My Year Book Article, untitled as of yet.

Come April, and I’d have spent 10 years in St. James’ as a student, with another year to go till I too, like this preceding batch, shall step beyond the fences of high school into the real world. Now that I’ve been told to write something for the batch’s yearbook, I feel more intensely what it means to be batch, though I’m at a complete loss as to how to entrap through words what my heart feels now; so I’ll take refuge in narrating certain experiences I’ve been gifted in my school life, which I hope shall illuminate to whatever degree what school life has meant to me.

After leaving what was deemed a “sub-standard” school, I joined St. James’ in class 3, and spent my first year as an outcast, friendless due to my alienation from the higher cultural practices like Pokemon Card trading and PS2s and computer gaming and Nickelodeon.

Through classes 4, 5 & 6 I picked up on these and a lot more as I gathered friends, some close and some closer, lost friends, made new ones and slowly assumed my role as a Jacobean. Classes 4 through 9 were a whirlwind of tumultuous and passionate friendships and enmities and the formation of numerous “gangs” such as the ‘jungle-gym-monkeys’ gang or the ‘jocks’ or the ‘cooler nerds’, peppered with brief yet immensely enjoyed friendships with random strangers like Dipayan, Pronoy, Ishan, Madhav, Protim, Anjishnu, Abhishek, Biswaroop, Jason, Jeremy, Vicky and Louis, to be followed later by Arnav, Aaron, Shahrukh, Fusail, Akshay, Dwarkesh, Nikhil, Ritwik, Akshay, Varun and lots more that evade my ebbing memories.

In class 9 and 10 I met some people who would later turn out to be my closest, most trusted and treasured friends. I met Anurag, a shy, immensely talented and the owner of an intellect that is almost the exact match for mine. We have grown, over 4 years, to levels of friendship, if that be the word, which cannot be quantified, or even fathomed. I met Srijon, a happy go lucky boy with a heart of gold, and Arjun, talented and suave, with another heart of gold, two friends who had grown into being a part of myself within an incredibly short span of time, as if we were brothers separated in past lives, waiting to reunite. I rediscovered Tirtha, a friend of class 3, to forge yet another channel of concrete that would bring me immensely fruitful experiences and a constant wall of support. Unobtrusive, and reserved, he’d help me get things that none of the others could. I discovered Akshay, a passionate friend with many faults and many marvels. Our friendship, along with Arnav and Shahrukh was most probably my most tumultuous and marvelous. We went from intimacy to cold wars and everything ended on a rather sad note, with an un-scalable mountain emerging between me and Akshay, equally pushed by both our egos and his faults, and maybe mine as well.

Came eleven, first time round, when my existing bonds grew stronger, Srijon, Arjun, Anurag, Tirtha and Arnav taking up progressively larger parts of my heart, while yet more new connections were made, Shashank, Jatan, Raghav, Samay, some of bloomed more than others. Over the year and eleven second time round, Srijon, Arjun and Anurag became inseparable blocks that were the foundations of my identity as a young, talented, kind-hearted and rebellious idealist who should have been born in the 70’s!

I found a group of people, with whom I could build up an entire Bohemia inside my head, friends dearest to my being, even when completely stripped to its utmost raw core, at moments of ultimate disinhibition. They fed me and ate from me, as we all progressed into being young adults, more ripened than earlier. We learned to respect and enjoy each other, as I fed from them and them from me. Anurag, Jimmy (a senior), Srijon, Arjun, Raghav, Protim, Tirtha and Arnav all entered into the deepest worlds of mine as my first true and deep and beautiful friends. I met others who I wished I’d met earlier, since with equal time they too would be just as dear, such as Harsh (Bansal), Uday, Anjishnu, Suryanil, and many more who again outwit the feeble grasps of my memory.

I was molded in school, by these friendships, and a few treasured gifts of tenderness, protectiveness and care from certain teachers, who I’d never be able to thank to my satisfaction. Ms. Chand, my first class teacher, Mrs. Khambatta, my second and best, Mr. Pope, a friend almost, Mrs. Neogi, the disciplinarian with a golden heart, Mr. Dasgupta, the ideal Master, erudite and elegant, yet not distant or stone-hearted, Mrs. Banerjea, compassionate owner of a soft yet sure guiding hand, and last, and equally far from the least, Mr. Sircar, the teenage genius who never grew up, a master logistician, with a humour to cut, and a contagious curiosity as he pursued his passions, math, crossword, hearts and freecell, and efficient and clever programming with the passion of a youth.

I have always been sure that I’d grow up to be something I’d dreamt of as a child, free of society’s mundane catacombs and with enough resources to live on and enjoy, but this has been enormously boosted by all the things that the school has given me, both treasured and despised, by providing a everlasting nourishment that nothing else could ever provide.

Before nostalgia takes complete hold on me, I’ll end this attempt to give an insight to a part of myself that I owe purely to luck bestowed upon me by some kind spirit somewhere. It is redundant to say that I’d never forget these days or people, and I can honestly expect that none of them would ever forget me, or us.

“This is the end, beautiful friend. This is the End.” ~ Jim Morrison (The Doors)