Primary school..

As I go back into the memory lanes of school times, those years seem to have whizzed by. Its like the saying goes....."Time passes quickly when you are happy and having fun." Life was so simple back then. No real worries. Worries were for parents and grownups. Of course, those 'out of the way' classic geeks had there own nightmares of getting 99 out of 100 in the math papers and their dreams of getting 100 on a 100 in the same !!!
Grades 1 to 4 were primary school. The first grade was more a sort of repetition of the kindergarten studies. Nothing had changed much. Our uniforms had changed......Boys in primary school wore a white shirt and grey coloured shorts.....girls wore a grey coloured pinafore and a blouse. Me and ketan still topped our classes. Still, we were'nt the kinda people who would bury their heads in the books. We scored easily. We were good at games like running races, kho kho, 'langdi'. We were allrounders !!! First grade class teacher's name was Mrs Mascarenhas. In primary school we used to have a prayer assembly every day before classes began. We recited prayers and the national anthem. To tell you frankly, it was quite boring to stand in a queue every day.....reciting prayers. We also had a special uniform (white shirt with a big heart on the back of it, and white shorts) for 'Mass PT'...... Every friday, there used to be a double period / class for all the four grades of primary school. All the children were taught basic physical exercises during these classes. New year terms used to start in the monsoons. Children were seen in colourful raincoats splashing in puddles of water, holding their parent's hand and having a time of their lives. Gum boots were very popular with boys back then, although I dont think I ever wore gum boots to school. Every monsoon, I used to ask mom to buy me a pair of gum boots. But my mom always bought me sandles every time, now I dont remember why....never thought of asking her again !!! I used to hate going to school.....especially in monsoons. Just imagine.....You've had a great lunch of hot steaming rice and dal and chappatis....and its cold and raining cats and dogs outside....Would'nt you like to curl up on the bed with a blanket? or would you like to venture outside...in the cold wet climate and go and listen to a teacher's lecture in a classroom which is stinking of people's feet ? Like any normal person, the former option seemed to appeal to me.

Part 3: More of kindergarten

A year passed and I became familiar with more and more kids.....but could'nt accept anyone else as a friend, apart from Ketan. There was one fellow who used to be with me and Ketan at times. His name was Rohit. Rohit was quite a funny type of character (even then !!! How? I'll explain later !!). I dont remember much about him, but would like to mention that he too became a part of andomen!!! We passed with flying grades in our Kindergarten classes (Jr. Kg and Sr. Kg). Both me and Ketan were teacher's pets. She liked us both. I still remember the Kg teacher. The kind lady that she was. Never rapped rulers on kids palms. Always had a way of explaining and a way of keeping the naughtiest of 'guns' under control !!! The days of Kindergarten passed happily and soon it was time to move on to the primary school.

Part 2: Pre- primary school days.

So after almost 8 months of somewhat getting used to a 'school' life, preschooling was completed. The time had come for my parents to secure an admission for me in a good school where I would be completing my pre primary, primary and secondary education. I managed to get an admission into Sacred Heart High School, a convent. Before the pre-primary school started, I was just back from a long summer holiday with my grandparents and the first day of Jr Kg class (pre primary) was much like the first day of preschool for me. Crying my eyes out for mom, new atmostphere, new noisy characters and to my pleasant surprise, Ketan sitting in the very class I was supposed to be in !!! I was a bit happier, on seeing him. We recognised each other. From then on after a few days, we both got adjusted to the surroundings. And we never missed a chance to sit with each other on a common desk. Our pre primary teacher was a very nice lady and let us sit with each other sometimes. The children who went by the school bus used to leave 15 minutes before the others. So half the benches emptied when those 'bus children' left. And a few of us others were the only ones left in the classrooms. Ketan and I then used to keep shifting and changing our places from bench to bench together within that 15 minutes........now that I think about it..........Dont know why we did it.........but maybe it was because we enjoyed watching the classroom from a 'different angle' each time we sat on a different desk !!. It was like some sort of achievement for our kiddish minds......that switching of places. School time over, we used to go to our respective homes and come back the next day to ol' school !!! That was our routine, back then.
As kids, I feel that our potential to 'socialize' is limited. I, as a kid, was quite shy and it was a long time, before, I accepted any new familiar faces as 'friends'. In those terms, Ketan was the only friend, I had in my class at that time. And even if I did get familiar with the other kids, none were 'friends'. Mom once later told me that both of us used to cry if either one did not come to school !!!

Part 1: The beginning of Group andomen.

