I spent 12 years in HPS, and when you spend that kind of time in one place you collect stories I suppose. It's a lot of little stories that don't mean much. No moral. Ask anyone about HPS and they'll tell you about its fine buildings, the football fields and its 75 year history, that sort of nonsense. What I liked the most, was the everyday. It's just that while great things happened and continue to happen in HPS that are reported in the papers so well, it's the unrecorded dull everyday I miss the most. While histories of HPS were being played out, at a much smaller (quieter!) level, I was growing up. And this is how it happened.

Class 1 : Mommie, Alphabet, Ex-cur-sion, Merit Charts, Sports Day, Arith-metic, Boarders, joke
The first memory I can associate with HPS is standing up and saying my name out. I remember looking around at all the nice names of all the nice people around me. Rahul, Ashok... so nice, crisp and 5 lettered. And then there was mine. I remember actually deciding to change it, till a boy behind me got up and said it. Turns out his name is Prashant too. Nobody laughed. Relief. I stood up and said "Prashant Iyengar". Everyone laughed.

In a lot of ways 1st standard in HPS brings back the sweetest memories.. your first friendships.. the jokes.. the Jokes! Kids in the 1st standard will laugh at anything. I know we did. Some of the all time (in)famous ones include
1) Man wants to play cricket with Sardarjis. Problem.. he isn't one and only sardarjis are allowed. Solution : He puts a tomato on his head and ties a turban over it. Plays match.. hits century. At the end of it all some lame brain in the audience says something to the effect of `Bravo' and pats him on his head. Tomato splits. People think he's dead. End of Joke. Laughs all around.

That year I first heard of the concept of Sports Day. Dheeraj Prasad got to present a bouquet to the chief guest. I was jealous.

I also learnt to stand in front of a mammoth audience and say, ever so sweetly, "Vanakkam". Today, 12 years later the word actually finds meaning.. inasmuch as it's the word for `welcome' in my own mother tongue, Tamil! We visited the zoo that year... and the year after that, and after that .. and after.....

1st class was pretty boring for me. I was underaged they said, which when translated into the language we understand meant that I ended up doing 1st standard twice. So while all the other kids were learning A, B, C, I'd sit at the back of the class reading Noddy and Winnie the Pooh.

Life's tough for a 5 year old in the first grade. You learn that there's another home away from home and you settle down. It isnt all happy like in the books.

Things we learnt : Alphabet, drawing, painting, "craft", two finger space, counting (two in the mind and 3 on the fingers)... Class party!!

Class 2: Multiplication, Ghosts and Mrs P Raja Rao.
Around about that time there was a furore about a ghost being sighted in the ruins of the old primary block (the ruins near the parking lot). Kids organised groups and went on "expeditions" and came back with "honest to goodness" stories about how they'd just bumped into a ghost and had fought it off with their bare fists. The problem got so out of hand that an announcement had to be made in the assembly prohibiting anyone from going near the place.

Yup.. the air was pretty much packed with ghosts and gods and all kinds of supernatural stuff. And there was, at the center of all this hullabaloo, a lesser God whom some of us who're still around remember as Mrs P. Raja Rao, the hearty old headmisteress. I remember being rapped on the knuckles by her once for squeezing through the window and getting into class before the doors were opened. Why? Go take a look at the window!

Vikas was kidnapped that year. Story was, the child was dropped off at school at 8:30. At 8:45 someone claiming to be his driver came around and said he'd been sent to bring him back. That was the last anyone ever saw of him. I didn't know him. He's just a name to me. But try to picture a 7 year old. Try imagining what might have happened. Then imagine you're him. This is to Vikas, who never had a chance.

We (my "gang" at school) adopted a puppy that year and fed it bones from the school pantry. " Increases the number of bones in their body" .. I explained!

Class 3: The world, cricket and mud pies, Land, water, sea, ocean and mud.
A lot happened in the year 1991. Saddam Hussain and George Bush, the scud missile and the patriot missile, Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated and brahmins all over committed suicide. Babri Masjid burst her top and the pieces landed on millions of Indians who lost their heads. Bombay was bloody.

Also, in an unrelated incident my appendix came to be operated on and was extracted and carefully stored in formalin. Yessiree, I actually had one of the most useless appendages of my body stored in a bottle that I religiously carried to school for a couple of weeks. Excerpts from a conversation:

Me: Look what I got.. my ap-end-ix!!
Friend: I ate chicken yesterday
Me: No no stupid.. this is one of my body parts!!
Friend (look of admiration) : Wow! Can I touch it?
Me: Nooo.. cant you see? It's stored in form-a-lin.
Friend: Oh! er.. what's form-a-lin
Me (Look of condescencion) : You don't know what it is?? It's made out of my blood and flesh.
Friend (look of awe): Coool! How did they remove it?
Me: Well first 10 of them grabbed my hands and legs, then one of them wearing a mask took a big scissors and cut a hole right here (pointing), then they took a for-ceps and pulled at it. It twitched wildly as it came out.
Friend (looking at me with a new found respect) : Wow! (eyes gleaming)

Looking back, it's the belief that hits you. At 7, all you know about doctors is the needle.. all you know about operation theatres is the blue and green light that you see in the movies. Against such a backdrop, believing anything about doctors isn't too difficult.

About a week after that someone stole it from me. "Stole" because the next rumour I heard was about some kid who had his brains in a bottle.

We learnt the tables that year... really well, because every day for 1 hour in the morning 40 voices in every class would go "2 ones are.... 2 twos are.. " ..

We played a game called Land Water Sea Ocean Mud. Nobody really cared that the sea's actually a part of the ocean, that both are actually water... nobody cared that mud and land were of the same element. All they were bothered about was how to get from one step to the next.

