Along The Memory Lane.......The Echo Of A Battle Paean*........

 "*": paean is a battle cry, a cheer or a slogan. Take your pick

Shook from the golden bough of cobwebs high above in the dizzying heights of the ceiling, dust turbinated down and down, with a deliberate languor that spoke of arrogance and even a self styled Godly persona. In a sluggard pace that could have rivaled even the slowest of snails, it spiraled down and down. The crowd watched, fascinated as their mesmerized eyes followed the swaggering descent of the dust particles. But as the descent shifted their focus to a lower part of the X-large auditorium, the eyes of the 400 strong crowd as well as that of the few players on the court fastened on what was present to the rear end of the hall.

A fifty strong mob stood there.

 Silent and watchful.

 Bunched up together, their eyes and ears as one, strained intently for that blast of whistle that seemed not to be coming soon. They were a single entity. Not many. But one. A restless dog straining on his leash. A lion caged and bound, raring to pounce, seeking out the prime time.

Then a shrill blast echoed from the puny whistle on the hands of the referee. Simultaneously, with a co-ordination to rival even that of the best of choirs, a few voices rose up from the rear…..

“
Arre Sabse Aage Ladke Kaun??”

Almost as if on cue, five hundred voices battered the ear drums as one…

“LOYOLA…..LOYOLA….”

************************************************


This is cheering, chanting and requiem, the Loyola style.

In the last five decades Loyola has emerged as the undisputed best in this country of God. The rampaging lion, lord of the forest, the Manchester United in the EPL, the Illuminator who elucidated the untraversed trails to the ones who toiled hard to simply tag along from behind.

But why?

The question indeed has perturbed the greatest of minds all these years. Schools wondered, teachers gaped aghast and students, well, they just sat there swore out aloud,” What the FUCK is wrong with them??”(Least they could do, actually. After all one must always do what one does best.)

Well, this is us. This is our school. No, strike that. This is our home. The entity that made us the individuals who we claim to be today.

We belong here. No where else.

Here, as the fag end to my long yet so short stint in Loyola looms ominously closer and closer, it is the spirit Loyola instilled in me that I remember most today. Cheers and chants find the now-so-familiar path to my tongue even in the most unlikeliest of times( like the time when I was so kindly “requested” to grant audience to the principal and the time when I was writing a stupid exam with 150 or so other souls. Well, in the latter situation, I had nothing constructive to keep me occupied anyway. So I guess for once I could be pardoned). These battle cries of Loyola have become so tediously familiar to my family that they so conveniently tell me to shut my trap every time I get a bout of cheering. Well, easy for them to say. 

    

For they are so at ease, being blissfully unaware of that feeling of exhilaration we Loyolites receive, every time our voices are pressed to service for our school.

It is indeed this attitude, this spirit, this relation with our alma mater that sets us apart.

One distinction that took Loyola to the top of the food chain.

It was one fine morning in the eve of the grand daddy of ‘em all, La Fest, that the pride of being a Loyolite reached its peak. The days that followed helped us concrete that belief. But that is another story, eh?

It is a feeling so indescribably satisfying that we receive when we join in the cheering for our school. That inexplicable contentment. The feeling of elation and exhilaration. Nothing in my life that I have experienced has had this effect on me, or my friends, so to say.

It will be with the greatest amount of regret that bye the end of 2011, that 150 souls will step out of that seventeen acres of heaven on earth, past that wrought iron gates.

But we will not perish.

For,

Once A Loyolite, Always A Loyolite.


Coz till the end of our days, we will be able to call out thus:


"People Wanna Know,
Who We Are
So We Tell Them
We, Are The Loyolites"

The Ramblings Of A Young Mind

Who am I?

 One of the most far reaching questions ever. Adam asked it, when devil and his loved one tempted him with the apple(didn’t know till then that an apple could also be a temptation…..ugghh!!). And I ask it too, even today, even now. The question haunts me: In my thoughts. In my words and in my deeds too. Like A stalker with his victim in sight it has followed me all through….right from the time I learned to think straight.

SO WHO THE HELL AM I??

I searched far and wide. Deep and high.  And the answer dawned on my brain as I sat dreaming in the Maths class…. I jump up, bang my hand on the plank of wood in front of me (Oops!! Sorry!! It was just my desk….) and looks around jubilantly…… right into a pair of beetle-black eyes. Then a voice uttered: “GET OUT!!” Oops!! The teacher. Shit! Fuck the piece of inspiration and its awkward timing. Dragging my feet nosily (purposely of course!!) I make my way out. My head was bowed. But my heart thrummed with excitement. The hunt had reached its last chapter. Now all I had to do was to read the epilogue.

Transition: From the airy classroom, I walk into an altogether different world. Paradise, heaven,( Take your pick mate, do I look as if I care??) smote me full on the face as I emerged from the room. Loyola greeted me with its usual splendor. The sight of THE heaven that I have been seeing for the past seven years and one which never tires the eye ignited a warm glow in my heart( Sorry. I tend to go on like this. It is about Loyola after all, isn’t it… ). This was school. No. This IS home. The abode of 1763 souls(yup! Took the number!! ) who are groomed to take on the world. This is heaven indeed.

