The 4th Grade

Class 4-A brings back so many fond memories to me.The class was filled with the most colourful characters you would ever see in a 4th grade classroom -we had the nerds ,the gangsters (a certain Khan brother to be exact) and guys like me (just plain naughty!).4-A was a nightmare for the teachers especially for our class teacher Sajini Mam.Time and again she would have to shout at us cause all the teachers would go complain to her.The 4th Grade was also the place where we had the weirdest games.There was this one game that we played on the stage(yup that slippery thing on the football ground) where you had to throw the people of the stage and the last man standing wins -like Royal Rumble in the WWF(back then it was still wwf!).I remember all of us running like crazy to the stage when the recess bell rang!And we all had our own favourite wrestler like whom we would enter the stage (Undertaker was mine!) .So this one day during recess while we were playin the game on stage I saw this water bottle (the hard roundish one with a rope around it ) and I decided to make that my weapon.And I started swinging it around wildly and it worked –all the guys jumped off the stage and ran as fast as they could !.As for me I was dancing around in delight until I found out the actual reason for the guys to run away.Right behind me stood Nada with his cane and his usual grim look.Needless to say I got whacked!Not much of a prize for winning the royal rumble huh.

Apart from the royal rumble we had this other even more weird game –It was like this super advanced version of the usual police and thief game which I invented(yes I did!!) where you had a jail and a passport(those yellow stick on thingies that my dad used to get from the office for free.And to each passport there was picture of a cricket player stuck to it which I cut out from the paper)hard work it was!.That game also dint last long cause my dad began to realize where all the post it notes went!.But around 4 5 years later I remember Shilin my classmate in the 4th grade bringing to school the old “passport” of his with the picture of Chris Harris stuck to it!I wonder if he still has it!.Anways those were the days maan!Everything in life was so much more easier back then!.

Another fond memory of the 4th grade was that of the picnic we had in the creek park!.Now this park was right next to beach right so all the class teachers warned everyone not to go anywhere near the water.Each class was supposed to stick together and not wander off. Lol ya right like that was going to happen.We started off with a cricket game that ended after the first over when the park security came in those golf cart like thingies and took away the bats.So we decided to go exploring.And we ended up reaching this fishing spot right next to the water with steps leading into the water .So we decided to sit there inches away from the water(where we were specifically told not to go).And guess who turns up-Sajini mam our class teacher!We did the most sensible thing we could do then-We ran and all we could hear her say was:”Wait till you come to school tomorrow”!(out of the 14 of us who ran only Chirag went to school the next day –poor guy haven’t heard from him since)Lol!.I have photos of the picnic with me wearing what was once my favourite hat-the free pizza hut half soccer ball cap and all of us holding the plastic water guns we bought from the shop in the park!4-A will always hold a special place in my heart cause of the friends I made there most of whom remained friends for a long time to come!.

The move to the fifth grade was pretty big!.We were among the big boys now!No more writing with pencils(ink pens had to be used and it took a long time(and quite a few ink stains)to get used to it),More subjects,Weirder teachers etc etc!.5-C I was in ,the class near the old canteen which meant we didn’t have to run to make it to the canteen first in order to avoid being squished in between the older guys in the rush to buy Raja chips and Star cokes(which by the way tastes nothing like real coke)!.The 5th grade was also around the time when gasps of horror used to go around when anyone used a swear word even though secretly we would be like “Kewl he just swore”.We had a bunch of new teachers in 5th grade including this one teacher Lina mam I think who everyone was shit scared off!.One day during our mid term test (the 25 marks one)she was the invigilator.Science paper it was if I remember correctly.I finished the paper in around 25 mins which was quite surprising cause normally it took longer.While reading through the question paper again I realized it only had questions whose marks totaled 20 !The five mark question was missing.Impressed with my discovery I grandly got up and showed Lina mam that triumphantly when she turned the paper around and showed me two more questions on the other side of the paper!”Chammi poyi” would be an understatement to what I felt then!.Apart from that ,another memory(a better one than the chammi poyi incident) of the 5th grade was sometime in December when I saw the scout troop setting up their annual camp in the football ground!It all looked so interesting and I remember going back home telling my dad I wanted to join the scouts the next year

And I did join the Scouts troop of S.I.S the following year and the next three years changed my life forever! Until the next one –Goodbye and Goodluck™!