Things we learnt : Mental sums, how to measure lines, geometry box, library and the fantastic world of books.. the packets we all had to carry to borrow the books! The pleasures (!!) of compulsory games after 2:30.

Class 4: Steady as she goes.
Some of my most pleasant memories of childhood come from the time I spent in classes 4 and 5. Mrs Deepa Chandra, who had faith in me despite the odds. After a break of a year, they were having a concert again. There was a Russian Dance and a Bhangra Dance. The Russian dance was beautiful. I remember the music, stirring.. and I remember the faces that danced to it. I'd wanted to be in it. I was turned down (grr!). Said I didn't have 'grace'. Hrmpf! I was graceful.. I could dance. In hindsight the dance wasn't that remarkable. There's something about the dance people do in life, but I'm not much for philosophy.

Mrs Usha Kapoor, our Hindi teacher for four years left for the Maldives that year. She gave us the address. Nobody wrote. Everyone remembers her though. The nice lady who taught us how to read . Some of us (I'm not taking names) learnt that bathroom walls make for excellent graffiti paper. Some of us learnt how to bunk games setting a trend of abstinence that continues throughout their lives in HPS! I found a red mark in my english paper that said "No full stops". It was the last year we were to use pencils . Everything henceforth would be in ink, indelible.

Class 5: Geography, History, a myth called India.
The rosiest days of life in HPS are the final years of the primary. Lots happened when we were in the 5th.
Someone once said you don't go to a public school to study.. you go for the company you get. 5th class for me was an important year. 4 of us got together and really hit it out. We were to become the best of friends for a long time coming. Friendship, the only kind - fire on ice, metal on metal - kind. That's what I'm talking about. Opposites attract they say. Nothing described our relationship better. Hari, Deepak, Rahul and I were 'opposite '. Hari wanted to be a chartered accountant. Deepak knew he'd be a doctor some day.. and Rahul was born with a screwdriver in his hand.. or head at any rate. Me? I got a raw deal. I saw people.

The concert was held that year. About 20 of us were in the choir that was adjudged the best event. Our photos appeared in the news paper. That was the first (and for some, the only) time some of us found any use for the Deccan Chronicle. And Mrs P. Raja Rao retired.

I went for extra classes in Painting that year. I remember being especially pleased since it was an exclusive group. Entry only if the teacher saw you fit. And all because of a Panchayat I drew.. with 3 people!

But the most exciting part of class 5 was Boy Scouts! Every Thursday all of us gathered around this queer old man who told stories and made us play games. I remember how every week, one class got to play a game. It was all very exciting.. until it got to our turn. We got to do a bear dance. Never have I ever seen gloomier faces than the ones I saw that day. While every other class got to play lively games with running and catching, we got to do a bear dance!

Rostom Marker died. I remember his face. If you could see it now it would look angelic, with a pair of thick glasses sticking out. I didn't know him. Died in a car accident they say. For some of us this was our first encounter with death, and we didnt know how to react exactly.The finalty. The full stop. I didn't like full stops. This is for Rostom, who didn't have enough.

I also learnt that "Cycle-u Tyre-u Puncture-u" is actually a Telugu sentence.

Class 6: Bunsen Burner, Page turners, Slow learners....
Possibly one of the best times for our batch to arrive on the scene was when we did. Best not only because there was no alternative, but because we were able to attend Mrs Usha Khader's assemblies. The defeated concept of education meaning more than just text books found a new vein of life whenever she took the assembly.. and for once .. we listened.
I remember being given an imposition - writing "I will not forget my homework" 200 times. There was no way I could possibly have completed it. An odd thing happened that day. While I was trying as best I could to fill in the pages, knowing well I wouldn't be able to, Gayatri Reddy offered help. Gayatri, the chatty girl who just couldn't keep her mouth shut. Gayatri Reddy, who inspite of her official status as "enemy" (enemy was anything that moved around in a skirt) was impossible not to like. I turned down the offer. Not because I didn't need it. This is for Gayatri Reddy, who had the courage to flout convention and be herself. When you're in the 6th class, you are what everyone says you are.

We went for a scout camp that year. A village on the outskirts, a "rest house" near a wayside railway station. It was an experience. There was no water and no electricity. It was a hilarious sight when the teachers decided we needed a scrub and 60 of us trooped onto the platform in our sheer underwear. Do you see? Add this to the equation.. a train chugs in right then... Want more? It's packed with women. Well.. almost. Enough of them at any rate.

Things we learnt : Puff the magic dragon, cross stich, spirit lamp, BASIC ,

Class 7: To every thing there is a season
The year I was in my 7th a lot was happening outside. N T Rama Rao became the chief minister and then didn't. Mr Cherian was killed in an accident. The teachers went on a strike for a month so that our winter holidays were longer than our summer break. Also that year the scouts "movement" in HPS received an unceremonious burial. It's a bit sad, in hindsight to think of it in terms of experience denied. Scouts was never fun, it was compulsory. Nothing compulsory could ever be fun.. there's always some with another idea. A thought probably too radical to find acceptance in a school always minding its roots. And so all the efforts by Mr David Rao, Mr Dennis Powell, to keep scouting alive went in vain. It had to go. This was a school slowly approaching the 21st century.

Upheavals, strikes, closures.. one person who succeeded that year was Mr Prabhakar. He taught us, other than Telugu ,at that age, what it meant to be intellectual. Mr David Rao, who made English interesting with his simple honest commitment. Mr Dennis Powell whose passion for singing was contagious enough to have us dancing to his tunes. At 12, you look around and see miracles.

=THAT'S ALL!=