I don't want to go to school.'' Doesn't this remark sound familiar? Going to school for the first time is a very painful experience for many children. A child, unaware of any surroundings, save his home, finds it extremely difficult to adapt himself to the new school environment.Some years later the conditions become better. It is then known to the child that though unwillingly, every morning he must be up early, get ready and rush to school. He gets accustomed to such a routine but still looks forward to excuses to miss school. This is a stage when he learns from his fellows that keeping an onion underarm overnight indicates false fever in the morning. He can now also pretend to be in a terrible toothache, severe headache, griping stomachache or a bout of earache!But the noteworthy aspect is that there is a difference at this stage. The former want of staying at home was due to the want of familiar, affectionate surroundings but later the reasons are unfinished homework, class tests that have not been prepared for or fights with his companion.``I like going to school only because I get to meet all my friends and we play football together. But when it comes to homework, I dislike it,'' says Abhinav.After a few more years they enter a stage when they want to chat for long periods or participate in sports depending upon individual interests. They make good friends, attend classes, learn to paint and sing, act funny without reason and play mischief in class. They are accepted and appreciated if they excel academically as well. They score well, are the best sport, best actor, an absolute all rounder and become favourites among their classmates and prepare to face the board examination of the tenth standard.Surrounded by high heaps of books and notes, their minds are full of facts, figures, formulae, methods, dates and names.Eleventh standard? Junior college? Naah! Parents reject the idea.Colleges at this age are a strict `no-no' for them. Finally, readmitted to a school, perhaps the same good old school, they return to the healthy, disciplined and friendly atmosphere of school. At the end of the academic year and the beginning of twelfth standard, they study hard, give it their all and are no doubt successful. Ultimately, he has reached his destination.A warm farewell is received and his school days are over now and are left far behind in the milling crowd of busy, complacent life. No more strict teachers, regular uniforms, heavy bags and no more homework. Aah! What a relief. Ummm. is it really a relief? Perhaps not. He bears a silent pain, a hidden feeling of helplessness and his heart goes heavy. Gone are the days when running away from school was his greatest achievement of the day.On the threshold of his college life, he realises his bonded affection and sincerity for his school, the building blocks of his personality which now stands impregnable, the temple of knowledge where he has spent his childhood, adolescence and teenage too. Remembering the good school days, Shamim, a BCom student, says, ``Though college is fun, I miss my school days. I received a lot of attention and was cared for when I was at school. My teachers at school knew me by name and often asked of my well-being, but here in college no one bothers.''Those morning hours of physical training, daily prayers, disciplined rows, tidy uniform, well-maintained and completed books, oil-dripping lunch dabba, two hour long choir practice, boring history lectures are all away, but were once a part and parcel of his life. Today he craves for the very same things which once bored him to death. Those highlighted fun-filled school days marked in gold would be terribly missed now and would forever reside in the majestic castles of his memories of the past.
