MY SCHOOL LIFE - A SUMMARY

Junior Years (Class I - IV) 1983 - 1986

Class I had many small incidents to offer. That was the time when I used to get confused between eating and beating. Not knowing the difference between son and sun, I used to wonder why the man in my English textbook called that boy son (with an 'o'). There were times when we would feel a trickle of yellowish water on our heads from the gaps in between the wooden ceiling. The kindergarten classes were located right above our class and some child would have pissed in his/her pants.

Class II was much dreaded with Mrs Joshi as our class teacher. Sangay Dathup used to sit next to me. At times, the class would get to see smoke coming up from within a desk. Sangay and I would be burning incense sticks before pictures of Buddha and Hindu gods placed inside our desks. Sanjay Bansal used to get expensive stamps and stationery to class and try to attract everyone. Animikh had that special childhood crush on Simi Singh that he never quite admitted.

Class III was special in the sense that it gave me my first proper lessons in English i.e. lessons that called for my own initiative. Mrs Beena Pradhan once said in class that we didn't need to speak proper English. We could just begin by using phrases like khais thing (eating), napis thing (measuring) etc, and soon we would be speaking excellent English. Animikh, Amrit and I caught on the idea and decided to speak in English always, even when the teacher wasn't looking. It wasn't before Class V that we ever spoke in Nepali (spoken widely in Sikkim). The Teachers' Day saw the class monitors dancing in the middle of the class to the tune of Brown girl in the ring -- Bonney Dadul and I danced while the class sang.

Mrs Das taught us in Class IV. I had given her a beautiful bouquet of maroon dahlia for Teachers' Day, that Anita didi prepared for me.