The Most memorable day of my school life...(for all the wrong reasons!)

"How many times have you thought about your future while you were in school? it is supposed to be the best times to do! You should be concentrating more and ur academics than wasting away ur time doing all those stupid things like playing and talking with ur friends..." these were the questions that I had faced from everyone near n dear while I was doing my 10^th.I mean everybody all around you...I feel that 10^th standard is the last of the golden years of primary education..The last of the few moments where you get to choose ur time for studies..Where u can plan it with ur style with loads of games n hell lot of other activities that make ur life and time lively.11^th STD is an entirely different ball game. Right from the moment u set foot in 11^th, the concept of casual n carefree attitude walks straight out of ur life.Gone are the days of free time and doing nothings.Its like playing street football with ur friends all thru the day n finding urself right in the middle of international soccer event after u return from ur break only to realize that ur team has goofed up ur chances by scoring a self-goal and the whole crowd was staring at u as if it was ur responsibility in first place.Though I was never a loner in my 11^th,neither was I a party animal. I had my own exclusive group of friends, and all of us were in good terms with the rest of the class as well.Moreover as my school was a relatively new school for doing 11^th and 12^th in my place, a couple of High Profile people who wanted to do it in more reputed school flew off from the crowd, which further reduced my class strength to 29 ppl ,15 dudes n 14 dudettes.It was perhaps a way of weeding out the unwanted elements of the class that existed as if they were never there.
entering 11^th also meant a complete transplantation from our old teachers who academically weren't professional enough to handle the classes.So we had an entire new set of teachers to handle this.But the best part was that there were only one set of teachers for both 11^th and 12^th..And naturally the 12^th being directly behind the line of fire of facing the board exam got all the attention they never wanted in the first place..And for us, it was an extended 10^th vacation! the schooling hours were consumed in more of socialization and other 'extra carricular activities' and the evenings were engaged in playing football with a set of teachers who had joined the profession that year..They were around 25-26 then and the prize was always a treat of tea and snacks for the winning team! for almost a year we played though we had indeed lost a couple of matches with them, I can t remember a single instance of shilling out money for their treat.Some of the little luxuries of bachelor life I suppose!of the two heavy text books of chemistry prescribed for 11^th syllabus we were taught only 3 lessons! almost the same was the case of physics..Biology and maths were much better...Though this affected us in the Entrance exams, But that was not going to stop us.We hardly cared.Looking back now I was amazed to see how fast we had matured,both as individuals as well as in our relationships with each other. People who used to fight like cats and dogs( please read kamal,Veena,lani,Preety and me and Doc!) became real close with in a few months into 11^th.And the best part is that our relationship has stayed that way ever since!Even today my school gang is as close to my heart as it could ever be...But this is some thing I cannot say bout my college dudes..Of course there is a major difference between studying together for 12 years and staying together for 4 years.Somehow I feel that school years are similar to a factory where each year a batch of like minded individuals are churned out..Its like coming off a conveyor belt with almost the same mindset and ways of thinking...But my college is like a market where individuals of various kinds are dumped in together and u survive through the various ordeals and finally settle down with the people of your kind! the luckiest ones are those whose set of friends never change in all the four years. Its not uncommon to see intense friendships spilt up on very silly matters during the college days...But then,that again is an entirely different league altogether....
There were a lot of things happening all around me during 11^th and 12^th. Inter Year fight was one of them.Our immediate seniors with whom we had played football in the evenings after the schooling hours all through our lives suddenly began bossing us around as if they owned the whole place and we were heretics! The initial slight tensions due to ego clashes which we thought would subdue over a period of time were only escalated! and at one point it became so bad that we literally ended up in a fist fight over an irrelevant issue in the Bus stand of our Town. Though we thought we had well settled the matters after that,which infact the more level headed ones amongst us had, things didn't end there. The worst of it was to happen the next day during the school morning assembly when our good old principal came on to the stage with a copy of the local tabloid screaming out on its front page "MAFIA GOONS CLASH IN THE BUSTAND! " and subsequent features to the effect of Taliparamba town directly under the mafia influence ! I couldn't believe what I saw. We were described as future Don Corleones and their ever faithful gang ofconsiglieres! My place is no sicily but trust me, there are people out there who are diehard fans of Mario Puzo, and of the lot,most of them believe that its more than just a story to be read once and put away in the shelf!for them they see things happen in the same pattern everywhere just as it said it would in the book.And it was in front of these fanatics we ended up in a fight,something which lasted for say, around 10-15 minutes.I suppose it was the last straw for them.Mine is a very small township and thus a close knit society where everyone knew everyone else. So these people made it a point to personally call our principal and gave a vivid description of what they saw.How for a few moments we, the kids of well respected parents, let out the cannibals well hidden with in us when an opportunity presented itself.For a couple of minutes all they ever saw were Vitos,Santinos,Michaels,Luca Brazzis,Albert Neris,Tattaglias and BarzzinisTo them we were the answers to "who is gonna take corleone's place ?" They even did something that the tabloid couldn't achieve.They told her our names!So our last hope of "No-She-Can't-Punish-Us-Cos-She-Doesn't-Know-Who" was also out.She promptly called out our names and asked us to stay back after the assembly and we had to go thru the usual punishment of kneeling down for an hour where the whole school, right from the 1^st standard till 12^th could see us.I remember a couple of first years ran up to us and asked us if we were being punished for not doing the coloring homework ? there was the usual set of procedures after that ..Like a parents meeting of all the 'hit men' so that they too would know what happened...But there had always been an amazing mental synchronization between us and the principal. I could always understand our thoughts! it might mostly because she had been teaching us right from 4th STD.I guess she knew to which level could all of us 'rise' to an occasion,or more precisely to what level all of us could stoop! so she told ur parents that she personally felt that our gang had this amazing talent for getting caught for exactly doing the wrong things,with the wrong crowd,in the wrong place at the right time!
It happened so long ago that now I feel it was a different life!things faded off to oblivion after that....life has changed a lot for all of us ..But even today when i'm asked about the craziest things that happened to me, this is the first thing and almost the only thing that comes into my mind!