To new beginnings

It was junior’s first day at play school.

( Play school - An oxymoron of an institution, made necessary by our current life style. They claim to teach the kids to have fun and interact. In the age of “made to order” even innocence comes with a price)

All the while, during the commute, he was repeating that he is going to school to learn ABCD, thanks to his Paati who had told him that. She was the most vigorous and vociferous opponent to the idea of putting the kid in playschool. But with no kids to play in our apartment and junior crossing the 2.5 age mark, we felt it was the right time to introduce him to the concept of school.

The moment he stepped out of the auto, he took both our hands into his tiny ones and started leading us inside the campus. There were already lot other parents and kids who had formed mini groups and while the parents were chatting, the kids were running around on the play area. I was closely watching junior to see his reactions, for he doesn’t like the usual see-saw’s and swings. Till then, his playmates have all been several decades elder to him and his other form of time pass being watching devotional songs and rhymes on YouTube. Soon the school buzzer ringed and we were all asked to join the first day first session , involving prayer songs and class teacher introduction. I could sense that he was super tensed at all these strange happenings as he couldn’t quite fathom if it was for good or trouble.  There were some kids who were natural to the surroundings and immediately picked whatever the teachers asked them to do like touching their toes or doing sit-ups and clapping hands. Junior clung to his mom like a kangaroo and never got down.

When they were all paraded to the classes accompanied by the parents, he kind of relaxed a bit. He started moving around and found something interesting to play, when a kid slightly bigger than him came and tried to take the toy from him. Unexcitingly to the big kid, junior gave away the toy and sat down. The big kid tried to push junior to sit on him. He wiggled away and went the sanctuary of his mom. Looking at my reaction and before I could say anything a stern warning was issued in the form “don’t even think about it look” by wifey. She almost rejected me to be present, on the first day, as there was a threat that I would pull an “Abhiyum Naanum” Prakash Raj. I never have any fond memories of school or school days and have very strong reservations against the way in which our education system is setup. Looking at the “classroom” in that play school, an image of how junior prances around the house running headlong, cropped up, as against that “room”. The main difference was that, it was filled with lot of kids and the exposure to other kids, would have an impact on his ways and end of the day that’s what makes and moulds personalities.

I am pretty sure he would be afraid to be left alone in that place, to start with at least and hopefully, definitely, he would adapt and would proceed to have a life of his own. There would be tears, anger, sense of being lost, happiness, joy and new relationships (for a moment I lost track of who I was describing about, him or myself) and he would become a different and much more better person. He is definitely going to surprise all his teachers with his range of knowledge on shapes, colors and things and rhymes, if at all they can reach out to him ( I know I sound quite obnoxious when it comes to teachers. Can’t help it). It’s a grind which everyone goes through and surely he would have lot many adventures and a whole new bunch of experiences. Someday, down the line, I might show him this post, for him to laugh at how tense and nervous I was on his first day at school.