ennapa?... walking down the memory road...

A bit of a flash back - this post is dedicated to all my school friends and to profs and teachers who over the years have made this post a possibility!

Oct 1995 - I reached Chennai and joined DAV Gopalapuram - the admission process was a bit of a challenge. It's never easy to get to a school in October, however, with help of a few contacts, could get an appointment with the principal. I was initially declined admission as princi observed that all my 8th standard marks were in '40s'!! It took a bit of explanation to get the message that well, in my school in Kerala, for some strange reason, overall marks were on 50. Anyways, with some luck, I could get admission to DAV, Gopalapuram. Otherwise would have been lucky enough to discontinue my education then.

Strange it was - to be in middle of a year, in a new environment, new people, new teachers - I was a bit perplexed. It was however my 9th educational institution in 9th standard!!! The history till then had just been perfect!!! - The first school that I went to in Lucknow - pre-nursery or so - closed down within a week, the next one lasted a month!! Finally spent more than a year in my 3rd school and then we shifted to Rajkot. Spent 3 years in one school there! School 5 was a 2 year stint in DAV Public, Patna. School 6 was Shivagiri Vidyaniketan in Alwaye, near Cochin in Kerala. Spent good 2 years in that school before shifting to School 7 - Vidyodaya, near Cochin again, for a year. We then moved to Mumbai for sometime, School 8 was Rajhans, Andheri - lasted 6 months there! School 9 was DAV - 3.5 years!!! Ever since, life got a bit more stable - spent 4 years at BITS and 2 years at IIM-A. It took combined effort of 11 educational institutions to teach me something!

Back to 9A, DAV, Gopalapuram - As new as I was then and despite being in a habit of changing schools so often, I still do take a bit of a time to make friends, more so the case then. So, for sometime, I remained the silent boy of the class! - a bit of an extreme deviation given my track record ever since! Before moving on to the teachers and profs., I will first share a very funny experience - I can't stop laughing about it even now.

The class leader of IXA then was Kutral - My first impression was - how is this guy the class leader?! 'coz to me, he did seem to be the naughty-est of the lot! In the first week, there was once a time when some teacher was absent and we had like the entire 40 mins to have fun - okay correction, they had 40 mins to have fun! Being new to the class, there had to be a bit of ragging. So, someone - now I don't remember who, probably Bhatia - told me - "you know our class leader?"... I was like 'Yeah... yess... he is the leader, right?'... Bhatia said "He is also the world record holder for swimming"... I was like.. "Yeah right, tell me about it!" I spent the next 10 mins defending "I might look dumb with these 0.5 power spects on, but I know all tricks of the trade. So, don't gimme this crap"! The discussion went on, almost the enitre class joined in! And Kutral was like - "They are just having fun with you, don't fall in the trap" - For all they told me, I was like "Yeah right... English channel... thats so so cold... I am not that dumb!!"...

Well, as it turned out to be, Kutral was and is the world record holder - for being the youngest swimmer to cross the English Channel and thereafter, my guess is that he managed another world record - "youngest to appear on every television channel as well!"... Funny incident, I still can't stop laughing... but it is all ways is a tribute to Kutral - not just for his achievements, but also for being so modest ab't it - never did he have that air of 'world record holder' around him and even till today, he remains a simple but naughty guy!

Then came the second experience - this was however over a period of time. I observed that most in our class, didn't speak the way they would to the external world! - and I didn't follow anything that they said - apparently it was all Ta Ta Va lingo! "Maditashan... (meditation) was the every second word used in the class then. The interesting fact that still remains is that I never got a chance to sit through a TTV class, but I can still imagine what the class would be like!

Days and months went by, I got more and more used to being with my to-be friends. For most of 9th, I did remain a silent guy - made a couple of friends, but my social studies marks left me with enough in life to worry about. Laloo, our Social Studies teacher was a bit more worried than I was!! To me, the idea was simple - somehow pass 9th standard - I did manage a 59/100 in my final exam of Social Studies, trust me, I was happy with that!! Little did I know that the minimum cut off to be eligible for National Scholorship Exams is atleast 60 is all subjects in 9th!

Life moved on, as I felt more and more at home in this new school, I started with my PJs - the first few days were rocking cool! Everyone enjoyed my PJs - some like Genish didn't follow much!! :-)) Others like Anta, took 2 weeks to understand! However, if an when, he understood, I did have a terrible time the very next break. Short break, Lunch break and 2:55pm break - Anta used to either solve some JEE high fundoo sums or beat me up - with a rather strange configuration - he was a master at hitting with his elbow!!

