Last week I told about the formation of our WhatsApp group. Few guys joined initially and everyone was giving updates on where they are, what they’re up to etc. Some mentioned that we should try and invite girls also in the group. If it was like 10 years ago I would have teased them for that. But now I know most of them must have got married and settled, so I thought ‘it’s ok we can invite them too’. If you are wondering why I would have teased them about inviting girls if it was ~10 years ago, that’s how my high school made me. My high school made me(and most guys) immune to the urge of talking to the opposite sex, even if they are around me. Even if I see them every day for years, I still wouldn’t talk to them unless it’s necessary for my work. Most of my female colleagues never heard my voice other than in meetings(so kinda never). I can write a whole series of blogs about my shyness to talk to women.
Anyway, back to our WhatsApp group, guys kept telling to invite girls but no one had any of their contacts. One guy found a girl’s contact but wasn’t sure if she was still reachable in that number. Then we were again arguing who to reach out to her and tell her about this group. As typical to our high school guys, we were pointing fingers at each other and telling ‘you ping her, please’, ‘please da, you’re the admin’, ‘I don’t even know if she would recognize me’, etc etc. I felt like none of us grew up from that school. Finally, I pinged her and told about the group and gave her the link to join if she is interested. And that's how it started and slowly around 10 girls joined the group.
The interesting thing here is, boys and girls never talked in that school and after that, we all went our ways. So, guys don’t remember all the girls and they don’t remember all the boys, not even all the names. So when anyone joined the group, others welcomed but not sure about who she/he is. Then we asked everyone to give an intro and update the latest pic of theirs. Some remembered some with their names, some with their pics, some after explaining their seating positions, some after explaining some embarrassing moments like gotten scolded or insulted by staff, etc. For some people, it felt like getting socializing with a stranger no matter how much they tried to remember the other person. But still, I could see that everybody was excited about the group. Within boys and within girls, it was a reunion. Between boys and girls, it's actually just union.
When everyone shared their current pics, with their families, spouse, kids it felt good to see everyone. You can wonder, how can you get excited to see pictures of someone or chat with someone who you barely remember and never even talked to once before. It’s all due to one thing. That High School. That prisonesque-incarcerated-unhygienic-nightmarish-hectic high school life. We had that in common to everyone. That’s why when we saw other's pictures, the feeling was like ‘wowww... another person survived from that hell-hole, and leading a good life now’.
Even if I meet someone who studied in that school at a different time, we still would end up talking at least for an hour about that school. Here we are all from the same class and we have lots of things we can discuss from those times. So for the first few days, the chats never ended. Whenever you see there would be a notification for 400 msgs. I never got bored or irritated with all those messages. I read everyone’s chats with the most excitement. However badly I described our high school(all were true though), one thing is sure. It gave us tonnes of moments to reminisce, to think about, to laugh about. Stealing happy moments within hectic lives always find a permanent place in everyone’s hearts. Maybe that’s why they say “It’s the small things that matter the most”. And from the chats, I realized it was the same for the girls too. They were discussing their memories and incidents from their hostels too. They even discussed their crushes on our staffs. Sadly all our staffs were male, so we had nothing on that topic. And to know on which staffs they had a crush on, it was a little surprising. Well, guys can never understand ladies' taste right?.
After the crazy first week, the excitement diluted down slowly and that’s when I decided I should continue my blogging about our high school to dig up our memories so we can reminisce about our high school life regularly.
Flashback(2002-2004): Messy Mess
As mentioned in the previous blogs, our hostel mess was a twin four-wall building with a roof. No tables, no chairs nothing. We have to bring our own plates and tumblers. It has to accommodate 5000 students, so it also won’t be cleaned between two batches. Whenever the bell rang for dinner, we used to run from the hostel. It would be like the climax war scene from Virumandi. Like all the inmates in uniform with weapons in hand rushing towards the battlefield, we used to rush towards mess with plates in hand. And yes, we had a uniform too, separate uniform for the hostel.
After the initial few weeks, the food slowly became horrible. In the morning, when chutney was poured on top of idli, the water would go through and settle in the plate and the coconuts, curry leaves, and whatnots will form a layer on top of idli. I have seen the cooks using a hosepipe to pour water on chutneys to dilute it. Finishing the afternoon meal is another big project. All the foods were served in a cart which the servers used to push in the floor. If you miss getting the food when they pass you, then you need to get up and chase them in other lines to get what you want.
First, they serve the rice and next comes the sambhar. You try to like that sambar and finish a portion of the rice with it. But you won’t be able to after 2-3 spoonful(just for measurement, no one used spoons). Then you lose the trust in sambhar and wait for the next sour man, which is rasam. Rasam used to have curry leaves in bunches and tomatoes in full. We can’t separate the sambhar and the rice mixed with it, as you have only one round plate, so everything gets mixed with everything. So you try the rice+sambar+rasam a couple of spoons and then you won’t be able to eat that either. Now you wait for the final item which is the only thing which tastes different on every day of the week. That’s the buttermilk. I guess they make the buttermilk only once a week. So they taste good on the first day, not bad on the 2nd day, a little sour on 3rd, sour on 4th and by the 7th day you can’t even dip your tongue in it. But whatever day of the week it is, that was our savior. We get a mugful of buttermilk on the already existing rice+sambar+rasam+veggies and now the whole plate is full of buttermilk with all the other things floating in it. If you look at your plate now, you can guess how it would look like. Yes. ‘கழனிதொட்டி’. The tub, in villages where we used to pour all the wastes, so at the end of the day, we can give it to the Buffalo/cow to drink. So that’s what we did. At the end of the meal, we dipped our faces in that plate like a buffalo and swallowed everything in that plate which would have become like a porridge by then.
We cannot waste any food, as there would be a couple of staffs outside our mess to monitor that most of the time. So we had to finish everything on our plate. Mostly we won’t waste also, however bad it tastes. Because for our 4-5 hour sleep, and constant studying, reading and writing the rest of the time, we can’t afford to miss a meal. In fact, after I left home, my high school was the only place where I ate properly.
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