A place I called home

Lately I’ve been having long, intricate, adventurous dreams every single night. The ones that make you feel like you haven’t really slept properly because your mind hasn’t exactly been to rest. I don’t mind dreaming, (in fact, I love it); what I do mind is when the dream vanishes as soon as I wake up. By vanishes I mean, that when I open my eyes, it just slips out of my hand. Poof! Even if I squeeze my eyes shut and try to recall it, it just won’t come back to me. And that REALLY bugs me. It’s like I’ve just seen an entire two hour movie and I’ve forgotten as soon as it finished. And sometimes I just know that the dream was good.

The same thing happened with me today and I just sat and hmpfed. I got up lazily, stretched and yawned. It came back to me when I was brushing my teeth. It just swooshed right back at me! I remembered my dream after all! I stood still for a moment as I remembered how beautiful it had been!

I was back in school again. I was there with my college friends, but the funny thing was: I was a kid. I couldn’t see myself, but because it was my dream, I knew it. It was the same field again, the same premises, the same old swings; the merry-go-round. How many times had I dared to swing myself upside-down on that monkey ladder, just to prove how brave I was to my friends even though I personally used to hate doing that? The grand old swing which we used to call ‘phisal-patti’ as toddlers. How many times had I been pushed down it by that big bully back in LKG? The church, the beautiful buildings, the Claudine Block, the gorgeous statues of Jesus and Mary and the lush green trees all around. My school it was. My second home for fourteen long years. I hated it, I loved it. I dreaded it, I was eager to go to it.

Everyday was a new adventure. My class was the perfect smorgasbord of kids who were lovable, naughty, absurd, irritating and plain crazy. My school made me what I am today. The small problems I faced there, taught me how to deal with the bigger issues in life. The little lessons learnt in those Value Education classes, did prove to add to my character. The amazing English teachers that I had are the ones who inspired me to write in the first place.

(The garden in front of the Claudine Block)

(The old building and the old Basketball court)

“Wow, our school looks so beautiful and peaceful in the evening right? Without all the hustle bustle and the noise?” I said to my friends sitting with me in the dream, who did not respond. I smiled as I lay there on the ground. Right under the neem tree where we used to sit together when we’d get tired of playing ‘Red Letter A’ and ‘Crocodile Crocodile’. There was a cool breeze blowing, and the sky was orange and purple and cloudy. There were birds flying over the graveyard. It was all so fresh and so clear.


I thought of the teachers, singing Christmas carols in the warm winter sun, sprawled across on the corridors against each other during free classes, the free spirited, sweet innocent two-ponied girls trotting about and later, the surging adolescent female hormones and the cat fights, free ice cream and secret santa, the feast of Dina Belanger and St. Claudine Thevenet. It was a completely different world altogether. So distant from what it is now. Nostalgia shrouded me like never before. I closed my eyes and sighed.

I feel like I haven’t valued my school as much as I should have. I need to visit my school again. I need to see our names within little hearts, engraved behind the field, on the wall of an old water tank. And I need to meet those four stupid friends of mine, whom I haven’t met properly in ages. They’d know I’m talking about them if they’re reading this.

I know I should have said this earlier but, Arrivederci St. Patrick’s Junior College. I miss you. 

(Last day of school)