It’s a wonderful afterlife!

This is a phase of our lives that we are free. We are over with boards and hopefully not thinking about results, yet.

Here’s my list of three things that are a must-do these days.

1)   Declutter

Throughout the 14 years of your school life, you have been procrastinating, but now you don’t have a choice. You have got to do the cleaning work now, at least for the sake of our mothers. She would be the happiest person to see that the cupboards, almirahs, and boxes overflowing with papers, half-torn books, wrappers of chocolates consumed 1,2,3,4,5, years back, et al. be cleaned.

You might even find curios- an unidentifiable ten-rupee note, that circular for parents-teachers meet that never found its way into the hands of your parents.

2)   Dearly keep or throw deep

list1

This list has the things you ought to keep

1. The paper with the song “dost-dost na raha” written in that ugly, illegible writing of your best friend who was annoyed with you for not having shared your ice-cream or dairy milk silk with him/her. Remember how you both were standing outside for the class when you were caught throwing chits in class?
2. This one, boys only. You’ll find at least half a dozen rakhis that the best girls of your class and school tied on your wrist. If they did not, you have got to check up on your-self and your self confidence at the earliest.
3. Test Papers – and exam sheets.  You will find some of your friends sheets as well. Keep and preserve them for blackmailing your friend throughout life.
4. Stationary items                                                                                                             Believe me, these harbor some of the most precious memories- that expensive pen that you lent to your friend and he chewed it away, that pink pencil which you have used since childhood, that half eaten non-dust eraser, the pen with which you gave your first Board exam!!!
5. certificates and batches- keep them safely after you stop wondering what you had done to give teachers the wrong impression that you deserved to be the prefect, monitor or winner of the Saturday activity…talking of Saturday activity, remember how great friends could turn into foes when put in different competing groups.

List 2

Things you ought to refuse without second thoughts

1. That sticky blackened mass of consumed chewing gum. Throw it away, you filthy boy, because we know girls never preserve a chewing gum.
2. PTM Circulars You never did go; you parents did not even know.Whats the use of keeping, so?
3. School dairy- since we all know it’s only filled with red-hued teachers remarks, if you read at most 3 pages with undistracted attention, you’d end up in a hospital or asylum.

3) Revisit childhood

Simple. Switch on the television and opt for tom& jerry or shinchan, instead of thoughtless surfing.

Read some children’s story books, they are an innocent pleasure to read instead of the senseless, unscrupulous adult fiction.

Try a walk in the park rather than hitting the gym.

and remenber,

This-time-will-never-return-back!

Who said its OK?

The months of January and February were perhaps the toughest time of my life till now- mentally draining, emotionally debilitating, physically strenuous. I will make a frank, honest confession- I badly wanted it all to end.

In the escapade that unfolded, I found out that things are not all as they seem to be.

Five things about Boards et al that I failed to understand.

Five myths about B-O-A-R-D-S busted...

MYTH 1) Boards are just like any other exam.

Come on, we all know they aren’t .the terminals never judges us for life! They were never the parameter to decide what path our careers and our life at large would take, they never evaluated us in totality, and they never made us shriek with paralyzing fear that a single mistake was capable of changing the entire, mind it , entire course of action that our lives are to follow.

MYTH 2) Score well in Boards once and for all, and your struggle will be soon over.

This, you are told in a didactic demeanor by the very person who would, a year from now, be saying the same about college/ graduation. They themselves know that life is a struggle and can never be over but still, obstinately keep on pestering you with highly unwanted advices, and unbelievable, limitless, inexplicable expectations.

In the long run, it would hardly be a matter of prestige if one could score an immaculate 100 in maths or an astonishing 98 in English, what’s really going to matter is the knowledge we accumulated that remains with us for ever.

MYTH 3) Its all hard work.

I am not implying that hard work is useless. No. never. But it can alone never guarantee success. So, when people chide you to study hard and harder from day 1,  surreptitiously, deep within, even they know the role that luck plays here. The mood of the examiner, the length of the paper, the on-the-spot time management etc etc.

MYTH 4) NCERT is enough.

If I be given the liberty and authority, I‘d have given the award of the “FATAL ADVICE OF THE CENTURY” to this one. Teachers, tutors, pass-outs and classmates may consistently and intently explain you how NCERT is “more than sufficient”, but mark my words, they are never enough. Not for economics, not for Maths, not for Physics. Not for practice. Not for Tests. Not for pre-boards. Never for boards. NCERT is essential, indispensable, extremely so, but never ENOUGH. Neither is reference book. Nor are notes. For the Big Day, nothing seems to suffice.

MYTH 5) The sample papers give an insight into the real question paper.

Bah! Humbug! Forget about getting some ditto questions, you might end up answering twisted questions on topics that you considered trivial. Perhaps, the topic is taking revenge on you for having deemed it unimportant.!!!!

School Days......Never Forgotten..

Here's a poem I composed for a Competition.......

O my school! My heart cries aloud,

You alone make capable beings, then upon them proud,

Not just building, put together of cement and bricks and mortar,

The epicenter of the nurture of a rising star,

Library, classroom, sports ground, reception- an adept concoction,

The perennial din of lessons repeated in unison,

The clamour and clatter of desks, and young pupils run,

Mentored by teachers, ecstatic by friends’ fun

Years pass, time for parting, bidding adieu.

A choked heart, dismayed to desert you.

For the fear of a tiny-tot,“ I don’t want to go to school today”

Competed away by fear of sobbing , while reminiscing you everyday.

Each day, my school, each day………