I have started my schooling from St Thomas School, Chandanagore. Baba took me to the school mainly to gather information about the admission procedure but end up admitting me over there that day itself. Over there before I realize anything, I started doing well academically. So I could include my name in the list of good students. Normally kids from very upper middle class families used to go to that school. Performing good among them was very encouraging for my parents, as they were not very sure with our family background I’ll be able to cope in this upper middleclass missionary school or not. But it’s a primary school ended quickly before I realize with a scholarship through a Primary School Scholarship exam program of West Bengal Board at that time.
Many students from St Thomas School move to Kanailal Vidyamandir for secondary and +2. For me this was the natural choice. But transformation from St Thomas culture to Kanailal was a cultural shock to me. In St Thomas, we were under strict discipline any misconduct was punished, in the contrary in Kanailal it was very loose and poorly equipped. The lower class rooms 5-6 were located in Nandadulal Block that was not having any clean toilet even. For drinking water we have a tap but it was running only for certain amount of time of the day. Classrooms were some old small rooms build in British period, not properly illuminated. Some time during rainy season water comes down from roof, that time teachers used to combine two sections together in one room and keep the school running. Naturally, nothing was very encouraging in fact quite in contrary of what we got in St. Thomas. But eventually other than completing school syllabus and progressing through classes, I came across some good teachers and personalities in the same school only, which helped me to learn and understand the world outside and helped me to be prepared for future life. So now I can tell that initial cultural shock was also a lesson for me, never conclude about anything from the first impression.
Among all the not so likable things, in one aspect Kanailal was definitely much better, it has a very good library and we have a library period every week when we can go and issue or renew books. That is the time I read Bengali translation all world literatures from Shakespeare to Victor Hugo. It helped to develop my reading habit and introduce me with world literature.
During early stages of Kanailal, I was not as focused in the academic as in St. Thomas, which get reflected in progress report but that is the time I developed many other useful skills, out from school syllabus, those all are have equal contribution to develop me as a person. And I have really got a chance of enjoying my childhood, and I believe its very important for every person’s life. I am really lucky, I have got such a big group of kids of same age from our locality. We didn’t have much compare to what today’s average middleclass family kids get, not even what did back on those days, but what we have a very big gang of kids all from the diversified economic standard but very common family value system with very common lifestyle. We played, dreamed, planned and executed lot of constructive things together grabbing whatever resource we had, like doing picnic, going for nature walk in jungle, playing cricket, football all possible sports, some time take a cycle and keep going where ever road takes, swimming in ponds or Ganges, just be creative come out with an wild idea, there is a big group of friend is there to give company to execute it and above all spend a very positive happy time with out spending any money or very little. But what we got in the process, not any amount of money can buy. We learned to be happy, content and creative with very simple things from our life and spent a very happy childhood. That positive free spirit of generating ideas always helped me a lot to develop as a person. I am sure all our friend of that group will tell exactly the same. I haven’t seen that spirit, that positive spark of life in many places. This is a golden memory of my life which always inspires me to look back to my growing up days.
Other than study I tried couple of extra curriculum at this period of life tried learning Tabla, recitation, joined in Art class on Sunday. The last one I continued for some time and tried to do it as sincerely as possible without sacrificing study, to develop as a stand by skill for opening up another opportunity for bread and butter in future. I was ok in drawing but I have seen much more gifted kid with this faculty.
Other than these structured learning, I have learned many more things unconsciously like swimming, climbing trees, catching fish, cycling, and many more like this which doesn’t fall in the curriculum but its absolutely needed for life. Today there are classes, structured program, for these but we learned through our growing up process only being inspired by each other from our friend circle. I think our learning was more natural if not very scientific so we enjoyed the learning process also.
Academically I could never be as distinct student as I was in St. Thomas. In fact I remember in class 7 I failed in one subject 1st time in the half yearly exam. That was 1st time I got a red mark on my progress report. And that was such a shameful incident to me more than parent saying anything. Today when I am thinking about this, it appears just as a childish thought from a kid. But on those days perspective, it was very self damaging. Today lots of kids suffer from these kind of self damaging psychology caused due to undesirable performance at those evaluation process.
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