Back to School

 Once again I am back to school days I mean back to teaching-learning season only difference that it is a different one. Waking up at 6AM, preparing pack lunch for the day, readying for an interesting day and riding on the bike for twenty minutes to the institute, I love it. I have always liked going to school as a kid, no matter how much beatings I got for doing naughty or for not doing well in studies, it never occurred to me that I will leave going to school.

As a matter of fact I still remember when I was six years old and my mom took me for admission to a nearby school (lauri primary school, year 1995) which was an hour walk from my house. The principal was Mr. Dawa Tshering (I don’t know where he is now) who rejected my admission after knowing that I was too young to walk in the morning and evening to and from the school as a day scholar. I remember crying like little baby, nagging my mom and resisting to go back home while my mother was dragging me out of embarrassment herself. It wasn’t just me, there was yet another, a friend and my cousin who was two years older than me. He was rejected too and he too was taken to by his loquacious mother. The problem with him was although aged for preprimary admission, he was short, and couldn’t touch his left ear over the head by his right hand and so he failed the usual testimony and hence rejection. We cried in unison till the gate of school which convinced our parents to once again request the principal to reconsider. In the meantime I also had another elder cousin brother who was in class six then.  I guess because of him, the notion that he might take care of us both, the principal was convinced and we both got admitted to school. I don’t remember how since then the time flew, but I have never in my life regretted and hated going to school. Going to school was so much better in many ways. As a day scholar, we were served lunch from the school and guess what, it was rice and dhal and Japanese tinned fish which was rather new for us and a kind of picnic ..:P

Going to school escaped so many things, from cattle and scary jungles, field works under the blazing sun and stormy rain and the worst ever- flour (Bokpi as we call in sharchop, I hated so much as a child, remember we were served with lunch at school?) I don’t know how that first year passed but I managed to get pass. Then when I reached class II my parents enrolled me as a boarder student since I had to walk more than hour to school. It was tiring for me and my parents after all it was better staying in hostel and frankly I liked the boarder life although the worst I can remember now out of all the odd is about the starvation. The food served from school mess was just never enough. Most of the time we (I) would go to bed with half-filled belly. Sometimes when rushing for second share, friends could get into that big mess pot! What a memory? And quite frankly who cares about education or passion as young kids? It was out of mere fear or something else that would drive us into studying harder. Who would have known all the rubbish about passion or ambition or logics behind the theories anyway? We just needed to get pass, that’s all.  But somehow it feels so right to have experienced it all because it is the starting point, the basic foundation.

Now when I go to the institute every day it is different, every day I go to the institute with the aim to learn something new, to with the aim to be able to do well so that when time comes I don’t have to think back and regret about all the bygone days. This is my passion, my love and profession after all, a trade that demands dedication, hard work, consistency, experience and exposure. Flying in the air is not a Joke and so is preparing to be able to do so. Every day I wake up with the wish that I take most out of this ten months duration of going to this marvelous school. Three months is already gone and it has been pretty fine so far, hope it will be the same for the remaining months as well.

Happy weekends…J