Beautiful days..

I am today going to meet one of my school friends after may be 10 years. It is a funny feeling, while I am so happy that I will be meeting her after such a long time I can distinctly remember how she was in school and I wonder how much she would have changed.
Today I am on a nostalgic trip down memory lane of school. Those beautiful years where fights were on sharing pencils and erasers. A beautiful pencil or a colorful pencil box were the most coveted possessions. Even as we tried to come first in class we didn't think twice or calculate before helping somebody with studies. Lunch breaks were great equalizers as everybody ran to conquer a seat on the swings. Where it was simple to understand who your best friend was when she took you along to distribute sweets across classes on her birthday. Those unforgetful school rides on cycle rickshaws where we took turns sitting on the favorite window seat of the rick and playing games while we waited for the rickshaw man to come. How we begged our rickshaw man to pluck "imlis" from the huge tree outside the school or those times when everyone would yell at me for stealing mulberries from a house near my school. As we grew up up the discussions changed from pencil boxes to boys, I started going to school on my bicycle (another prized possession) the hems of skirts started climbing up and the socks started getting rolled down. Rushing for coaching classes right after school and climbing across gates to make it in time. While our teachers struggled to keep a set of giggly girls under control as they struggled to give us some basic education on growing up (hehe that was what it was called).
The first socials where each one shared clothes and shoes to match to impress a group of 16 year old boys who would have fallen even if we were dressed in rags and to top it all the day after discussions which focused around how many guys one danced with or which guy bought whom an ice cream.
Those sessions in chemistry labs where we discovered the wonders of mixing colourful liquids and begged the lab assistant to help us with the readings and the salt. The lessons with our dear biology teacher who insisted on directing every discussion towards man woman relationships and tose outrageous point of views which came tumbling out of 16 year old minds, those sessions in the physics lab where getting the circuit right made us feel like Newton or Einstein. Those wonderful lessons in english where I seemed to dwell on unrequited love of Pip from Great Expectations.
Those sports day where houses where religion. Where singing competitions and annual sports day were wars and the best house cup was the biggest trophy. When nothing seemed impossible as we let our dreams fly and reach new horizons. As we freely shared our dreams without being guarded or thinking "what if we did not reach them" or when we tried to sell of our favorite pair of jeans to fund a school trip (Ya! somebody actually tried doing it).
Alas!!! they are all gone by but the memories stay and leave a sweet after taste which lingers on..........