Hi everyone!
This is my first try at blogging. Though Iam a member of many communities, I hardly blog. Here goes.........
In my younger years we lived in God's own country, Kerala. I used to go to a convent school. My house was not very near to the school. As there were no school buses, at least to my school at that time, I had to walk quite a distance. I had a classmate and friend who joined me half way. Her name was Geetha. Her initial was just "C". In our class we had few more Geetha's. To distinguish them we had the pratice of calling them along with therir respective initials. So you know, my friend was GeethaC. There were Geetha P,Geetha S.R(we called her Geetha Sir).
On the way, I had to walk by the side of a canal, past some houses and a temple pond. The temple was Bilathikulam Ayyappa temple. The temple pond was quite large. My friend's house was located on the other side of the pond. When I reach the side of the pond, it was my practice to shout "GEETHAC" and either she or her mother will appear and gesture to me to either wait or that she has already left ( this happens when I am late). There were some regulars who take bath in the pond at the same time. After a few days of this hollering, those people made my task easy. As soon as they see me appearing , they shout "GEETHAC" in unison without allowing me to open my mouth and promptly my dear friend appears near the gate . Her brother who used to be called "unnikuttan" also used to study in the same school. So she used to come loaded with her bag, his bag and their tiffin carriers and we used to then proceed as a group to the school joined by other other friends on our way. On the way there were hanging branches of mango trees, badam trees and gooseberry trees. We used to take some time to pluck them also and enjoy them on the way to school.
Those days will never come back and I feel sad that my sons have absolutely no clue as to how my school days used to be. Even when I describe, they ask how I could walk such a long distance? What do they know about the real fun we had!
