Blog 5 - School-day mornings

Our school had bus facility for students up to 5^th standard. I had joined this school in 2^nd standard and continued till 10^th standard. Every weekday, I would get ready, wear my school uniform, I think (in primary school) it was a light grey shirt and a dark grey pinafore with our school emblem stitched on the left (on our heart). For this uniform, we wore white socks and black Bata shoes (they were like cut-shoes with a buckle). On Mondays, it would be an all-white uniform with white socks and white Bata canvas shoes with laces. For girls, hair had to be oiled, parted into two and plaited and tied with ribbons (black ribbons for grey uniform and white ribbons for white uniform). It was mandatory that the uniforms were always perfectly ironed, length of socks were halfway between the ankle and the knee, black shoes shined with black shoe polish and brush, and white shoes washed and dried (on the previous day), and polished with white liquid shoe polish (I think the brand was called Kiwi). For many years, my father helped me wear my socks as I would always struggle while trying to wear them. Every day, after the school prayer, there would be mandatory checking of everyone’s school uniforms, hair ribbons, nails etc. and defaulters had some punishment (not sure what, never got caught!).

The next thing would be to take the school bag, some kids preferred a horizontal bag, mostly bought at Bata shop. These bags were usually grey, brown or black and had buckles which would close with a click sound. These bags also had front pockets, to keep stationary, candy and other small supplies. Mine was a unique vertical bag, sent by my aunt in California, a colorful bag with bright colors such as red, blue and yellow. Although it was a great looking bag, it tore soon thanks to the weight of all the books: class-work (CW) notebooks, home-work (HW) note books, textbooks (especially for English had main course book, prose, poetry, grammar work book etc.)! As we kept getting promoted, our bags got heavier! Anyway, after the fancy California bag tore, I went back to using the humble yet durable Bata bag. I think the dark colors on the Bata bag made sense because bright colors would fade quickly due to the sun or get battered due to the slush that would fly and descend on us, thanks to speeding cars during the rainy season. Trying to dodge the slush when one is wearing the white uniform required a special talent altogether, one had to be alert and agile!

Rainy season also reminds me of all the colorful raincoats that we had, which comprised of three parts: a cap, a pant and a knee-length jacket. Of course, there were also umbrellas. We did not have gum boots back then, maybe they would have been useful during the floods!

Anyway, once ready with uniform and school bag, I would next go to the kitchen and collect my lunch bag from my mother: my steel ‘double-decker’ lunch box (in the later years it became Milton lunchbox, the one that came with an external casing to keep food warm), water bottle (plastic bottle and later Milton bottle that had a small metal chain to its cap), snacks’ box and a handkerchief (to be prepared for any accidental spills – this was pre-tissue era). After collecting the lunch bag, I would say bye to my parents, grandparents, great-grandmother (who would ask my mother what lunch she gave me, to make sure I was well-fed) and of course to my baby sister, who would look confused and sad that I was going away for the day.

I would then walk to the end of our street, where I would meet my friend P who would come with her grandma and we would all walk to the bus stop together (overall, the bus stop was only 30m away from our home). The stop was called “Murugan Koil stop” because there was a small (now big) Murugan temple there. P’s grandma would take us both there first, make us pray (especially on exam days) and she would verbally ask us if we had everything for the day in school (like geometry box, maps, exam pads etc.). She would also ask us questions and make us revise on exam days. She knew what my favorite dishes were (Maggi with carrot and beans, aloo fry etc.) and would give extra box of it for me (and my mother would do the same for P, for her favorite items).

Other kids and their parents would also come to the temple first and then wait for the bus. The temple priest knew not just our names, but also our star, gotra, raasi (practically the entire horoscope) and scare the shit out of the people whose rahu was vakram and whose shani had moved houses (time to expect big trouble!). He would also give extra blessings for those going for board exams, job interviews, to see girl for marriage (ponnu-paakardhu) etc. Basically, he knew everyone from the colony and I always used to wonder why the census people didn’t go to him directly. He after all had the entire database!

Even as the bus arrived and kept honking, some mothers would still be feeding their sons idly/dosa/pongal from a small steel tiffin box (this is apart from their lunch bag of course), explaining to other amused onlookers that their sons wouldn’t eat unless they fed them :P

Once in the bus, P and I would alternatively use the window seat every day, she was good at remembering whose day at the window it was, so there was never any confusion or fight regarding that. If one was absent, they would get their turn as soon as they came back. Of course, on our birthdays, by default we would get the window seat and the roster would reset accordingly 😊 We would then wave good-bye to P’s grandma and leave for yet another day at school.