Back to School

I was up early this morning, shrugging off the coziness of a Sunday that went by and looking forward to a new week. Sipping my filter coffee and waiting for some morning cognizance in the form of ‘The Hindu’ daily, I noticed that the paper-man was late today. Looking outside eagerly, from the balcony, I saw an unusual buzz for a Monday Morning. Yellow buses and vans haphazardly hovered through the narrow road; I noticed a few kids sporting bright uniforms carrying water bottles in different hues, looking so animated. Caught in a reverie, I thought the newspaper man’s kid must also be in one of these buses. May be he got busy attending to them, I mused.

This is the time of the year when ‘sunny’ boy  gently subsides as monsoon beckons and we are ready for yet another beginning.  Of excitement and apprehension, the smell of crisp uniform and the meeting of new friends, the thought of mom’s love and the thought of a new teacher, school going is a mélange of an eerie feeling and excitement.

Upsy Daisy with her friends - I clicked it at my friend's

When I think about it now, I am glad my parent made it a pleasurable experience for me. Every time the school reopened after a summer vacation, they meticulously arranged for my uniforms to be stitched and done, they made sure I had my school-going kit ready. They always bought me a pair of white canvas shoes every year along with three new pairs of socks from the infamous Bata. They bought me pencils, sharpeners and erasers and pencil boxes with Tom and Jerry printed on it. My dad has the habit of neatly covering my books and notebooks to perfection with the fine&glossy ‘brown-cover’ sheet (not to mention, after a first layer of newspaper cover) and I made it a point to stick the labels.  It might sound a little ‘what-the-heck’ but I still do it on the books I read, I spare the labels though. My mom always does the writing part. She has a great handwriting – rounded and voluptuous letters, I admire that so much that I think of it to be very lucky.

A millions of things are marquee-ing in my mind as I write this. School is a million things and more, it is a place that nourishes those immensely innocent thoughts into cultured ones. I am glad I remember those moments and I want to go back to school, wearing those blue pinafores, holding on to the tiny pink umbrella and wiping my nose with the polka-dotted handkerchief pinned to my uniform.

Picture taken by a friend 

What comes to your mind when I say 'Back to school'? Share your school going experiences here.