I was in Miss Padmaja’s class. She took physics every first period. We had special classes at 8 ‘o’ clock by Miss Pushpalatha, most of the students will be late and never entered the class because of her scolding. My friend Thushara joined our school again in this year. Soon Rasheeda, Sruthi and Nibha left our gang. But it didn’t make any difference we were always happy and unique in our ways.
Once there was an accident in our way to school. During one special class Nibana and Shabdi were in auto and they collided with a coming van. The auto driver avoided a big accident by hi miraculous move. Nothing happened to our friends. I was there when the accident took place. Nibana cried very well from class. Miss Pushpalatha comforted her. Shabdi was cool as ever J another important thing about Shabdi is that she never cries no matter what happens to her. She was a very fumy witty person who made jokes on each and every topic. Miss Padmaja was her favorite.
We got lucky here, because our teachers planned to have a HSS band in the youth festival. Most of the members in band team were in HSS so this favored the promotion of band in HSS. I was there in band playing Effonium. I had never been in the school band but as the team members were short I got luck. It was easy to read Effonium, I missed it in HS section, but no worries I am happy now. I just wanted my dad’s permission even though he disagreed in beginning he later approved. Rasheeda was the band captain. It took a couple of weeks to learn the moves of band team for me. We had practice in St Michael’s ground. We first got screwed with position when we played first time, but we got adapted soon. Sist Vinaya & Miss Pushpalatha was in charge of the Band team. During our district level competition only we were there as band team. I got little fussy in position making, but it was rectified in the state level competition. I used Sruthi’s cap in district level she was searching for it all over the place; lucky she didn’t check mine. Poonam, Shabdi, Anashwara & I were always together in band team and roamed together. Poonam took more initiative in teaching me how to play Effonium. Shabdi & Anashwara were Drummers and Poonam played trumpet. Miss Pushpalatha didn’t come with us in state level competition due to her illness. All teachers wished us good luck for state level competition. Miss Bindu who was on leave due to pregnancy called us in phone and wished us good luck.
Thushara and Greeshma used to sit in the class when we had band practices. Thushara always told to me about the pranks and incidents that occur in the class while we were out. She used to get tired by telling Miss Bindu’s joke. But we used to enjoy it a lot.
Sist Vinaya, Mr. Rodney was with us in state level competition. We were so lucky and good that we got ‘A’ grade in the state level competition. Only 3 teams got ‘A’ grade in state level, that too only girls’ teams got it. So naturally the boys’ team got angry and they fought with judges, there were some problem there and police had to come to settle the problem. We performed in evening and by night the program was over. One hour we waited for the result and were tensed till the last moment. Our code number was called at last and we were so thrilled to hear it. Hurray we won!! And booooooooom there were celebration. Sist was very much worried about our security and she told us to get into the bus soon. Mr. Rodney, our peon was there with us to help. We were welcomed back in the school like heroes. J J
Greeshma too participated in youth festival in dance item; she got ‘A’ grade in district level. Rasheeda also participated for elocution like that. I don’t remember her result. HSS life was not as rocking as HS life there are many reasons for it. We were always in the upper most floors and detached from the school indirectly. Principal won’t take care of us. Actually HSS need to have a new principal but the school principal was doing it for the time being so she was not much interested in it. Sist Rosaritta was our new principal, but she never cared for us. She looked at us as if we were some kind of burden. The teachers in HSS section always tried to focus on studies and never encouraged for any other activities outside the class, they were lazy to do another work. But I can’t say full teachers were like that, there were few teachers who always supported us for outdoor activities and so on.
We had Onam celebration and it was hosted by HSS section. We hosted it like a drama and program in between, it was a grant success. We were allowed to wear saree on that day. Only Greeshma wore saree in our gang and the rest wore casual dress. Later on Greeshma too shifted on casual dress. We had a good day.
About our practical classes, we had physics, chemistry, botany and zoology practical classes. I was very afraid of chemistry practical because I never got properly any cation or anion of salt in salt analysis. This made me more worried, even my partner Benazir helped me, but always I messed up. But in exam I got salt (Zn and Ca) I was so happy finally. We did volumetric analysis in ‘group’. So I hated chemistry practical.
Physics was super. It was a group work and didn’t have much trouble, even in exam it was ‘group’ work. I helped many students during practical exams. I helped Anju Ann reji, Thushara and so on. Thushara had some trouble in the practical and she said she would have failed in exam if I didn’t help her. Thank God I helped many and I got very good questions. Then there was viva and I answered well. The external Sir asked some question which we couldn’t answer but I got questions which I knew.
Botany was always good and enjoyable, so tension free. Just had problem in staining as stain wouldn’t go up with the plant cell as we imagined. But miss was always there to support and help us. Her jokes made us tension free. We loved her so much. We had a project in botany. It was a group project but I did it myself. I didn’t ask the suggestions or help from the group members as I already got materials from a book. I did a project on “myths about plants” it was a super project and we were the first one submit it. The external teacher who came for the inspection of our class also liked it very much. We had an individual collection of Herbarium too. I was one among the few who first submitted it, Poonam and I were happy when Miss Bindu displayed it in class. We were so thrilled
Zoology lab was good, but didn’t had gr8 fun. We used to pull legs of our friends. We had cockroach digestive system dissection. We used to collect sample from our house late nights, it is a gr8 time actually. Some brought many specimens as if they were having factory procustion for it. It was gr8. I couldn’t forget the practical exam, though we didn’t copied this time it was fun. Simple dissection and spotters, all wrote the exam without any errors only Poonam had a wrong in identification of spotters. Miss Ancy was our zoology teacher, in second year she was on leave for sometime as her home was shifted, but soon she came back. Meanwhile Sist Betty was taking classes for us. Sist Betty took Mathematics for HS section. So we didn’t really appreciate her teaching. Our question was how a Mathematics teacher could take zoology class. But soon Miss Ancy came and problem was solved.
I remember that Thushara said our HSS section teachers and teaching quality was not standard enough. That’s why she joined Chinmaya first but soon she joined us in second year. It really doesn’t matter who teaches you, we just need a good environment for studying that’s all J
On our last day of exam we planned to go late from the school. There were some film shooting going on the near by cathedral so we visited that too. There was mallu film crew which included Thilakan, Bhama, and Manikuttan and so on. The film might be a flop because we never heard anything about that film later. Then we went to the beach actually we could see the sea from our school itself. Anashwara took videos of it. Shabdi took photos in her camera. We went to the backyard of our cathedral and played well. None of us cried during sent off. All were very happy.
We planned for a tour in last year but it didn’t work out, the school management didn’t allow us to go anywhere. They didn’t wanna take risk. The tenth and +2 tour was cancelled.
Miss Bindu used to tell us not to bring any Ladoo, jilabee or sweets like that after result publishing. She boasts that she is tired of eating so many sweets. J She was always funny. When our result came I got 98% mark. It was a great mark. Only Rasheeda, Suhana and I got that marks. Sister could have given us something special instead she gave us normal memento. She gave memento only to scholars who got ‘A’ grade in all subjects. That was not so nice; there were many students who just missed ‘A’ grade in Malayalam. I felt sad for them. One collector came for the felicitation program. He was very good and he shared his experiences with us. When we departed from the school all had many dreams. Most of them wanted to become engineers and doctors, so now I’ll tell you the tale about the entrance exam.