Linking Past to Present 

FOR HOME AWAY FROM HOME

If somebody asked you to sum up ten years of your life and not just any ten but the best ones, could you do it? Well this article is one such for me. It is not easy but it is worth a million try.

I joined Mody when I was merely eight years old. I remember vividly while going through the prospectus, I came across a picture of horse riding and instantly fell in love with it and I was sure I had to go to this beautiful place.

When I came here I didn’t like it in the beginning, I missed home too much. I would often cry. I loved the classes and also the sports hours but as soon as I came back to hostel I would miss home. It took me few years (yes years) to settle down. But once I did, my roots became as firm as that of a banyan tree in the ground and began to flourish. I must have been in fifth grade by then. I had started discovering my strengths, my likes, my hobbies. I fell in love with horse riding and Basketball. I won’t say they were a part of my life because they were my life and so much more. I did riding for five years and started with Basketball side by side and later on became inseparable from it. 

I still remember the times when my eleventh grade physics teacher used to be so mad at me and my mates whenever we went for tournaments and missed our classes; eating Maggie and getting caught by our warden; waiting in queue for hours so that we could call home just for 300 seconds once a week, the ring of the bell, the sound of the National Anthem and the cheering and jeering during the Basketball matches. My taste buds still crave for the mouth watering shaahi paneer and the delicious cheese chilli toast we enjoyed in the mess on sundays. Those long walks after dinner with friends like we owned the streets, those were some days, some really good old days.

School has taught me so much, I can’t even begin to describe because then I might end up writing a novel rather than an article. But to jot down a few I would say it has taught me how to face the hardships, to be humble, grateful and so much more. It made me realize that the family back at home is not the only family I have. I have a family away from my real one. My teachers and my friends, they were that family.

I don’t think winning the Mody Blue, the best sports person or securing the highest marks in biology is my achievements. My achievements are those calls from my maths teacher to tell me she misses our batch even after so many years have passed by, my accomplishments are when a teacher tells me if she ever had a daughter she wants her to be like me; it is when I get a “How are you?” from my geography teacher or when I get a message from my juniors. Yes, they may be little things but they are the most precious things and they matter. This is what my school has taught me.

When I joined in 1999 it was merely a school for me but when I was leaving in 2009 it seemed like I am bidding farewell to my home. I came here with tears in my eyes and left it with the same and the reasons were two worlds apart. School had become home away from home.

I am a dental surgeon now. I still play Basketball, as I said, I was and I still am inseparable from the game. Don’t you ever believe, even a word of it when someone says you can’t be good at both sports and academics. My seniors who were my inspiration (including my elder sister who happened to be the best district player and also a Mody Blue) always made me believe if you love it with all your heart, you will do it. If academics make me the dental surgeon I am today, then basketball gives me the strength to get back up and fight whenever I fall. After all falling down isn’t failure, it is when you decide not to get up.

School days were the best days. It is a different world from the outside world yet it prepares you so well to face it in the most positive way. You grow strong and independent. You learn to stay away from your family. But there is definitely one thing it doesn’t teach you and that is to stay away from yours friends. I guess that’s the tough part of being here in Mody.

And lastly to all my dear juniors, you are at the best place, a place synonymous to home and this is the best time of your life, after all you learn the best from the best to give out your best. Today it might seem just like an ordinary day at school but years later when you will look back to this day, you will see an extraordinary memory.