10th went by, the fun factor in life was still not there that much. However, a year later, I took ED/science group in 11th and the entire class changed. Many of my friends went to 11C, while junta joined 11A. This is when the real fun started. By some strange voluntary suicide scheme, I was the class leader too! However, I was now a chill back bencher. Actually not entirely, I was back-bench minus one, but in the left most column of the class - ideal place, much better than the back benchers in the middle columns (okay, we used to call it row then). And we did have fun! Starting from "my dear boooyz", Kandy our physics + class teacher, to our introduction to ED sir... little did I know, that this would change my lingo for life... even today, when we exchange scraps on orkut, it's often ED lingo "waffor doi litis means temmnow" "bufffalllo" "Good fameley or bad fameley litat" "wat i cen able cho chell u is litat" "pumbock"... and it goes on and on and on... I will leave the exact imitation to Lakhsman's blog - nut thinks I am 'the worrrrshhht' at this! :-((

There is tons to write about Minizaa, but I shall for now keep it to imitation only - I am sure, others have expressed their crushes on her, and since I was not part of that gang (!!!), I shall not blog on the crush part! Pullezzaaa, Anantaramanzaa do the sumzaa... Pullleezzaaa.

Jokes apart, any post on school is half empty without a sincere thanks to Sridhar Sir. We all respect him a lot - apart from the fundaes we got in Chemistry, Sridhar Sir has always been a friend to us. And more so in my case, fun time apart, it was not easy going for me in 11th and much of 12th - it's not easy to keep aims and hopes high when one is scoring significantly below the rest, but in our 1-to-1 sessions, Sridhar Sir always expressed confidence in me, gave me a few tips and that has helped me a lot.

Saitsh, the princi was a masterpiece! 'pooowerful speaker', etc, etc... again, its pure imitation, so shall leave it for other blogs :-) However, till date, the biggest united mischief was 'Paul'! It was an event that took the scales of 'Quit India Movement'. Hundreds and Thousands joined in this noble cause and we went about spreading the message of "One world, One word, One mischief, One tone, One Aim". Paul, an otherwise sane human being, far away from the mischief gang of the class, was blessed with a name, which when 'extruded' out of Kandy's throat sounded like 'Puuoo'!

It was during one of the 11th standard classes that NK started off with 'Paul'... just a hint. There was not much of a reaction to this. He said once more, and now another specimen shouted 'Paul'... it still did sound innocent. A day or two later, we started to 'spread the word'. All that was needed now, was mention of 'Paul' and half of the class would shout 'Paaaul' ' Paaaooo', 'Pol', 'Ppppoooulll'. First couple of times, teachers didn't get it. Atleast innocent Jaya didn't for sure. We now tried it everywhere, from Physics lab to ED room to every other class to Jam's class - and slowly we got to the 'expert status' in this. It was like having a massive stereo system installed, with each speaker distinct - all it needed was a small mention of 'Paul' and the system would go crazy! We even tried it once in Sridhar Sir's class!! Sir was quick to pick it and he said 'boys, comeon'!!!

Something that took the scale of Quit India Movement, wouldn't have been restricted to our class. It went on to other sections of 11th in our school, slowly our juniors and seniors bought this idea! And since we were a decent mass in IIT classes, we did it once before a Govi class. It spread like wild fire there - easy when you have 150 students sitting in a class that should take no more than 40. 'Paul' was now a brand, it was a religion that we followed, it was an 'expression', it was an 'attitude to life'. From IIT class, it spread to other schools like PSBB, I am told. Those guys knew nothing about who Paul is!! So, all of you who have had the patience to read this post till here, say 'Paaaul'!! My friend Paul, you have some popularity index man!

Moving now to IIT classes - we first started with imitating Govi - for his jokes ranged from neighbour's daughter to Bangalore babes! I haven't kept a track of all Govi wise cracks, but was fun! Atleast, I did feel a bit of competition! Then, we imitated Santhanam '...if you don't get the moles right, you misss the bussss' - the last 3 words spoken at the speed of light! Anandan was our fav as well, but I am actually bad at imitating him. So, will leave it for other blogs.

However, the biggest influence on my vocal life and I trust so is the case with many others, is TRS - Great prof for sure, but apart from that, he had the most 's' lingo on this planet earth! 'ennapa, this gets cancels', that sounded like 'ennnaaapa, this getzz canczcels' followed with a sweep of hand with his '1st finger floating'!

Before going on to other famous TRS lines, it was fun seeing him before the class started. He would rub the board with the duster to perfection - with not even a small spec of chal powder left! Then he would pick a piece of chalk, break it and use the last one-third piece of the chalk. He would stand still next to the blackboard facing the board and with a chalk in his hand, almost about to start writing. He would give himself a minute or so. To me, that sight was so so funny - it was as if a computer was booting standing still - those days, I had a 166Mhz at home, so was almost the same speed!

Back to TRS words of wisdom - "Zit on the zitter"... ennnapa plz... che che chek chek... "ennapa Aatraya Vaidyanathan, am I daaaaaancing here" :-))) "A goezzs to B's placzze, B goezzs to C's placzze, ennapaa"... and then for students like me, who were not doing too well to get through JEE, he used to call us "Caat onn the waaooll caze"!!!! "gets cancels..."

This has been a bit of a flash back! School days were fun, college life was equally cool... back to present times, it's still much the same. Till the next post, "ennnapa, plz..." blogging "getzzs cancelzzs"!!