AECS 10th 2006 Graduates.Part 2-High School (6th,7th and 8th class)

High School days

6th Class

               After my 5th class was completed I was very excited about going to High School.It felt good.It felt like I was a big kid now.Compared to my 5th I remember a lot of things about 6th class.There were a total of 6 sections starting from 6A to 6F. We had to choose between two optional languages Telugu or Sanskrit.I chose Telugu as my parents believed it would be useful in our day to day life.In retrospect I am quite happy with that decision.Section A was for all the students who chose Sanskrit and Section B was a mix of half Sanskrit and half Telugu students.The rest of the sections were all Telugu.I was placed in section B.Early roots of our gang FC grew here in this class.

               I met abhishek,swatchithlal,raviteja and deepanjan in this class.We all were in the same section. Abhishek was the chubby kid who was famous for his cute looks.In fact his pet name was Tin tin and he even resembled the famous fictional character. Swatchithlal was the jolly kid in the class always up for a good laugh.And deepanjan was the hyper excited kid always looking for some fun or the other. P. Raviteja whom we used to and still call just 'p' was a quiet and soft spoken kid who was obsessed about buses.His one passion was buses.He used to draw buses everywhere ,in books,on boards and even on benches. We all knew each other pretty well but got closer only later in 10th class and afterwards.

                I had two bench mates in this class.One was N. Rakesh. We had one major thing in common.It was our height.We were short in height and that is how we both got to to share a bench in the first row.Then the other person with whom I shared a bench was Yamini. She was very talkative and I was a very quiet kid but I got along with her fine.Our class leader was Pratyusha Karnati.For most of us the word 'leader' is synonymous with Pratyusha even now.Other people I met in this class are KrishnaVeni,Bharath,S.Sowmya,Sachin Giri (Sachin was the one who introduced to me the game of 'Half Life'.It was one of the best games I have ever played.We both, along with our respective elder brothers used to share a lot of stuff related to computers and games)Himaja,Deepti,Meghana,Sindhu,Sheena Patel,Swetha,Nitin,Raghuvamsi,Pramod,Ravi chaitanya,Lavanya,Ravi Teja,Alisha.

                Our English teacher was Mrs Hema Malini ma'am.She was everything I looked in a teacher back then.She was,kind and understanding.And she taught very well.She is one of my favorites teachers ever.Best thing about her teaching was that she never really confined her teaching to just the school stuff.She used to give us general advice and used to solve our problems.Some incidents that she told us from her personal life spring to mind whenever something similar happens to me.Even after 8 years of leaving school I still sometimes get dreams wherein I am sitting in a class and Hema ma'am is explaining a lesson.She was one of the earliest persons in my life who made a lasting impression.There were other teachers.Some were good like Vasu sir and Joshi sir,Some were quite the opposite.Not going to mention the names here.

                 My Reading habit also started from this class.I started reading tinkle comics given by my dad and later in large numbers by my aunt.My reading was confided to comics in 6th.The school library was very good.And the Librarian Mr Azagappan sir was a nice person.I later formed a good bond with him.

                I used to go to AK Das sir's tuition during this period.Here along with me there was Himaja and Chimayee Jena.Myself along with K.Vinay used to go out and pluck mangoes from the trees nearby and bring them back to the tuition.Aunty with assistance from Himaja  used to cut those mangoes and sprinkled with pepper and salt, used to distribute in the whole class.Those were all wonderful days.

                   
7th class
               7th class was also a good year for me.Initially there were to be six sections and I was placed in the sixth but soon because of less number of students in the sixth section,all the students of the sixth section were distributed and accommodated in the other sections.I was then shifted to C section.Here I met Mujahid who warned me that I came to the wrong class.On asking why he replied that C section had one teacher who was not popular among the students.I came to know about her later but I personally didn't have any problems with her.It was here in this class that I formed one of my earliest 'gang'.It comprised of three boys- K.Vinay,(whom I met in 6th class) BK Chaitanya aka kittu and myself. Vinay was the soft spoken handsome boy in the class. Kittu was excellent in sports and was a big fan of Telugu movies.We three were inseparable back then.We used to hang out together and play together.It was during this time that I first got the feeling of being in a group and someone having your back in case something unpleasant happened. I used to go to Vinay's house a lot.The other person whom I met was Shoaib Rashid.He was a tall and lanky kid who mostly kept to himself.We got acquainted but weren't much of friends.Of all the members of FC I have the most in common with shoaib.
            I remember one time we had a combined class with 7D( I was in 7C).Here I first listened Amulya ma'am's class.Since it was a combined class , Ma'am chose to tell a horror story to entertain the kids.She narrated the story in such a manner that students talked about it years later.The fact that I still remember that episode is testimony to the kind of effect it had on the students.As an aside a strange coincidence happened that time.When Amulya ma'am first narrated the story in that combined class a girl started crying at the end.The next time she narrated the story to another set of combined class,another girl cried.Eerily both the girls were similar in many aspects.Both had specs.Both's seating position in the class was the same.And both started crying at the very same point in the story.Call it childhood imaginations but this incident was fodder for gossip for a long time to come.Though Amulya ma'am never taught me full time she became one of my favorite teachers later.I still try to visit her whenever I am in colony.

8th class
                    This period was a very forgettable one for me.Again I remember much from this period except the fact that my grades dropped dramatically during this period.From 80% in 7th class it dropped to 60% in eight.But apart from that I remember one incident very vividly.It is the only thing that comes to mind when I think of 8th class.Mr Tiwari was our Hindi teacher and I hated him.He was uncivilized,rough and very harsh with the students.One time he was checking the books of all the students.When he came to my bench I showed him my book and it was incomplete.I was absent for a few days before and so my book had a number of blank pages showing my incomplete work.He asked me 'kaha hai work'?
I replied with 'incomplete hai sir'
And out came his strong sturdy palm on my cheek. He slapped me with so much force that my cheek turned red.I sat down and muttered my first expletive in front of anyone.It did that in front of none other than akram. I carried the imprint of Mr Tiwary's five fingers on my cheek for the rest of the day.It caused many curious glances at me when i walked the corridors and went to the water cooler to drink.Thankfully by the time I went home those marks disappeared.

        I changed tutions from Das sir to Mahapatra sir.Here I formed a close friendship with Harsha Vardhan who used to call himself Army man because he had only one goal in his life back then ,to become an army man.We used to go to tuition together and come back together.In my whole childhood two persons gave me lifts on their cycle more than anyone else.One was bhanu during my primary school days and Harsha during my 8th class.I will always be indebted to them for this.

9th and 10th Class in my next post.
Previous post on Primary Class.Part 1- Click here