First Day | Class 11 ❤️
[The year I stepped into hostel life for the very first time, as a sixteen-year old lad]
#memoriesfromdiaries ❤️
01 July 1994 – 31 years ago 😊
#MCCSchoolDays #HostelYears #repost
Firstly because, for the very first time in my life I stayed in a hostel, a place far away from my parents, my siblings and my kutty little band of friends.
Yes! far away from my parents, my siblings and my friends – in an ambience where everything and everyone was as new as could be – including my shoes, my bucket and my mattress 😋 - in a home, away from home!
Well, it was on this particularly important day in my life, that I got myself enrolled in the M1 Class (Math, Physics, Chemistry, Biology) for my Higher Secondary Programme, in Madras Christian College Higher Secondary School, Chennai.
Quite early into the morning, and super-excited above everyone else, here I was, wide awake - right from 3.45 am - sleep eluding me all the while because of a pure mad rush of excitement that had gripped me for well over a week now, over the prospects of a newfound freedom that was about to gently dawn on me over the course of the new-born day (and month as well!)
Quite soon - my excitement having got the better of me - I was all dressed up in a jiffy, eager and raring to go!
By 10.30 am, after payment of fees (both school & hostel), I was taken to my classroom by the Assistant Head Master Mr. Sundersingh.
The Math Master was taking class, and everyone in class was studiously taking down copious notes.
And by 12.45, lunch bell rang, and I came down the stairs, and with Mom & Dad, had my tiffin from my lunch box, and quickly again, rushed back for my afternoon classes.
Sharp at 4 pm, the last bell of the day rang, and I hurried down the stairs to see mom and dad, waiting eagerly for me all the while!
Soon, I was admitted in the hostel, and allotted a personal, private cubicle that sported a few wall mounted cupboards - a cubicle that was to be my stay, my ‘residence’, my abode and my home for the entire duration of the year.
Dad and mom went and got me a pair of sports shoes, and a packet of Good Day biscuits. During the course of the evening, and into the night, I had also got quite a few friends for myself.
By 7.25 pm went with my new-found friends as a little band of newbies, all of us equally enthused and excited, for our supper, and then, after our study time, I slept as early as 8.50 pm.
And well, we went to bed a bit early, because, morning sharp at five we were to report at the playground for our jogging, where roll call was also taken; and this was followed by ‘coffee unlimited’ at the Mess, a place which like, - the Coffee Houses of Queen Anne’s time - or the gutters in MCC - where we used to sit and chat merrily with friends for some time!
Well, now coming to the second reason: the moment Dad and Mom had gotten me all the bare necessities that were needed for my hostel stay, and the time of their parting had come, I came out of my dorm, all the way to the main gate that was past the Headmaster’s residence, to bid ta ta to them!
In my excitement and enthusiasm on gaining my newfound status as a hosteler, I quite nonchalantly bid them adieu!
That’s when I sensed, on second glance, that Amma was in tears. Appa was consoling mom. Until that very moment, I didn’t even have the sense or the feel to realise that parting was this painful! But the very moment I saw Amma in tears, I couldn’t resist the tears that were spontaneously rolling down my eyes as well!
And well, on that eventful night I couldn’t sleep! After the last light of our dorm was switched off (by yet another newbie like me, who musta landed from yet another corner of the world), and after silence had taken over the reins of the corridors, here was I, all alone in my cubicle, right-hand resting on my head, on a solemn thinking mode, all through the night, busy thinking and thinking and thinking of the tears in Amma’s eyes, and how Appa was consoling her, saying, “He will get accustomed to this new place. He will be alright! Now, you don’t make him sad with your tears!”
For the very first time I could feel, with such heavy intensity, the pain of parting, deep down within me!
Today, as I write this post, I am able to recollect Tagore’s philosophical lines on ‘parting’, in his memorable short story titled, ‘The Postmaster’. Here goes Tagore –
The postmaster heaved a sigh, took up his carpet bag, put his umbrella over his shoulder, and, accompanied by a man carrying his many-coloured tin trunk, he slowly made for the boat.
When he got in and the boat was under way, and the rain-swollen river, like a stream of tears welling up from the earth, swirled and sobbed at her bows, then he felt a pain at heart; the grief-stricken face of a village girl seemed to represent for him the great unspoken pervading grief of Mother Earth herself.
At one time he had an impulse to go back, and bring away along with him that lonesome waif, forsaken of the world. But the wind had just filled the sails, the boat had got well into the middle of the turbulent current, and already the village was left behind, and its outlying burning-ground came in sight.
So the traveller, borne on the breast of the swift-flowing river, consoled himself with philosophical reflections on the numberless meetings and partings going on in the world—on death, the great parting, from which none returns.
Coming back -
So have I to be all alone here!? When my siblings will be having a gala time 😊with Amma & Appa, to pamper them 24x7! When they both will get all that they need, everything at their beck and call, right royal, while pavapetta me here is marooned on an island…
How long will it be, before I could even think of meeting them all again? 🙈
Will it be a month, or two, or three, or?
Only God (and my warden) knows!
And so it was, that my own red-letter day drew to a wistful close on me, subtly engulfing me with a tinge of fondness and sadness in the process, even as my thoughts and memories kept lingering on me over and over again - on my friends, my family and siblings, on my heavily ‘seasoned’ SS brand cricket bat, my three new stumps, and my sweet little pup Jumbo🐕who ‘wags’ eloquent at my very sight, - something like unto that quaint and weird toxic smell of newness lingering on and on, in equal measure, on my newly bought mattress!
And the ‘morning’ and the ‘evening’ were the first day! 😋
Well, now for some little Diary Study 😊
In our UG Literature Class, I was telling the students about the four broad styles of writing that could be easily remembered under the mnemonic term – DEAN! 😊
D – Descriptive
E – Expository
A – Argumentative [Persuasive]
N – Narrative
Diary writing is a personal type of writing. Hence there is a tone of intimacy in style in such writing.
The diarist doesn’t write for anyone else, but for their own sake. Hence, rigid structures in grammar, syntax, spelling and diction aren't given much of a prominence in personal writing.
The diarist hence focusses only on their own thoughts, feelings, emotions, activities, and interesting, rewarding incidents in the order of time!
Yes! In Narrative Writing, ‘TIME’ is given a lot of significance.
Narrative writing hence would give a lot of importance to ordering events / incidents in TIME!
In his famous critical treatise titled, Practical Criticism, I.A. Richards also vouches vigorously to the four factors that contribute to the meaning of a text!
Says he –
The “total meaning” of a text is a blend of just four factors that contribute towards providing meaning to the text.
They are as follows –
Sense, Feeling, Tone and Intention!
Sense would refer to ‘what’ is said,
Feeling would mean, the ‘emotion or attitude’ towards what is being said!
Tone would refer to the attitude towards the reader,
And Intention would refer to the writer’s conscious or unconscious purpose [or desired effect] that they are trying to produce through the text!
Now, dear reader, I would love to have you go through this diary entry of mine, of well over 31 years ago, and surmise for yourself, the Sense, Tone, Intention and Feeling that you come across in the text!
And the Narrative Time as well! 😊
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