Idyllic Days

                   SARAH (CONT'D)                     Do you love me? Borden looks into her eyes. Sincere.                          BORDEN                         Not today. If you have watched THE PRESTIGE, you definitely know what the above dialogue means and its implications. After we watched THE PRESTIGE and discovered this little Easter egg, our reaction was priceless. We were absolutely flabbergasted, discussing the brilliance of that scene for hours. It wasn't just a one-day conversation either—we kept talking about this film for many days afterward. Abhilash and I were responsible for screening the film. The highest number of audience members ever gathered in our illegal mini theatre to watch it, making our chests puffed with pride. While watchin...

It was the year 2014, when I had just joined Sainik School. I was naive, chronically homesick, and resented the whole world. But through those tough times, my friend Sandeep was a ray of hope. He didn't become my friend deliberately; it just happened. We happened to be in the right place at the right time. I was so homesick that I wept every night like a baby. But Sandeep wasn't like that. He was a pretty chill guy. He was funny, smart, and, most of all, very mature. I had never seen him shed a tear. I am talking about a time when we were just 11 years old. My home was 300 km from the school, and his home was 1,000 km away. I never understood the concept of homesickness in my school, as I was baffled by the equation of it. There's a guy who was more homesick than me, and that guy's home was just 10 km away. (The irony is pretty amazing, right?) I think you got the gist about Sandeep. Now let's come to the story. One fine day, I was hanging out with a friend. Who am ...

As per our routine, we had cross-country every Saturday, in which we had to run 2.5 km to the turnaround point and then back again, making it a 5 km endurance test. Let me get to the brass tacks. The journey from our school ground to the 2.5 km turnaround point can be classified into three legs. As soon as the whistle blew, signaling the start of the cross-country run, the stopwatch began ticking simultaneously. Initially, as we crossed the boundaries of our school ground, we entered the first leg—the Mangrove Forest. No, they weren't actual mangroves. It was simply a mango garden on both sides of the road. We could have called it a mango garden or a mango forest, but the name Mangrove Forest was a legacy that had been carried forward since the time we first started running cross-country. This stretch was around 200–250 metres long (approximately). Then, taking a left along the same path, came the second leg of our journey—a mud road (kaccha road). It was the shortest s...

Being seniors, we were held responsible for our juniors and for maintaining the discipline and etiquette of our respective houses. Coming to Krishna House, after having a few conversations with our juniors, we received several complaints about strange noises at midnight—sounds of someone moving around, murmuring, and other unexplained disturbances. As we dug deeper into the issue, they told us that most of these sounds seemed to originate from the floor near the TV room. For your information, each house dormitory had its own TV room, located between the two wings of ground floor consisting of three rooms for each batch. As far as I remember—maybe when we were in 9th class or somewhere around that time—we discovered an illegal way to access the TV room. Nothing magical. We simply loosened the screws of the window that faced our rooms, creating a strategic little portal into the TV room. So yes... the mysterious noises our juniors kept complaining about were actually the resu...

For the cultural competition, we were all doing our due diligence, leaving no room for mediocrity. Then, at the very last minute—just a week before the event—like a cyclone, Jagdish Babu Sir (our Junior House Master) hit us with a surprise. He took over the Group Dance and Group Song categories under his wing. Boom! We unknowingly entered Version 2.0 of our cultural competition preparations. Firstly, the previous dance number was scrapped, and in came our evergreen performance, 'India Waale' from Happy New Year. It had been our go-to dance number for many past events, so it was practically a cakewalk. We just had to add a few improvisations to make it look fancy and perform it to perfection. Then came the Group Song category. Instead of the sad melody our choir had been practising, Jagdish Babu Sir introduced the classic, energetic song 'Mere Angne Mein...', originally sung by the legendary Amitabh Bachchan. The song became an instant hit with its playful, c...

We were in our 11th class when we were infected with the rare disease of playing Monopoly every time we got the chance—especially at night—like madmen. Usually, the game can be played by up to eight players, but it was a standard for us to play with four players, along with a bank manager in our room. If a fifth player or more were interested, then they had to form a coalition with one of the four playing members. That was our rule. Our version of Monopoly came with a set of rules and limitations of our own. For example, in the actual game, winning Monopoly means having a monopoly over all the properties on the board. But as per our rules, we played till our hearts' content, and when we felt enough was enough, that was our cue to end the game. We even had rankings for the players at the end of each game. The rankings were: 1st place – King 2nd place – Minister 3rd place – Police 4th place – Doddichambu (a metal pot traditionally carried while going to attend nature'...