Rockvale Academy

Was a pretty active sunday. Got to work on my website for a while. Spent the evening with a friend. So pretty happy with the weekend :) Well I have put up part of the front page for testing purpose. You can check it out and send your comments to me. Here's the link :

http://www.shubhayu.com/main.html

I have got to write about Kalimpong today. I have been chatting with one of my friends from there all day and I just kept remembering things from back then. If you have read my previous posts, you'll get a feel about how strongly I feel about the place. Everyday there, was a memory. I studied in 2 schools there during the 7 years I stayed there, did 1st - 3rd standard in Benjamin Garden's School and 4th - 7th in Rockvale Academy. My days in Benjamin Garden's were very scary particularly because of a certain teacher. I used to be so shit scared of her, that it wasn't funny! She beat the crap out of me! But now that I am older, I realize that if she wouldn't have disciplined me the way she did I would have probably turned into an A-class monkey (not that I wasn't one). After class 3, I shifted to Rockvale Academy. Things were way better since then. The sad part though was that I couldn't stay with my mom anymore as she had to go and live with Dad in Melli, Sikkim (who had fallen sick because he wasn't taking care of himself). So I shifted to Tapoban and started living there as a PG. After the first year, I think I was part of the family. Now its become my hideaway. I think it'll be very easy locating me if I ever vanish. I would definitely be found there.

This was my school. Though when I was there, before I left, the top floor of the main building was just being built, there was no building in the back. And the building to the right had only one floor. I had made some really good friends there, a few with who I am still in touch regularly while a few through Facebook. Now since directions are a little different when you live in the hills, I'll try and explain. Our house was at a place which was higher than our school, ie, in terms of terrace farming, the school was at a lower terrace than my house. The great part about living in the mountains is you can overtake cars and reach the destination before it. All you have to do is just follow one of the mud-paths and run downhill while the car would take the main road and loop all over the world to reach there. So every morning I used to follow one of these mud-paths (called "chor bato" in Nepali), cross a water spring (called "jhora"), run down lots of terrace farms (where mostly maize was grown) and finally reach school. But the thing is what comes down must go up :P and that was the difficult part :D

But my days at Rockvale was super. I had really good teachers, my favourite being Ghising sir who was our english teacher. He was also our music teacher. Used to be at awe by the way he played the keyboards and guitar. Looked a lot like John Lennon :) But I think he had a drinking problem. Felt really bad when I heard that he had come to school after consuming alcohol and was relieved from his post. Fortunately I wasn't there to see that but I still look up to him. Ashok sir was another teacher who really encouraged me to take part in quizzes and literary activities. I still remember how Adhikari sir taught us about protoplasm. Super gross it was!

I hated taking exams but I used to love it when the results came out. I used to mostly stand first in my section except I think once in class 6 or 7, second semester, I came second. Man! I got scolded so bad! Stuck to coming first since then. I don't know where I stood overall though in the class. We had 3 sections. Worst was during the final exams which were held around November. It was so freaking cold then! I had to literally rub my hands to warm them up cause I just couldn't write inspite of knowing the answers. Pathetic! Not a pretty sight when you can't control the rate at which you are thinking and writing. :)

That was the time when I entered the "I Hate Girls" phase. I think all guys go through this phase. Atleast I have heard a lot of guys say that they have been through such a phase where in girls seem like icky things who should be kept under lock and key. Ironically, this was also the time when I had my first crush! Such conflicting feelings! I mean I see some other girl and I am like, "Leave me, I am going to kill her!" and I saw her and I would be like, "Haaaawwww! agali-bogeli-sawqwe-blingabogo-boo!" Ya I know, it didn't make sense then either. I would be usually tongue-tied and my ears would go red. I was so bloody smitten by her :D Super confused I used to be as to what was happening. Unfortunately didn't have anyone to explain me what it was all about. So I just kept it to myself and moved on. I think I was more intelligent then! Hehehehe!

Ya, life was simpler than. I had to worry about homework, exams, scheme ways to have fun and yet not get in trouble, worry about all the pears, guavas and plums that needed to be plucked before someone else took them, worry about how to convince my parents to let me keep the puppy I randomly picked from the street, find out ways so that I didn't have to go to school, avoid taking my bi-weekly baths (ya I used to have a bath twice a week cause it was so bloody cold). People should make a machine where you could go back in time for a day once a year. I think it would sell pretty well :)