It was seven years back that I ventured into this tropical paradise. A puny youngster who was scared of school, teachers and even his own class mates. I remember the first day at school when a two-feet twenty pounds “giant” terrified me. Well, that was me. A cry baby. One who cried for his mother to take him home when she so unwittingly came to school. Soft-spoken and timid to the core.

But that was how things WERE. Not how things ARE. Time has evolved. And so have I. Years have passed since then and even as I stood outside gazing perplexed at the brightly(and recently) painted rail, I knew deep inside that some change had consumed me. It had always been there. I was just, you know, dumb enough not to acknowledge it.

 The puny youngster was engulfed, gagged and washed away in a wave of raw change.

In his place now is a changed person. A total stranger to the little young one of those past years.

The Abin Francis who ventured past the wrought iron gates one hot afternoon all those years back is not the Abin Francis of today. The world has changed. Loyola has changed. But it has taken its students along with it. For I am one of the thousands molded by Loyola. Like the many before me and the many after me, I am different. Unique to the point that what you see here, what you hear here, what you experience here, is not up for grabs anywhere else. Unique to the point of non-existence….

….As I stand there, I leg propped on the wall, reclining, feeling the cool breeze on face, into the periphery of my vision, a white clad figure walked in(guess who ):The Principal had come for me. Swearing profusely at anything and anybody I could think of, I spun around slowly to face disaster. But as I did so, the fucking realization dawned on me, once again, yet again displaying its lousy sense of timing, its total lack of consideration for me and its endless desire to dump me unceremoniously in crap holes….. But as one hand stretched out to my ear and a much revered(and equally feared!! ) voice questioned the teacher at length regarding the sudden stroke of inspiration that prompted her to so kindly exclude me from the class, my heart leaped joyously with triumph and these words blazed clearly in my mind, as if seared in the very fires of the purgatory:

I am Abin Francis and I………I am a Loyolite..

Hell Is Right Here....Right Now...

".............Cut my life into pieces
              This is my last resort
              Suffocation
              No breathing
              Don't give a fuck if I cut my arm bleeding........."


 .....thundered on the music system. I was slowly drifting into something a bit more than mere relaxation: deep sleep. But a sudden stop in the cog wheels jerk me back to my immediate surroundings. The music system has stopped. I squint through my half open eyes and see my mother with one hand one the power switch and the other holding my maths homework of 113 questions on Trigonometry, to be done for my “Extra Coaching Classes”(some call them tuitions. But I deem myself different in everything….) I sit up……..

                         ***************************************


This is my life……..No not mine………Our life…… The life of a few lakhs of students in  Kerala who were blessed by Goddess Luck in their Xth Boards and who were passed on to the XIth…….. Only to be subject to further tormenting…..

If you are in the Xth and are silently consoling yourself telling that you can enjoy yourself in the XIth and forget the Xth, I just want to say that you guys(and galz too) are in for the shock of your life. XIth is not your everyday cup of tea. There are battles to be fought, wars to be won, two years to spend in total turmoil and finally the entrance exams to conquer. Appalled? Read on and be….well, you know, more appalled……….

The relaxation syndrome…

After a grueling year spent among books, students raise themselves and joyously move on to the next level: only to find themselves swamped amidst more books and three guides for each book. So if you thought that the Xth was the grand daddy of them all, wake up buddy, and see the world….. the XIth is smiling on to you and the XIIth too is readying herself to bestow her part of tormenting on to you.  So quit seeing the class as an oasis between two deserts and wake up man..... The truth is indeed stranger than fiction.....


Due to this slight "misconception" from the part of the students, frequently, the houses of XIth Std students witness clashes between parents and children, with the children vying for a much earned freedom, while the parents coax them with things ranging from an iPhone to an all out gaming PC, so as to get their children to their tuition homes.[ The author is NOT encouraging those peaceful ones to take up arms too, lest their homes should witness such bloody battles too……]

It is also in the XIth that we enter into the Big league of “secondary students”. The ones who conduct various activities in school: something every student yearns to do(I don’t know about other schools. This is the case in my school, Loyola , and I think this is the same else where too.) It is in the XIth that we redefine the meaning of fun. Take an receive fun and learn a lot in the process.

The XIth also reconstructs the age old concept of the gurukul: a place where students went to the Guru’s house and learned stuff in exchange for a nominal dakshina. This is seen today in modern day tuition homes. Except for the nominal fees, that is. In fact the “dakshina” or fees there is just the opposite to nominal.

So if you are passing on to the XIth, then beware…… You are in for one heck of a ride…..

A ride that is threatening (exams, dude.... The same old question: will you fail or will you not), a ride that is death defying (fleeing from the teachers and if possible, the principal, for a late submitted assignment) and over all, a ride that is exhilarating to the core.

