Memoirs of a small town kid...............

How would it be to grow up in a small town like Calicut? For my born and brought up in Bangalore hubby and kids, this is unimaginable. My hubby always says that he takes one walk and Calicut is done with.....Add to that the Edavazhis where you cannot drive around and the fact that he cannot get his filter coffee and adrakwali chai and you cannot blame the poor bloke.  I wonder then about what is it that keeps pulling us Calicutians back every now and then. It is exactly the things for which others ridicule it that we guys love it J. For a generation who grew up without mobiles, computers, TVs, cycles, mobikes, it is this  all round smallness of the town that held the charm for us. You couldn’t really go anywhere without meeting someone you know around being there. Just walk one way and you get to your school, the other your college, and here and there your friend’s houses. Just Pop into any one of those.
Memories of School………
                       Walking (rather wading) in pouring rain and knee deep water (with a possible change of uniforms to dry ones after reaching school !)
                       New umbrellas every year……..Shoes ? Whatever for !!!!!!!
                       Screaming your hearts and ears out at  youth festivals and inter school fests
                      Taking flowers for the teachers and vying to be their favourites
                      Picnics @Beypore, Malampuzha, Shoranur
                      Waiting for the sound of school bell and the national anthem @final period
                      Looking for excuses to get away from the morning assembly and PT exercises
                      Mass punishment for talking in class….walking past others in a line giggling……J
                      Cleaning school @Gandhi Jayanthi, honest with brooms and stuff……
                      Lots and lots of Famous Five, Secret Seven, Hardy Boys, Tintin, Nancy Drews , Archies and Amar Chitra Kathas with the occasional ‘Baalarama’, graduating to M & Bs hidden in text books…..
                     Watching Charlie Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy @Crown
                     The Mamooty or Mohanlal debates….(Sorry both of you guys…..but then you really are that ancientJ)
                     Remembering umpteen landline numbers
                     Sending post cards on New years, difficult to believe we actually used to wait for the post man
                     Writing with ink pens on ruled sheets
                      Whispering (not copying mind you J) during exams
                      Haggling with teachers for that extra half mark...........
                      Selling your school raffles to your neighbor uncles and aunties, knowing their kids would catch your parents as well for the same
                      Dropping fines(@25 paise) in the box kept on teacher’s table for talking in believe it or not ‘Malayalam’
                      Playing kho kho
                      How many of you sat on a desk which did not have anything written (rather carved ) on it?
                      Gobbling lunches (others not ours) fast so you have time to play around
                     Delighted when the padippu mudaku guys turned up at your school gate
                     School captain elections and campaigning…….cannot believe it we even made all the slogans and posters ourselves
                     Ever read the newspaper headlines at the morning assembly……
                    Moral science classes, after all our parents chose a convent school thinking all this right ?
                   Cannot really remember PTAs apart from when building funds were asked forJ
                      Yeah and then we also had English, maths, science, social studies etc ………
Summer Holidays…………Hide and Seek, Seven Stones, Cards, Carroms and Badminton with neighbouring kids or just loitering around  not to mention breaking neighbours windows with cricket shots, eating raw mangoes and gooseberries, enormous power cutsJ, listening to radio and tape recorders, watching movies on video cassettes, learning to ride cycles @50 paise per hour on rentJ, visits to the beach with icecreams and peanut treats. I remember my mom used to say that it was so difficult to keep me inside or keep track of me. Ever heard of holiday homework during those times?????? Yes, believe it or not, it was a wonderfully safe city or maybe you did not really know about the dangers that were and just gladly walked around. Hardly remember getting into buses and autos.
College………….A whole bunch of us from the neighbourhood meeting up at a cross road and walking  across every single day
Romances (No not mine please….) that were and would have been and a few that went awry……
KSU, SFI and VMCC……..College Elections and damn it all, cannot believe that I actually competed and won…..
Scheduled bunks and unscheduled bunks (this means that you are still running out the door or jumping out the window when the professor is walking in …..)
Manojettan’s samosas and sherbets
Credit negotiations with the ice candy vendor near the girls room…cannot remember his name
Pooled in Birthday parties ……Faludas and ice creams and rose milk…..
Innumerous treks to Nadakkavu and trips to WestHill to Koyilandi to Gwalior Rayons @Mavoor and around Mananchira Maidans
Study tours that were anything but thatJ
Helping out the guys with their record works
 Going oh! at the colours generated in the chemistry labs
Racking your brains at the equipments in the Physics lab and faking the readings
Sitting in the balcony benches in classesJ yeah I mean it we actually had classes where the benches were in the steps format…..
Remember Fine Arts days and the chief guests like Jagadish, Sukumari and the likes….
Tuitions @Karunan and Devdas Mash……
Surprising you see…. there is not much to write about, huh? But then you have to live it to know it……….all these small town memories adding up to FFL (Friendships For Lifetime). So when others walk around Calicut and see the roads, shops, houses, schools, colleges, parks and the beach……….we see our own lives and times in vivid 70 MM screens with a yearning to go back and live those times once again…………..Whoever said growing up in small towns like Calicut can be boring. I only wish that my kids could have had a taste of the same………………

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