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SCHOOL LIFE – SHRUNK TO REMINISCENCES

‘Goodbye….’ I remember how the campus of Tashi Namgyal Academy vibrates to it, responds to it in the morning of Farewell Day each year. I’ve stood often enough in the assembly listening to it and it seemed no different than any other word, hardly realising any feeling or depth in it.

It is only when it comes to you that you realise what it feels to leave a place where you’ve spent around fourteen years, which comes to more than half your life till now.

We’ve all known and heard about the history of TNA and it is surprising to see ourselves being transformed into history – characters of the past.

It seems just yesterday when I used to come to school in shorts with a small bag on my bag and a water bottle in hand. Time has flown since and goodbye seems round the corner.

The years spent in the school have been a glorious roll of drums. We all look back to them with a wishful longing and thrill. Leaving school seems to be leaving a glory behind, all the joys of childhood and adolescence that will never come again in life.

These are the years when we live in a world beyond all pretences and hypocrisy, that seem to inhabit this world of ours. These are the years when we actually develop our personality and taste, grown from a juvenile to a young, trustworthy and a good human being.

A school suggests a beautiful confluence of change and continuity:

• Change because different batches of students join and leave the school each year – the old ones giving way to the new ones.
• Continuity because a teacher is always there teaching and imparting the same noble values of life year after year to different batches of students.

In a school, a child receives education as well as the guidance and encouragement of teachers, the love of friends. A school helps you take out the BEST in you and shows you your capabilities.

TNA has been all these to me, and much more. All along my school days, I’ve felt the pride the pride of studying in TNA. This wasn’t the pride of studying in a premier institution of the state, but the pride of belonging to the TNA family, of being its member.

During all these years, I’ve seen changes come to TNA – the addition of buildings, buses, extension of the playground, etc. Of what I’ve seen and known till now, I feel that TNA today is comparable to any good public school of the country. It has all the facilities that may be desired or expected of it, and the school has attained a meritorious state in Academics as well as in Sports.

Each student of TNA must realise that he may not get the same facilities, the same teachers and the same sort of guidance anywhere else, and so must try and make the best use of these while he or she is in the school. It is never too late to begin.

There are a few spheres in the school where there is room for improvement – the usage of English as a communicating medium, the control of noise level in elocutions and debates and better attendance in Inter-House matches.

This year, there was a very high percentage of students watching the basketball and volleyball matches and after years of trying, the galleries of the field were full during the mini-olympics. I hope our students will continue with this.

I genuinely and thoroughly enjoyed this year. Keeping Vergillo Zoppi’s words, “Brute force bends but fair argument convinces” in mind, I never had any problems as the School Captain. The Prefects’ Body was very co-operative and the students of TNA proved much more disciplined than I expected.

I’ve enjoyed getting to know the children, helping them with their problems, correcting their mischief, and above all, remembering myself in the same position a couple of years back and smiling to myself.

An episode of my life is over and perhaps the most important one, but the greatest happiness lies in the fact that it has been memorable. I’d have loved to stay on in TNA but its just that I have to go.

“The woods are lovely, dark, and deep
But I have promises to keep
And miles to go before I sleep
And miles to go before I sleep.”

Its hard to put into words all that I feel, but someday, I’m going to look back to these days – and feel ‘GREAT’.

To meet, to love, and then to part
That’s the sad tale of the human heart
But of course, we meet to make memories
And part to preserve them.

And meeting again after moments or lifetimes is certain for those who’re called Tenacians.