Dedicated to all my friends..... !!!

To be able to study in a good school is a luxury not everyone would get,and to be able to share a classroom space with a batch of 25 wonderful friends is a luxury which I would say,is destiny.

I had one such batch, and I studied in one such school .The batch that made everyone sit and notice, where no-one ; neither teachers nor parents or others seemed to disagree to the fact that it was perhaps the perfect batch chinmaya vidyalaya kollengode had ever produced. A versatile blend of tremendously gifted students which included outstanding dancers, actors, singers,painters,athletes and leaders.We had them all, in 26 people. We stood second to none in academics. We were the first batch to get the signature of the head of chinmaya mission, all over the world, H.H. Swami Tejomayananda Ji in our cultural album.We were the first group from our school that officially went to the kollengode palace as if it was a tour ! We were the first batch in school that released the Cassette of a Radio Program.Hell, We were the batch that nearly got a teacher out of school. In short, ours was the only batch in school which ever came close to immortality.But immortal? We were not gonna be.


This blog is about the Rise and the Fall of my batch. Yes. I know it sounds confusing when I say such an amazing group of students would fall apart.Thanks to time and other factors that are beyond my scope of understanding ( well maybe mis- understanding,lack of communication etc), a lot of us are far apart; despite a few of us managing to cling on to our closest buddies.Thus a unit of 26 good friends was broken down into a unit of 4 or 5 group of best friends and other friendships were lost in the tide of time.What did i get out of it? Nothing but people whom i call my best friends.Friends whom I can count on,friends who have witnessed my ups and downs, who have always been a source of inspiration and joy.
My life's golden period took me through some truly wonderful moments and thus to pen them all down would be an insurmountable task.But through this blog I give it a shot.My attempt might draw resemblances with Cristopher Nolan's classic movie " Memento " with events in disorder. But at the end of the day, I suppose everything that's worth a mention would surely make an appearance in here.The sequence in which i narrate these events are highly immaterial for it's my batchmates to whom i'm dedicating this blog and they know this tale just as well as I do.


November 19th is a day I still have in my mind.I don’t know why I seem to remember the date so much.It was 6 years ago and I still have the month and the date in a corner of my brain.In comparison, I seem to forget the most remarkable and often important details when it comes to studies.There could be a reason why I still remember that day, That was the day we went for our school tour to chennai and pondicherry.That was the beginning, " The beginning of the end "
After years of studying together,there had to be a souvenir for us to remember,and this trip would be it.It would give such photographic prints in the minds of my friends which I suspect, time would have to struggle hard to erase.

We left the school at 6 in the evening.After starting our journey from the school campus,all of us settled down. I was partially upset coz one of my best friends was sick and couldn’t come with us.But soon my class teacher/English teacher would cheer me up and I would get back to my normal self once again.I was at my destructive best when I was with this wannabe-actor cum talented mimicry artist friend of mine with whom I pulled the legs of our music teacher.Our combined attack was a lethal combination that could thwart any resistance which lacked great presence of mind.
We were speeding past palakkad and coimbatore, having a great time dancing inside the bus and before we knew it, we reached the border of erode.Me and 4 of my friends got down to eat with my maths sir cos we didn’t have a stock of packed food.This was a preplanned move from our side . The idea was given by “ yours truly “ so that we could get down from the bus and eat outside .:D.In half an hour’s time, we were all back traveling again,with a stop of about 5 mins in between, so that our friends inside the bus, excluding the 4 of us, of course, could attend to ‘ nature’s calls’ , for we already did ‘ our bit ‘ in the hotel itself !

It was close to 12 when lights were turned off fully, I could vaguely see my geography teacher talking to my class leader.Perhaps they were discussing about when we were most likely to reach chennai.I glanced across my right to see my class teacher gently falling asleep.I decided to go to sleep myself.It was 3 or 4 a.m, early morning hours when I got up first to notice that I was sleeping next to a friend of mine. (whose house incidentally is still, just 20 meters away from mine). My class teacher and our music teacher occupied the seats on the left side of the bus corresponding to our seats( which were to the right).I went to sleep once again and nearly woke up again, realizing that time was 5.30 and light was slowly defeating darkness.But it took a heavy thud to wake me up from my sleep.
I woke up and to my surprise/shock/astonishment my friend was on the floor, and my music teacher was laughing as if she was watching the russel peters show.I looked up and saw a vikram movie running on TV.Still confused, I watched as my friend got off to his feet,( dissing the bus driver and telling me how poorly he was driving) recovering from his fall , which was thanks to his deep sleep and the sharp sudden break of the bus.

The movie got over a few minutes before we reached chennai.By 7 a.m we moved to the place where arrangements had already been made for our accommodation.After an hour,we were all ready for our trip of the chennai city.The government museum was the first target." Museum? what the heck? " I thought to myself. Considering it to be a boring affair, I decided that I would try and enjoy the places and the sights on the road. It was then that the sound of my maths sir echoed in my ears. He was giving a live account of how and where we were going.In his own trademark and immaculate way,he kept everyone tuned to his voice.He gave a detailed description of the route and we were all ears,appreciating his skills.I should say that his short speech, soon made us all active and got us into the spirit of enjoying the tour
The museum didn’t give me much to cheer about except a few paintings, and rare collection of sculptures or god knows what? To be very frank I wasn’t interested at all.I was trying my best to take a sneak peek to see if there were any beautiful chicks around, but then again, a museum sounds like the last place where beautiful girls would spend their day ! Cursing my luck I got back into the bus, but there were some nice moments too, with a few of my friends and myself posing for photographs near the gallery of the museum.

