Gone are the days.......

Gone are the days........but not the memories

Gone are the days
When the school reopened in June,
And we settled in our new desks and benches.

Gone are the days
When we queued up in book depot,
And got our new books and notes.

Gone are the days
When we wanted two Sundays and no Mondays, yet
Managed to line up daily for the morning prayers.

Gone are the days
When we chased one another in the corridors in Intervals,
And returned to the classrooms drenched in sweat.

Gone are the days
When we had lunch in classrooms, corridors,
Playgrounds, under the trees and even in cycle sheds.

Gone are the days
When a single P.T. period in the week's Time Table, Was awaited more
eagerly than the monsoons.

Gone are the days
Of fights but no conspiracies,
Of Competitions but seldom jealousy.

Gone are the days
When we used to watch Live Cricket telecast,
In the opposite house in Intervals and Lunch breaks.

Gone are the days
When few rushed at 5:30 to
"Conquer" window seats in our School bus.

Gone are the days
Of Sports Day, and the annual School Day,
And the one-month long preparations for them.

Gone are the days
Of the stressful Quarterly, Half Yearly and Annual Exams,
And the most enjoyed holidays after them.

Gone are the days
We learnt, we enjoyed, we played, we won, we lost, We laughed, we cried,
we fought, we thought.

Gone are the days
With so much fun in them, so many friends,
So much experience, all this and more.

Gone are the days
But not the memories, which will be
Lingering in our hearts for ever and ever and
Ever and ever and Ever.


As I was reading this forward sent by a friend of mine I couldn’t help but think "how true" and I could relate to every sentence.

I always said that I missed my school days but I think if anyone had asked me "WHAT DID YOU MISS?" I would have been very vague with the answer.

Now I know.

I reflected upon the days when I was an 8 year old. It was the age when we ran our socks off just for the sake of running .It was the age when we practiced our bowling action on the road, we knew we were turning heads but we really didn’t care.

It was the age when we envied the fat purses of the “annas” of our school and having 10 bucks as an 8 year old called for celebration in the canteen. We dint have champagne but we certainly had coloured soda

It was the age when our “friends” used to be people who we talked a lot to and our so-called “enemies” people who called us names.

We fought and made up, didn’t carry any grudges and even if we did we dint lose any sleep over it.

It was the age when we didn’t have to worry about what we are gonna do about the review next day or didn't have to worry how we are gonna explain a certain situation to a certain friend or what you gonna wear for the day out next day.

Chicks were cute little yellow things, “crushes” was the conjugation of the infinitive with the 3rd person and computers only existed in Sci-fi movies.

And we wanted good marks in examinations just to please our parents (well I guess some things never change!)

But seriously, it was the age of INNOCENCE the one thing we know we’ll never be able to have again, it’s like virginity only that we don’t know that we are losing it. Simple things made us laugh and we laughed so hard that we cried and we also cried because your brother got the last piece of chocolate because, trivial it seems now but things that made the world upside down at that age. At that age we longed to be adults because they got to drive cars and your head hardly reached the windshield, because they could stay up ate at night and watch movies while we have to be at bed by nine, because they could buy sweets any time they wanted but how always it was bad for our teeth. We drew comfort from the fact that we will be an adult someday something which we know we cant do right now because we can never be a children ever again.

Coming to think of it I think we are the luckiest generation, we were kids who were untainted by the Internet or video games filled with violence and gore or by cartoon network unlike todays kids. Saturday afternoons were spent on the roads playing cricket or the neighbourhood friend’s house playing ludo I don’t see that anymore in today’s kids. And yet we are “tech-savvy” caught up in a revolution in electronics and computers, things we never even dreamt of when we were kids.

Life is beginning to scare me to be perfectly honest, too many things are changing and they are changing too fast, I don’t think I be pondered about life for so long and so hard. We are at the crossroads of our lives; we are making the transition from “semi-adults” if I may to “real adults” with real life responsibilities and pressures. We don’t know what we are going to make out of our lives at least I don’t. I guess we’ll have to accept it and take it as we go along.

We can look back and long for “those” days but we can hope that the future will be the same in a different way if you know what I mean.

As the first line goes “Gone are the days…. but not the memories”

Back to the 4th standard anyone??