 

 The XIth maybe hard and may torment us to the point of breaking…. The XIIth may even be harder. We are tough and for the tough ones, XIth is yet another stroll in the park. For fun in the XIth and XIIth has an altogether different meaning.

I could write like this on and on…. But I just exceeded by browsing time by about five hours, plus, I have got 113 questions in Trigonometry,  grinning innocently (and at the same time wickedly [:x]) at me. That brings us to the important question of them all….

What exactly is

3CosA-4Cos³A???

The Rush Hour

The stillness of a graveyard descended on the seventeen acres of pure scenic beauty. In the fortresses of terror,  a.ka. Classrooms, the teacher dragged on and on, obviously oblivious of the antics that found a fitting stage behind his back. The atmosphere was charged; a serenity one associates with lush green palms, lapping waves and dancing girls, descended on the 40*40(I think so at least…) room: The tranquility before the tempest. Infamous(and atrocious, mind you….) personalities shot frequent, inpatient and imploring glances at their expensive devices of time keeping. A monster lurked in the shadowy corners, prowling the perimeter, marking its prey and preparing for its ultimate pounce. The minute hand of the clock ticked away and away and finally read the time 12:10. Time and all beings on the face of this part of the Earth came to a complete standstill……A gong echoed somewhere in the vast expanse, shattering the deathly silence into an million shards, a billion screams.

And then, all hell broke loose.

A boisterous mob burst worth from every nook and cranny of the vast fortress like heated shots from the very cannons of the Flying Dutchman. The Lunch Break had begun in Loyola.

A clamorous rush to the canteen signals the start of the lunch break in Loyola. This “stampede” continues as long as either the lunch break or the popular goodies last.

However, lunch break is also a time to rise and shine after a two-period long siesta for some. It is also a reprieve they get so as to sort out more original ways of dealing with the grueling times yet to come.

Lunch break, likewise, stages the “sharing syndrome”. It involves a group of “starved”(or so they say) youngsters embarking on quests and expeditions (legend has it that Sinbad himself started his expeditions with a similar aim… But that is another story, isn’t it?) to find delicacies to feast on. The wafting aroma of the “chef d’oeuvre” bids them welcome as one or other of their mates opens this container of his mother’s (sometimes it is the servant of the house and often the chef in the nearby restaurant) hard work(the lunch box, you dunce!). The mob, now ten to fifteen strong, pounces on the poor, baffled guy and “shares”(if snatching away generous portions of the food before the owner actually can comprehend what is happening can be called sharing). This process continues on and on till there are absolutely no more lunch boxes to demolish (There is no question of the appetites of the mob being fulfilled….So just forget about that factor….:D). Then, it is to the terra firma to try out their sporting skills.

A person standing near the rabbit cage, gazing at the conies enjoying some really smelly cabbages is suddenly jolted to his senses by a roar of some battle of long past. Blood lust renewed, he rushes to the source of the clamor where he finds himself in a vast space (some call it the football ground) and is greeted by a mass of black and white. Suddenly, he notices a dot appear in his vision. He wonders why it got bigger and bigger (can it be some sort of dream??) until finally the football hits him squarely on the face. at the same instance something round and hard(guess it can also be called a cricket ball) collides with a part of his anatomy which is best left unmentioned [:D]. He begins to sit down one hand caressing his face and the other on his umm….err…..you know THAT part of his anatomy. Big mistake!! The moment his ass makes contact with the ground, he is trampled upon by a mass of moving bodies. Yes, this is a dream. But the only difference is, this doesn’t end even when you wake up. Welcome stranger, to the football ground of Loyola.

If you have come for the conventional game of football, you have come to the wrong place. Coz this is Loyola. Here, we make the rulers and abide by them; if you can, that is. A football match in Loyola is often a brutal contest of mind, body and words ( add a few broken teeth, a fractured arm or two and a few twisted ankle here and there. After all, one cannot be too careful!!). We Loyolites are totally into what ever we do- be it sports, arts or studies. So here is football as it was born-raw and untamed.

But sometimes(or maybe often), things go a bit out of hand(I mean, WAY outta hand…[:D]). Enthusiasm overrides all sense of time and space( too much of a good thing, you know……). The game often stretches beyond the forty-minute-break and well into the fifth period and after that, the triumphant procession of winners swaggers off the ground(followed by a not-so-triumphant losers…), only to come to an abrupt halt outside a room fondly referred to as the “principal’s parlor”, after being subjected to a “mild” persuasion by a certain somebody who has made that room his abode. The ones who were seen with jubilant expressions can then be seen as the disgruntled guards of the parlor, for the rest of the afternoon.

On the other not-so-eventful days, we Loyolites simply like to laze about near the benches, putting on the clothes which were discarded earlier so unceremoniously. Often, this is followed by the arrival of one or other of the uncles from the office, so as to put us in the right course, back to class.

…..Well, in case I am not mistaken thoroughly, there’s one of them advancing so menacingly in this direction. So, whoever you are, wherever you come from and whatever you do, stranger, you might just want to run……..