By the time we left the museum, I was feeling hungry,I didn’t know what to do though.Cos I was unsure whom to turn to for help.Everyone seemed to be hungry, but we were all back to out energetic best again when we heard that we were gonna visit a planetarium. Well this was something I thought would be interesting.We reached kotturpuram in south chennai and got inside the birla planetarium.I was impressed with the security arrangements which seemed to be very good.They let us in after they were convinced that we were a group of visiting students and teachers .When we came inside , waiting for the next show after getting the tickets,we saw something very funny.A coolie (A guy who lifts weight , generally in railway stations) with his hands on a policeman’s shoulder,was laughing merrily and talking ! And it was then that we were informed about some kinda shooting that was scheduled there." No wonder the security is tight" , I thought.We saw around 50 junior dance artists before we went inside the theatre.The planetarium hall was A/C with seats arranged as if it was an amphitheater with circular stepwise arrangement of seats.I grabbed a seat next to the friend who fell from the bus seat early in the morning.Lights were off, and we had to just relax on our chair which was bendable nearly to 135 degrees.Of course , we had to look upwards to see what was happening on the screen.It was about the big bang theory and the expansion, birth of the universe ! heavy stuff, I know, but nevertheless it was a good experience.Controlling my sleep, I glanced around to see my friend sleeping again, and showed him to my teachers and other friends who made fun of him.

We left the theatre and started walking randomly inside the auditorium in groups;there seemed to be no teachers all of a sudden, no one to guide and what we were exposed to seemed kinda like a science exhibition fare which demonstrated the basic principles of physics in a way that made us look at them in amazement.I walked here and there and didn’t care to turn and see who were or weren’t with me. I waited near a huge machine kinda thing which had a few long pipes connected to it’s inside. It required the watcher to put a ball , of the size of a cricket ball into the pipes, which were interconnected in such a way that the it does work by moving a few pistons which came in its path, and the piston in turn, did some work.Potential energy conversion to kinetic energy." Law of conservation of energy " I knew, But the word energy reminded me of food, and food reminded me of hunger, and hunger reminded me of friends and the tour and I soon realized that I was all alone standing in the 2nd floor of the auditorium, lost. I tried to find my friends, but none of them were visible.Tensed,I hurried downstairs but yet no one was to be seen. I went again towards the ground floor and called the names of all the friends I could think of, but none of them answered me." I’m damned ",I thought. Trying to keep calm I decided to check the 1st and the 2nd floor before arriving at the decision that everyone had indeed left.

I came down and hurried to the entry gate and what I saw there was unbelievable.Everyone who came with me was standing side by side in a straight line, watching something very closely, with a few people murmuring with exclamatory words of excitement.I ran towards them , greatly relieved for having found them,but what I saw there was too good to be true.Actor vijay, was listening to his director explaining him about the scene ! The exclamation which echoed in chorus from our mouths made the shooting organizers ask us to keep peace and move away from the sets ! we watched vijay from different angles before our teachers came and told us it’s time to leave.Unable to believe what we had just seen, and also having forgotten our hunger momentarily,we cursed the teacher once again for bad timing.While we were about to leave, one of my friends( who would later become the topper in the class in 10th) ran towards a car parked nearby.He went close to the car and kept his eyes on the windows as if to see who’s inside.We were laughing at him, and his act, but moments later he ran towards us saying,“ it’s sneha, it’s sneha, I saw her !! “. We were soon told that sneha was the heroine of the movie,and as luck would have it, only my friend got the chance to see her, and that too from so near.

Ignited by hunger we got inside the bus,with the terrific turn of events still inside our minds.I was already thinking of narrating the incident to my mom and dad after reaching home, and was thrilled at the thought of the excitement and impression it would leave on their faces .Hunger reached it’s pinnacle and thankfully we got food at last.Literally too, we were the last group which was served, cos all the other tables had waiters and supposedly the table where me and my friends sat,didn’t have any.The clock struck 4 when we started walking towards the snake park in adayar- guindy after lunch. I soon had butterflies in my stomach when I heard the name of adayar , for I knew it was the place where IIT chennai stood.The place from where I was longing to do my btech from( but as it would turn out later, it was not to be).Snake park was a lot of fun with all kinds of snakes inside glass enclosures and a lot of other curious looking animals inside the park.We went out through the gate and were soon walking towards guindy when we saw iit madras campus on our left.So after a heavy day full of enjoyment and events, we got off inside the bus one last time to go to the marina beach.This was the place which i was thinking about all the way from school to chennai !

It was evening, and the sun was just about to set in the marina beach.Me and a few of my friends got down from the bus with a cricket ball and our intention was to fun in the beach and fun we had !
We enjoyed a lot in the beach for about 3 hours,playing with the sea water and often teasing the tides.I just went a few meters far from our group to take a look at my friends.They all seemed to be so happy together,and deep down I was thanking god that I was in their company.Never in my life till then,did I experience so much of happiness,which was so exothermic.
We were tired by the time we reached the place of accommodation which was nothing but an auditorium, which looked like a dorm. I was tired so I decided to get ready to sleep.Trying to close my eyes to sleep, I could see my friends playing antakshari etc.They weren’t feeling sleepy perhaps… ( To be continued )