My Transition to National Public School, Bela Road Part 1

Well this happened a long time ago. I still vividly recall the day it was Monday 14^th April 1986 that I went to take my test for grade 6. I was made to sit and take that test in that chemistry lab. I remember I wrote fervently trying to answer every question that I could. I did make it but later I was told that it wasn’t so good. The very first day I met people like Abhilash Jindal and Rajeev Jain and Gautam. They inquired me about my performance in previous school and aptly cautioned that percentage here takes a nose dive. I was exposed to lot of things I didn’t know. From a relatively shy guy I became more asserting. There was this boastful Kapil Khanna with whom I used to take bus. I learned that ping pong is a serious game and its ok to spend Rs 500 for Marc 5 rubbers Rs 250 for Donics ply. I learned that Addidas, Reebok, Puma and Nike are the shoes one should wear. I learned all about pop culture and started grooving to latest music from Jackson, Madonna and Milli Vinalli. I learned how to break into clique and be a cool guy. I became a good ping pong player. Some of the friendships I forged are still fresh in my mind. Let me try how many I can recall Vikas Bansal, Atul Rathi, Naresh Arneja, Amit Jain, Amit Gupta, Suruchi Saboo, Smriti Khanna, Shobhna Gupta, Sheetal Jain, Vikram, Rajesh Grover, Abha Chiripal, Shalini Grover, Vinod Masih, R Dhanush, Rajesh Jain, Dinesh Jain, Monia, Meenakshi Razadia, Rajkumar Sharma, Shalini Sahdev, Robin Kapoor, Twinkle. We had a Physical Trainning Instructor Devdatt Sharma who had a red and white stick and many times we were punished for talking in class and had to endure beatings on palms. I excelled in badminton but I never played volleyball it was big boy’s game. I did play cricket sometime but only with plastic ball with leather ball I just watched these guys played. At the same time while I was learning in National School, I think I developed a complimentary personality at Mall Apartments. Here I become a good cricket player. I was a pacer. I was friends with everyone in the apartments. There were essentially 3 cliques here. One comprised of Amit Sood, Renoo, Deepak Batra etc. The other was Aditya Tondon, Girish Agarwal, Saket Singh etc and the third one was Malpani and other people we used to call Jamuna par people. I moved in and out with everybody and remember trying to bring these people together too. It was a wonderful childhood that I still savor. I will write more about it some other time.