The first part of this story starts with me and one of my oldest and best of friends. He came to live in vashi probably before I did.
I was a kid of around an age of one when my granddad was in his final years of service to the Indian Railways. During this time we used lived in a joint family in spacious railway quarters in colaba. The colony was called as 'Badhwar Park'. My dad was in Shapoorji Pallonji at that time (a construction company) and his office was at Nariman point. This was a time when my dad was in the early stages of his career. We were a family of four.......Dad, Mom, me and my elder sister. (who was completing her primary education in Pune and was living with mom's parents, who had an apartment in pune.) My dad is and was an ambitious and responsible man. Obviously, his next step to fulfilling his responsibility as a family man was to buy his own house. There was little money in our kitty, but like so many other people of dad's and mom's generation, my parents were the kind of people who had to think progressively and they did. Someone advised my parents to buy a flat in kalwa, thane. And nearly everyone thought that it was a bad idea to buy a flat in vashi, which was, at that time, nothing more than a huge 'jungle' with a few little buildings around. Anyway, my parents did buy a flat in vashi and there is no need, now, to say whether the decision was right or wrong !!!
So till the construction of our new flat was completed we stayed on rent in a 1 room kitchen flat in a building called 'Nutan Shriram'. That was a time when I was around 3 and a half years. My parents send me to a nearby preschool(nursery).
I am quite attached to mom and was even more back then. Never did enjoy seeing mom off after leaving me to preschool. I used to cry for my mom, and keep crying till I finally saw her lovely face after the teaching hours were over. The feeling was probably mutual, coz I saw mom wiping her face once or twice on her handkerchief, when she saw me sitting in that crowd of noisy kids and crying my eyes out for her. She often used to comfort me by saying that she'll remain outside the classroom till the classes end. But even that could not have comforted me. For me, it was like being a babe in the woods. I even remember hugging my mom very tightly after school and telling her through moist eyes in a little voice ........"Aai, Mala parat sodun jaoo nakos" (Mom dont ever leave me again). Unfortunately we dont always get the things we crave for and just like that it was the same story everyday, mom left me and I cried my eyes out. I remember once that on Saturday (Holiday!!!), I slept in the afternoon, and had the horrible dream of being in preschool. Woke up muttering and crying in my sleep that I wanted my mom. Mom held my hands, shook me gently and told me......"Wake up Ravi, here I am, your mom, dont cry." But for a minute, that it took for me to completely awaken, I kept muttering about the same. Finally after I woke up fully and saw my mom, I realised it was her and put my little arms around her !!! I dont know why, but that memory still remains strong to this day. I remember that moment of relief as if I saw it yesterday.
After some days, although reluctant to go to preschool, I was finding it easier to complete classes without crying. It was also during this time that I had made a friend, a face whom I could recognize everyday and be comfortable at the sight of that person being in school. The feeling was just like meeting someone familiar in a crowd of strangers. This was where I found my first friend, a friend who was going to be a friend for a very long time as I realised many many years after those days in preschool. His name was Ketan Chaudhari. He was born in Jalgaon and 'being brought up' in vashi. His mom and my mom too got to know each other as well after a few days. Our meeting each other,in those days is, I believe, the start of 'group andomen'. There are some good things which are destined to happen, and having good friends from such an early age was something which was destined to happen to me.
Ketan and me, met in preschool days and went on to become very good friends.

Andomen: Prologue

I'm gonna tell you a story. Whenever I think about my past and my present, life seems to have changed so much. My experiences have taught me that changes have to happen, and we have to adapt to them as quickly as possible. As we grow we realise that childhood is a phase which we have enjoyed the most. Its a time when you can express your feelings freely whenever you like , you can laugh out loud, cry when you want to, shout and yell, jump up and down in joy and play in the mud, without any dignity hangups if you want to. You explore the world and in the process get a chance to make new friends, which apart from your parents add new joys to your life.
Since I ain't very good at philosophical stuff anyway, I'll start my story right away. So this story is about friends. Friends who have probably been friends for such a long time now and are yet very much in each others hearts. Even if, not everyone is together in the same place where all of them grew up, each one has preserved the others in their memories, permanently.
This is the story of the 'andos' . My very own circle of best friends (strange name as it may seem, we call ourselves as andos). I dont know how big or how small the story will be. I dont even know how many parts / chapters it'll contain. I dont know whether I'll finish it or not. I dont know whether I'll even do justice by writing the story, so great are those memories.
Anyway, I'll try to revisit them and enjoy.