Simple Pleasures of Early School Days

Pre- primary education for me was not formal, in other words I did not go to school then! All the initial education was done naturally, there was no teacher or books for me. Until the year of 1944 I never went to school. I roamed around alone the whole day. I played alone too; since my two elder brothers and sister were busy playing games at school and had their own friends.

The world was my oyster! No one to discipline me; no one to say,”Go and study”! No one to stop me from doing what I wanted! Life was one big round of eating, playing and sleeping! Once while I was playing with sticks,  I was witnessed by our neighbor- I had fixed a stick vertically in the ground and was trying to put another stick horizontally, and he declared that I would be an engineer. Maybe the prediction affected my mind and I became one years later.

My father was a very busy man. Our family had by now grown to six children; we saw him very rarely. In the latter half of 1943 he saw me wandering about as usual and had a conversation with me. He treated me as a grown up adult and that is one thing that I admired about him. He respected everyone’s views. He asked me why was I not going to school, and my reply to this was that no one had taken me to the school! He then looked at me thoughtfully and asked me which class I would fit in. My reply to this was high school, which those days began in class IV.  The very next day he took me to the headmaster of the school. The Headmaster interviewed me in English and asked me my name; my father’s name; and what my father’s profession was.  A very simple question-answer session -my answer to all the questions were also in English. I have no idea where I picked up the language! But I do know that the headmaster was impressed and admitted me to class IV.

I started to go to school in Jan 1944 and by July 1944 was promoted to class V, since that year the academic session was changed from January to July. Utkal University took over from Patna University and many children benefited from this change over. I remember I was at the top of the class in English, but not in the other subjects. Arithmetic, Geography, Oriya were relatively easy, but History was always an anathema till the finals.

In those days there was neither anything like homework, nor did we carry notebooks and books to the school. The most fascinating activity that we had was the drawing of charts to put up the time table of our school days.These told us which subjects were there on which days and at what time! We made these at home. The other attractive thing about school was the buying of new books and covering them with glossy papers from old calendars and later with brown paper and labeling them! Even appearing in six monthly and annual exams was an exciting part of growing up; we did not have our parents egging us on to study or doing our homework! Then the daily drills; prayers; sports and other day to day activity kept us busy at school. Ganesh and Saraswati pujas were also looked forward to, as we did not have to go to school or to study and the added bonus was the lovely prasads we used to get!

We used walk to school. We did not have shoes; we were dressed in a half pant and half shirt. Our school known as Gibson High School was about a mile from the house. On the way to school (We obviously used to take shortcuts) we passed through a settlement of Kutchis and Banjaras (they were tribes from Gujarat and Rajasthan), a power house and open paddy fields. The hospital was just beyond the school, where we rarely went. Beyond this was the old town of Keonjhar with a Jagannath temple, Sidhamath, the old palace and the mountain Gandamardana.This Mountain was about 3000 feet above sea level, and my town was 1350 feet above sea level.

Keonjhar is also a part of the tribal belt of the state of Orissa. There were adivasi villages around our house. As a curious child I used to peer at all their activities of daily  life with interest and learn a lot from them. They had many unique festivals like “Raja” (A pagan festival), their life was very different from ours hence the curiosity- their marriage by elopement and drinking of handia (an alcoholic drink made from rice) under the shade of trees, their folk dances with colorful dresses and the health and the agility of the men and women were a source of wonder for all of us. Sometimes while going to the mountain we would climb halfway and see the adivasi settlements on the way. Their method of cultivation; tending of the cows; collecting the forest products like mahua seeds and roots and building huts were all very absorbing and educative.

During summer there used to be mutkas (earthen pots) of water on the road side on our way to school. These were distributed by the business community as a kind of social service. Other memories that remain clear in my mind are the huge trees filled with fruits which were asking to be plucked. The swans in the powerhouse pond were so large that they used to be almost up to my shoulders! The tall eucalyptus trees with seeds just like small wine cups; then the seed of one plant, which fell like a helicopter away from the main tree; the simly (a kind of plant) seeds dispersing in wind. 

Rainy season was the most fun filled times! The world was all green, with sadhab beetles (These were bright velvet red), small grass flowers in full bloom, and the smell of damp earth all round. In 1942, before I went to formal school there was panchgrahakuta or- the placing of five planets in one house of the astrological chart and this supposedly led to torrential rain in Keonjhar! It rained for three days at a stretch! No one was able to go to the well to get drinking water. Drinking water was collected by tying a bed sheet in the rain and allowing the water to filter into some container!

Those were exciting and fun filled days. Our pleasures were simple and for the most created by ourselves and thus I feel, more satisfying. Our creative powers were more enhanced and this led to many inventions during those days. The fact that we looked forward to each new day as a new beginning was what gave us the zest for living. We did not understand the word “Boring”!