Tidbits from the old school

When I entered the new school, Hindu Senior Secondary School, at Indra Nagar, in 1993, I wanted to dump my sorry past at the old one (HSSS at Triplicane). In the new one, no one knew me except for Lakshmi. Ofcourse, she was the last person I would have wanted to be in the new school but then after getting refused twice, I just couldn't love her any more.

The Vice-Principal was like any other teacher when I first saw him. He was teaching Physics along with being the VP. He looked smart and I don't know whether this was because of dealing with Nuclear Physics in our syllabus, he was edgy. I had carried a few habits and skills from the old school, one of which was to impress my girl with whatever skill I had in the class. While in the old school, it was reading out poems, in the new one, I wanted to answer the questions that my teachers put forward. So there I was in the physics class before the VP, my classmates and ofcourse Archana. The VP asked questions and I answered. The others didn't answer and I thought they were not as studious as I was. But then the VP asked questions to the class and he himself answered to the class. Later, a friend pulled me aside and asked me, "Are you nuts? Why are you answering him? He never even listens to what you say." And he can get annoyed. Then, I saw that some of the guys were fearing the VP and finding him a nutty professor.

Then, the VP asked in the class if anyone could help him out in writing some notes for him that the which can be xeroxed and distributed to the whole class. Otherwise each one of the class had to prepare the notes separately. Well, the Don Quixote that I was, I volunteered when all of the others didn't move an inch. Actually, I had a beautiful hand-writing then, copying it from sister's style. Maybe I was peacocking but I wanted Archana to get to know something of me and so I wrote those notes. It wasn't a big deal and it even clarified some concepts for me but my satisfaction came from the idea that Archana will be using those notes all through the year. The VP didn't thank me much for the services I had rendered but anyway I could not have expected it from him because I had written it for Archana than for him. To him, I was non-existent and sadly he was lost in a world of his own. But he was not as odd as my Chemistry teacher, who many considered a psycho. Back then, I never had an idea of depression and so I just thought that these people were just having different personalities.