A typical day in 10th...

For all tenthies, the beautiful day starts with the rude and unceremonious ringing sound at times like 3 - 4 in the morning. Dragging myself from the comforts of my plush bed, I somehow make it to the table. After a lot of rummaging and swearing, by half an hour all the books and stuff would have made it to the table. I was thankful. Some had tuition at these insane hours. If the rate of change of tutions follow an arithmetic progression I’m sure that in 6 years, the habit of sleeping would have died out from India. I try to focus on my studies when my head starts drooping. Then my mind would go out of focus. ZzZZ….

I’m woken at 6 by a not that hard[but hard enough] knock on the back of my head. And again the lecture about how I was going to suffer came out again. The lecture i had heard hundreds of times already.

Somehow I manage to keep my head up till 8. Memories of the teacher giving projects and assignments buzzed through my mind. There was no time to worry about that now.
In half an hour I was dressed up and as I am just about to eat my breakfast, the familior sound of a car horn blared. Scooping up my bag, I make my way down to the car and after hearing all his swears of how late I am everyday, I occupy half a seat in the car. 15 people including the driver[who is not that lean] in an ambassador os not a comfortable ride. 15 minutes in the car listening to the dimwits who keep on criticzing Dravid and Tendulkar. Suppresing my urge to beat the living lights out of them, I get off at the home of all Legends. Loyola, my second home was looking down at me.
Walking across our big ground to the reach the CBSE buiding was uneventful unless you count the incident where I almost got run over by a van bringing the tiny tots to the school.

Finally, I reach my destination. X C. The class that is complete with singers, dancers, musicians, actors, cricketers, footballers, leaders, quizzers, orators, nerds and henpeck’ds. The buzz of activity is always visible through the window. At the first sight I am crestfallen. Some other lousy bit of homework that is yet to be done. Half the class was reproducing the homework from the completed books of the other half. My best friend cum sponsor Richie Rich is writing the darn homework while my other best friend Johnny talks nonsense at full blast. The guys who are busy writing include dapankuth, Lama, and Nighingale. The guys who have finished include Mustu, Juice etc.

The teacher enters signalling an end to the work that was in progress and the start of the conversations that were to follow. The conversations vary from tutions to cricket, Messi to Dhoni, LA FEST to films etc. Finally before the end of the period either me or one of my friends will be outside the class. The next teacher comes in and seeing the guy outside starts the lecture on the importance of 10th and the need to score high in the boards. We knew the importance. For most, to get an admission to 11th in Loyola, an 80% was needed. The board was letting in some hope by making a plan to abolish the board exam in the 10th. But, Alas!…It was not to be so. Our juniors were getting the privilege.

The lunch break signals the start of playtime. Unlike other schools our school gives us the freedom of playing during the lunchbreak. After 40 adventurous minutes of a couple of bruises and fights we manage to get in the class only minutes late.

The next session is the time when everyone gets restless. After a a dozen of horrendous screams from the teacher, the last period ends with the teacher rushing out of the class calling God’s name. That signals the end to the day at school.

But it is far from over. The tuition sir waits like a lion in his den to devour all who comes. After an hour of sitting in the newly installed benches in the grounds, enjoying the paradisal beauty of Loyola, and a half hour in which we finish the homework for that day’s tution, we catch the 2nd trip bus to Pattom.

All’s well until we hear about a forgotten test paper announced in the last class. We buy the papers and get into class. The tuition class is a place where I dont feel at home. The whole class except me and a few others are all the guys who get the top grade in their school. He switches on his A/C and switches off all the fans. Though I was impresses with this gesture in the 1st class, the A/C literally gave no cool air as he had set it to 24 degree cooling or similar, and as the fans were switched off everyone had the experience of sitting in a furnace. All this heat with the ever-increasing heat of the exams is sure to drive any sane guy insane. But we still hold on. The tuition sir thankfully hasn’t used question papers with different codes till now which allows us to trade answers. We somehow write it decently enough to scrape a pass and get out of there as fast as we can.

Then catch a bus to my place. Get in the house, have a bath and change. This goes like a blur. Without further thoughts I set the alarm and toss myself onto the plush cot waiting for me.