The Best Days of my Life:

I remember those days when the hardest thing I had had to figure out was whether to keep my socks pulled up or to roll them down to make sure that that boy in class I had a crush on, would look at me for real. Gone are those days when we used to sit around under the banyan tree and secretly swear at the hostel warden for being such a pain in the arse. And so also are those days when we would wake up at midnight and scare the sleepy heads out of their brains! Gone deep under layers and layers of "How to prepare molar solutions", "How to create a mutant" and "Protocols for analysis of a gene" are tiny bits and pieces of those once-abhorred-now-cherished school days... I was put in the hostel during 3 years of it, and those were my best days ever! I remember the times when we used to sleep in our well pressed uniforms so that we could afford to wake up at 6 in the morning, instead of 5.30, and make it to mess on time. I remember those days when the potato chips we got for a Sundays' lunch was what we looked forward to the most... How we used to go "asshhooo!!" on getting caught by the warden for bunking classes and water-fighting! Getting punished for not answering questions and not bringing the right text books have often landed me in a great lot of trouble as well. Coming up with patented games of our own on the swings and the monkey climbs when we got fed up of dodge ball and seven stones are now things I deeply miss. Crossing our fingers and holding hands and cheering for our basketball "chettans" as they aimed for the basket and then mumbling no-not-now prayers for the opposing team for a life- saving game had been part of the usual. A month later, one would find the very same people, who once held hands, fighting with each other for their respective houses for the Inter-House school fest. We used to fight over almost everything, starting from shelf space to the "After- you" queues for the bathroom. Though a simple smile or a gentle hug would be the last things on our minds at that point of time; a fresh set of fights for shelf space and for the "after you" queue would turn past friends into foes and foes into friends. And so went our lives on and on... with something new each day. Finally one day circumstances were such that I was no longer to remain a boarder. And yeah.. you could say my life went up side down after that. Coz the comfort I got so used to within the open arms of my friends, 24x7, was omething I had to say good-bye to. I was not ready to say bye. I never wanted to say bye. But then, some things ought to change for the better. Though it might not seem "better" then, we can only hope that it gets better some day. As for me... I am still wondering why the "better" part of it has not yet come to me. For me, those days were the better out of the best.