Excursion Brawl...!

This is what we hold on to. This is our day in the dead of the night. These 3 days are what we have been waiting for all these months...

Rewind: 10th August 2009

The hisory teacher droned on about French revolution. The last week before the examinations. Last minute revisions came in all periods. Half closed eyes looked up at the above mentioned teacher, hardly following the words pouring out of his mouth. Cometh the hour. Cometh the man. Ramesan sir. Bringing the history class to an abrupt pause, he surveyed the class with a smile. No longer was anyone sleeping. Instead of sleeping everyone was staring with their eyes wide open at this new visitor.

"The excursion is confirmed. Its a 3 day trip to Ooty , Veega Land and Malampuzha. That was exactly what we needed to get our spirits up. All classes turned into fun-filled planning sessions. Teachers were amazed to see the usually sleeping guys in full blast. But we were having our exams and we somehow forced ourselves to study for the examinations.

Fast Forward: 10th September 2009

Loyola was the place. 5 am was the time. Our fleet of battleships(read buses) were lined up and ready for action. With happiness on our faces and our minds buzzing with excitement we set off from Loyola. Cheering was done in full spirits. Our first destination was Veega Land, the water theme park(as if u dont know). We stopped at Kalpakavadi Restaurant at Allapuzha which offered pretty good food. After breakfast and a photoshoot at Kalpakavadi we continued our journey to Veega Land.

Thanks to the daredevil driving, we reached Veega Land by 10 am. By 10 30 am we get into the vast area which promised fun. Veega Land was known as the best water theme park in Kerala and we now knew why. The rides in that park will make you want to cry out for more. The land rides were our first targets. We got on all the scary, brain-freezing rides which threatened to throw its passengers out. The guys who had a go were giddy and were feeling lucky that they lived to tell the tale. The water rides wer'nt bad either. Land rides and water had the same effect. But the difference was that in the case of water rides, it was your classmates that did the damage and not the ride. Pushes, kicks and dives were done at innocent classmates which fills their nostrils and mouth with water. Finally by 5 pm we forced ourselves out of the pools and headed for the snacks stalls. Ice creams, chocolate and drinks were had before we got back in the bus.

Our next stop was Ooty, the place admired for its natural beauty. It was a cool place(literally) and the guys were simply dying to reach there.

Date: 11th September 2009

Time: 7 a m

The guys who were tired after their experience at Veega Land never showed it as they stepped down from their buses at Ooty Gate Hotel which has witnessed generations of Loyolites. We checked in. My roommates were Richie Rich, Johnny and Jitsu. Richie was making awkward comments about the hotel and complaining loudly that they had no proper lighting system(he was expecting a 5-star hotel) while the rest of us had no complaints about the hotel. And then we got a nice sound exhibition from Ramesan sir as Richie had taken too much time in the bathroom.

We left for breakfast, and then to Dodabhetta. The half hour at Dodabhetta was utilised for photography. THE TEA FACTORY, read the big sign on the front of a huge building which we were supposed to be getting in next. There we saw the various tea making machines from which we gathered nothing at all. There was a chocolate shop above this floor from where Daredevil actually bought 2 kilos of chocolate of all kinds. Then we drank a glass of tea(filled to the quarter of half) given by the authorities which was our last experience in the tea factory. We had a quick visit to the Botanical Gardens and then to a place meant for shopping which showed world famous brands with their spellings absurdly wrong and quality absurdly low.(eg. nike - nikey).

And then we were back to our room. Half an hour for the campfire. We all make it down at 5 minutes to go and reach the place. The campfire was lit. The music was on. Maniyan Uncle and Ramesan Sir were in full form. They moved, they grooved, they swerved. Almost everyone had fun. And unfortunately the day ended and we were told to get back to our rooms and stay there. Ramesan sir had to tell off a few people(including me) for wandering around at night. Ramesan sir had no sleep that night. Finally after a couple of serious adventures by both the guys and Ramesan sir, it was morning.

Date: 12th September 2009

We were packed but not ready. Not ready to leave this place. We had to force ourselves to move. And grudgingly we make it to the bus. Malampuzha was our next destination. Thanks again to the daredevil driving of our busdriver we reach Mettupalayam before schedule. Now here we had another round of music and dancing. After that we were feeling ravenous and everyone fell on the lunch that waited for us. We left from there. And reached Malampuzha by 4 pm. Our first adventure there was the Malampuzha rope-way. All were excited at this new ride. We had an awsome view of Malampuzha dam and the place around it from the rope way. And the visit to the dam and the place around it was fair fun. Then we decided to shop. The case was same as the one seen in Ooty. But we eventually bought some artefacts for the sake of buying. And that was our last experience during our excursion. Next we didnt know anything. How fast the driver was driving or what time it was or where we had reached, we never knew. We had awesome fun in the return trip and we made it a tour to remember. The movies that were played during the return went unnoticed. Singing, dancing, cheering and what not, we made the return of 6 hours pass like half an hour.

Date :13th September 2009

Time: 3 30 am

The End. We reached The End. The End to these 3 days in which we witnessed many worlds. Everyone waved goodbye with sorrowed faces. Our time was up. We were drained of words. But filled to the brim with memories.

Life is Tough. But memories like these make us want to live even more. Hope keeps us alive. Hopes about another excursion much better than the ones we have ever had.

Cheer Loyola Sons,

Cheer Till Day Is Done,

Till The Game Is Won,

For our School.

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.