The school that I studied in for my fourth and fifth standards had a hill inside the campus. When I say hill I don't mean a small man made hill, an actual huge hill that rose to about 100 feet or more. It was steep and had a single set of steps cut into it at the centre of its breadth.
I studied at Ooty in a school called the "Cliff school" - maybe an association with the hillock inside inspired the name of the school.
In my memories I can clearly remember running up the hillock with friends and the top of it was a plateau. There we played. We rolled down the grassy sides. On one end of the plateau was a huge wall that guarded this side of Mr Kundans house and the other side of the plateau was a small forest.
This hill was referred to as "Up the sholay". I have no idea how that name came about or who named it, but that was what it was called. Many an evening and week end was spent on it.
Mr Clement our then head master was a friend - as kids we weren't scared of him. Isn't that what good teachers are all about? Instilling values through action and care?
Another very strong image that stands in my mind is the front office of the school. Mr Vijayan sits there with his pipe and the smell of the room - heavenly. It smelt of old paper and the pipe tobacco. Of things important and well kept.
And then 5th standard took me to another school. The location of the school by itself was a valley, and the main building housing the class rooms stood on a plateau of sorts while the sides of the roads etc went down. leading to lower parts of the valley. The slopes of these hills were densely populated by trees. These places, that led down, were contrasting to my first schools "Up the sholay" were called "Down the banks".
"Down the banks" was associated with high school romances in a big way. I believe the very term was coined to describe a couple spending time in private - and the only private place one had in school was, yes you guessed it right, down the banks! So when someone wanted to make fun of Andrew and Miranda spending time, they would say " Andrew and Miranda have gone down the banks".
We built small camps down the banks with broken branches and our rain coats. We smuggled tuck (local slang for snacks) back to these camps and spent time there. And there was the time when I saw a wild boar with her young piggies in tow, looking for food. I was up a tree in less than a second with my heart pounding in fear. But it was a fine sight to see.
The trudging of the same down the banks in search of "cloggers". It is a type of fruit actually called as the mountain guava, but in school lingo it was cloggers. We used to collect so much of them and eat till our tummies hurt! We didn't have a season or timing. When we felt like it we went in search of cloggers and yes, I remember doing it alone so many times. Those were the days when solitude never meant anything - if you had to do it alone, you just did it happily.
So many memories tumbling out of my mind as I go back up the sholay and down the banks... Childhood was a blessing.
I hope some of my old school mates see this post and post back sharing memories of the good old days.
Up the sholay was in the Cliff school - main campus and the Down the banks was in The Laidlaw memorial school and Junior college.
I studied at Ooty in a school called the "Cliff school" - maybe an association with the hillock inside inspired the name of the school.
In my memories I can clearly remember running up the hillock with friends and the top of it was a plateau. There we played. We rolled down the grassy sides. On one end of the plateau was a huge wall that guarded this side of Mr Kundans house and the other side of the plateau was a small forest.
This hill was referred to as "Up the sholay". I have no idea how that name came about or who named it, but that was what it was called. Many an evening and week end was spent on it.
Mr Clement our then head master was a friend - as kids we weren't scared of him. Isn't that what good teachers are all about? Instilling values through action and care?
Another very strong image that stands in my mind is the front office of the school. Mr Vijayan sits there with his pipe and the smell of the room - heavenly. It smelt of old paper and the pipe tobacco. Of things important and well kept.
And then 5th standard took me to another school. The location of the school by itself was a valley, and the main building housing the class rooms stood on a plateau of sorts while the sides of the roads etc went down. leading to lower parts of the valley. The slopes of these hills were densely populated by trees. These places, that led down, were contrasting to my first schools "Up the sholay" were called "Down the banks".
"Down the banks" was associated with high school romances in a big way. I believe the very term was coined to describe a couple spending time in private - and the only private place one had in school was, yes you guessed it right, down the banks! So when someone wanted to make fun of Andrew and Miranda spending time, they would say " Andrew and Miranda have gone down the banks".
We built small camps down the banks with broken branches and our rain coats. We smuggled tuck (local slang for snacks) back to these camps and spent time there. And there was the time when I saw a wild boar with her young piggies in tow, looking for food. I was up a tree in less than a second with my heart pounding in fear. But it was a fine sight to see.
The trudging of the same down the banks in search of "cloggers". It is a type of fruit actually called as the mountain guava, but in school lingo it was cloggers. We used to collect so much of them and eat till our tummies hurt! We didn't have a season or timing. When we felt like it we went in search of cloggers and yes, I remember doing it alone so many times. Those were the days when solitude never meant anything - if you had to do it alone, you just did it happily.
So many memories tumbling out of my mind as I go back up the sholay and down the banks... Childhood was a blessing.
I hope some of my old school mates see this post and post back sharing memories of the good old days.
Up the sholay was in the Cliff school - main campus and the Down the banks was in The Laidlaw memorial school and Junior college.
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