The golden memory

The school bell still rings in my head sometimes. Long after the place has changed and the hallways look different. I still remember being that girl in the pressed uniform but the memories pull me back all the time.

I remember the morning light comes first. That soft kind of sun hitting the gates and the shoes that shine and never tied right perfectly. Those notebook opening sound, chalk piece scratching on the black board,pens that always leak a little on our hands...I used to think it was forever. That I could be the girl that little girl sitting among my friends and singing when I eat in the break. It did not, yet the pieces of it stayed with the anyway.

People say that the school I studied was the best CBSE school in my city. I always beamed bright when I heard it. Cause I know that that is true. I got friends from other schools and who always complain about their school and the atrocities that happen. There will always be a part of me that it quitely satisfied and happy that my parents chose this school and not any other one.

Assembly lines felt normal after a while. Standing close with the same girls every week with all our black hair plaited the same way. The same rythem when we sung our prayer and the playful way we skip telling "All Indians are my brothers and sisters". Small things like that stayed with me more than the rules.

There was this classroom where the fan made some noise every few minutes. Summers means fanning ourselves with literally anything flappy we find. The person sitting near the switch board will be officially having their most confusing day ever on winters with half the class telling them to turn the fan off while other people want the opposite.

Lunch was it's own world. Boxes opened and food passed around without much thought. Rice, chapati, noodles whatever someone brought that day. We traded bites and laughed against the walls sometimes so hard that our stomach pained from the strain. I still remember playing a game where the person next to us have to sing a song starting from the letter I have stopped the song I sung with. Those were my most favourite memories.

Exams were a league of themselves. Papers tiring, eyes moving around observing where the invigilator is while simultaneously trying to ask the questions from friend. I still remember the thrill of exchanging the question paper where the answers are written. Now looking back, those were considered the most hardest days of our life and sometimes I wish that it stayed true. We stayed pure and joyfull without knowing the reality of the cruel world were you could either join the rat race or be sidelined. The times where the biggest fear was about the marks we scored in our maths paper and if the favourite team would win the cricket trophy and not about getting jobs or internship or the war happening on our doorstep. And just like that we all free up.