senescence and reminiscence

"A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance." Thus spake Jawaharlal Nehru near midnight on August 14, 1947, eagerly looking forward to becoming the first Prime Minister of India. So they tell me. Nanochip will be able to attest that it's real, having declaimed the speech in his typical classy manner at an inter-school declamation competition for ICSE schools in the tenth grade. It took place around June 2008, even before the investiture ceremony (maybe the week before?), and a month before I conceived the brilliant idea of making this blog, so it was regrettably not recorded. Granted that Nanochip is the only person who will be able to follow this twisted tale, so characteristic of the school the two of us attended when we were young and full of energy, I think it's still a good idea to try to recollect the events of that day, in keeping with the general philosophy of this blog. There were three such ICSE events that we attended that month, might as well record all three.

I may have the order wrong, but I think the first of these solemn events was the Frank Anthony Debate Competition that was held at, if I remember correctly, some thitherto unheard-of school named Chaitanya or Narayana, possibly unrelated to the two nefarious forerunners of FIITJEE. Our mutual friend Mr. Kaul and a girl whom we called Barry, who would soon occupy the entirely too glorified office of Head Girl, participated in this debate, being by nature eristic. Nanochip and I just sat among the sparse audience, and watched. There was an unofficial extempore competition held while the debaters marshaled their thoughts in a back room in which the rest of us were not permitted. I think people had to say something extemporaneous about cell phones. Nanochip chose to say, in his genteel, patrician manner, passing his eyes over his audience with boredom, that "passenger pigeons became polluted", and therefore we had to use cell phones. What can I say? I laughed. I didn't pay attention to the actual debate, because a wave of nausea had swept over me that I can't explain even now. I hadn't eaten anything besides my ritual bowl of cereal that morning. Could it have been the unfortunate bus ride with Z and, if I'm not mistaken, Krabby? (Or did we take autorickshaws that day?) Oh, and I remember we met Z's sister the Ship there, an even larger beneficiary of their luxurious lifestyle. The Ship had already treacherously gone back to teaching at NASR. She would later return, of course, but I imagine she felt something in the nature of compunction for her actions, because she may have tried to hide behind a wall of NASR students when she saw us. We went to the school playground after the debate, where we hung around the rather derelict playground equipment, and chatted airily to each other. Then suddenly I heard a dog barking, and I looked up at the school building in the distance. Standing in an open stairwell was a stern-looking old lady with bushy gray hair in what looked like a negligee, no doubt a teacher, screaming, "Out! Out!" at us, and gesturing violently toward the playground egress with sweeping motions of her saggy arms, as if we were collectively the hapless man she had married. We laughed at her, and took our own time leaving the playground.

The second event was the one to which I alluded in the first paragraph, the declamation. 10th graders had to deliver Nehru's Tryst with Destiny speech while 12th graders (ISC) had to deliver something by Churchill. Anyway, Nanochip delivered the Nehru speech in his usual genteel, patrician manner, and it was rather entertaining. This took place at Geetanjali, and Nanochip and I had traveled there in an autorickshaw with none other than our catty chemistry teacher (who for some reason had a super-soft spot for us) on whom we had bestowed the gibberish nickname Slabooshi. She cackled throughout the declamation. Then we met a kid named Kishore (Kitchkori/Pitchkori/Kitch-pitch-kori/Shyamori to us), who had left our school after the seventh grade to join Geetanjali. Always short and boisterous, he hadn't grown an inch since our last meeting. Then he ran away, and Slabooshi, who had formerly had a super-soft spot for Kishore (indeed, it was due to Kishore that Slabooshi had developed a super-soft spot for me), began cackling again.

The third event was an essay competition to which I don't think Nanochip accompanied me. Instead there were a girl from the ninth grade (one of those geniuses who are but rarely born in our midst, and who would singlehandedly raise our school's reputation in the academic world by scoring 97.2% in the ICSE Board Exams in 2010) and our biology teacher (an absolutely wonderful but terribly strict lady we have called the Gate Guardian since 2006). This took place at one of those St. XYZ Grammar Schools. (St. George, I think.) I wrote something so shitty that I don't even remember what the topic was. Then again, it was five years ago, so can I be blamed? Needless to say, we returned in disgrace. Well, at least it was better than the Horlicks Essay Competition that I had accidentally signed up for in 2007. That took place at that large Sai Baba auditorium in Sri Nagar Colony, and I wrote some nasty things about Horlicks being black, radioactive, industrial pollutants in the guise of a drink. And my history teacher, Krabby, gave me something in the way of hell for it afterwards, when she found out that I had written prominently the name of our school on that sheet of paper. But that's neither here nor there.

The point, as Nanochip and I often said after leaving that modest but amazing school, is that ICSE is a really classy educational board. Also, was the quotation by Nehru really relevant? Well, the part about stepping out from the old to the new was, but that's about the most you can get out of Nehru. I mean, he's probably never going to be quoted in anything serious. All people remember him for now is his liaison with Edwina Mountbatten, wife of the last Viceroy of India. What else did I do in those days? I had fallen madly in love with Slam Dunk about a sixmonth (why not, you funny ol' purists?) before this period, when I was fourteen, and I wrote fan fiction at school in notebooks in my free time. I had also taken to drawing large houses for my self-insert in the SD universe, whom I oddly still carry around with me as part of my identity. I also drew pipe organs. For my self-insert. Because he played the organ. Yes. Without revealing too much about him, I shall add that he went to Ryonan and knew very well a certain ace. For this I drew the Ryonan shield that has since become so famous that people can no longer tell that it wasn't part of the original series.

I don't make a big deal out of birthdays and things, but today I thought I might reach a bit further into my glorious past for blog material than I usually do, in the last few hours of teenagehood I have left. Jesus Christ, I've reached middle age...