classmate, Khader, KR Suresh, Rajesh, Sunder G, Dinesh, Suryaban Singh, another classmate, Taj ud Daulah and Shivakumar K. (Fourth row) Balakrishna, Ganesh R, Puttaswami, Chakrapani, a classmate, AV Ramu, Thimmesh, Nalini, another classmate, Prabhu, Yateesh Kumar, two classmates, V Manjunath and Arun. (Front row) Shyamsunder, MB Suresh, Narsing Rao, Asadullah Umri, Harish and Gopal Ambekar.

From being a small boy carrying a bag and lunch box to school, I have surely come a long way. My life has changed a lot but the feeling of nostalgia I experience whenever I think of my primary and high school remains the same. This photograph was taken in 1985, when I was in the tenth standard in Sharada Vidya Niketan (SVN) High School, Malleswaram.

  Our school had a small ground where we could play kabaddi, volleyball and badminton. Those were the days of innocence. Of all the classmates, I was close to V Manjunath, Sudarshan, Sundar, MC Pradeep and Anantha Padmanabha. We were not competitive when it came to academics and would often help each other out.

Some of them lent their books to me to copy notes while I used to have three or four ties in my bag to give them in case they forgot to wear one, to help them avoid getting thrashed or standing in the hot sun. In spite of my disability (hearing impairment and speech defect), my teachers and late mother would take special care of me and I did well in school. I cleared the exams without any difficulty thanks to my favourite teacher Miss Nalini. I am also grateful to all the other teachers  and our headmaster — Chidambara Murthy.

  Some of my classmates from primary school went on to do their high school — MC Shivakumar, Yateesh Kumar, V Manjunath — and some did their college like KR Suresh. Thanks to WhatsApp, Facebook etc, I managed to meet some of my friends from primary school, high school and college after a gap of many years, recently. In January this year, I had organised a reunion. A few of us from high school also met near the school premises in August.

We  got together again a week later in  Manohar’s house. Sukumaran, working in HAL, had come down from Kasargod. Manohar too is an employee of HAL and Taj-ud-daulah is a political party worker, Sampath is a consultant. Vinay works in Le Meridian, Balakrishna is self-employed, Puttaswami is in Mphasis while I work for the State Bank of India. Two other close friends MC Pradeep and Sudarshan work for Julia Computing and in the accounts section of a private company respectively.

Reuniting with friends after 30 years of school was one of the happiest times of my life. Paying a tribute to teachers and friends (Mukesh and Mohan) who are no longer with us was emotional. It is sad that our school does not exist anymore. It has disappeared along with a few other schools in Malleswaram. But we have come a long way in 30 years and it has truly been a wonderful journey.

S Srinivasa Prasad
(The author can be reached at [e-mail])