My first day at Shirisha school: continued ( Initial hiccups)

A few days went on without any change. And then the real threat came in the form of an intimation that the very next day we four had to take an exam.The question paper would come from government. DV,radha,sriman and i didnt bring TC from our previous school.That's why we had to take that exam. I was very much worried about that. I didnt remember anything about V class syllabus then. I wondered how my other three friends felt about that. But I was fully scared. The next day, I woke up and was on the bed for a long time.. I was very tensed. My eyes were with full of tears and finally....I exploded and started crying. My mamaiah enquired me and said that the exam was only a formality and there was nothing to worry. That was the first time in my life i ever felt that much of pressure academically.
I went to school along with radha. We were asked to come out of the class and sit under trees for exam. I felt embarrassed while coming out of the class as everybody was looking at us. A few minutes later we were given question papers. As far as I remember , I could not answer much of the questions. And only God would have known the situation of my other three bold(??) exam-taking friends.Sometime later a sir,might be Chandraiah sir ,came and looked at our answer sheet.He smiled with a little sarcasm which did hurt me a lot. A little later,Shirin sir,the principal also enquired about us with other sirs who were there watching us. One of them even mumbled " ekkadinunchi vacchaarrra" .
Then came the top embarrasing moment of the scene. They(sirs) took question paper from us and gave that to the toppers of our shirisha classmates. They answered those questions and that was given to us so that we could copy. I could not recollect which exam was that but I still remember ,one evening, we were given the answers provided by the toppers and while we were writing ,everybody of the class was looking at us from the classroom with full of exuberance and enthusiasm. I looked at all of them and I remember their faces. Laughing. Smiling. Some serious . And some curious.
This troublesome event went on for three days and finally we became the real Shirishians.

Deepavali days

Deepavali... the very thought of that word brings immense pleasure, happiness,merry...and so on. It really brought light to us because we had two precious holidays in school to cherish .In school days,.the festival begins for me ,radha and srikanth from the day next to dasara.we would wait eagarly for that . From that day we used to fire intermittently "thoka bombulu" .The same was the case with all of us. The real happiness sprouts once our Bixam sir reads the circular in classs " tomorrow and day after tomorrow are holidays" . If not in the class, he announces in mike after the evening prayer "Tomorrow and day after tomorrow are holidays in connection with deepavali and the school reopens on...". Those lines were used to be very soothing to all of us.
At home, for me... the day begins with "nivali" at 4 am in the morning. Its almost impossible for me to wake up at that hour.Once that ritual got done, I used to go to radha. Then we both along with other friends used to fire crackers . Whatever be the festival, if the time was 9 then all our class gang would be at Govt.Jr.college grounds for cricket match.Most of the time we played against our seniors and we won.
By evening everybody would be in their respective homes. radha and me used to fire a few "bhoochakralu,chichubudlu ,vankaya bombulu". We didnt get much enjoyment in doing that. But we enjoyed watching others. We used to roam all that area watching everybody and discussing our previous deepavali days. Many things in our life happened to us in common as we both were together from very young age. we used to go to our karunakar's house who was very enthusiastic in firing crackers. Those two days vanishes just in a jiffy.
And the next day, the same morning blues to go to school. Before the prayer commences, in the class, everybody tells about their previous evening experiences. " I fired 50 rupees crackers" "I spent 100 rupees" .Hari(prasad) used to say that he had spent 500 which was a big number those days(i didnt remember the amount exactly , but he used to spend much). Radha and I would listen to all those things in awe.The discussion used to go like that. Once the bell rings everybody goes for prayer wishing "may deepavali come again soon".

My first day at Shirisha school: continued. 1

She was Roja... A few minutes later everybody started pouring in. Within no time there were many many 'men-in-blue' . Those were like ants in an ant-hill moving helter skelter. I just felt like out of place. I had never been in a class with that much of strength before.The bell rung. Now the time for payer. The bell was also very unique in its kind. Its a round brass plate hanging to a tree. And to strike it, there was a special hammer .Those two things were like made-for-each other. It was also got added to my list of "new found things" on that day.

Ah!!! what to say about the prayer "father,we...." . I could not understand a single line of it. I will try to discuss about the incidents connected with prayer sometime later. After finishing the prayer, I got into the class. Everybody was just having great time. Some were laughing loudly. Some talking . Some fighting. I was sitting still . Doing nothing. But, who knew whats going on in me.There was a great turbulence in my mind . I suppose the first person I talked to was our laxman(babu) . radha introduced me to him. I didnt get any jitters when got introduced to laxman. He looked innocent and friendlier. we became good friends later.He is the one of the two friends in shirisha whom i call as "arey,orey,raara..." , the other being anand. I could not say those things to any other friends in shirisha even for today(radha and srikanthdv are exception.we were friends from tagore school days). I was sitting in the last bench after the prayer. shyam was before me. He turned back and inquired about me.Naga Bhoopal was next to him.