YAADEIN.....: My School

This is again a new feature in my blog, wherein I would be writing about the things which I cherish a lot in my life under the heading YAADEIN..... To start off I would be writing about my school- something which made me what I am today.

To begin with the name of my school was International School, which was situated in Al-Jubail, Saudi Arabia. I started off my schooling from class 1 and a still remember the first day of my school. I was dressed in the school uniform which was white shirt and navy blue pants along with a navy blue tie. I had a red bag on me which was full of new books and new pencils. I somehow always had a fascination for red color. Even my father's car (Toyota Cressida) was red in color.

My school had a heterogeneous mix of nationalities ranging from Indians, British, Americans, Iraninans, Philipinoes, Bangaldeshis, Saudis etc. I was lucky to grow up in an environment which had such a diversity.

The medium of instruction was invariably english. There were instances when we would be punished if we spoke any other language other than english.

The area over which our school was spread was very large, might easily have been many lakh square feets. There was a separate ground for football, cricket, basketball, volleyball, classrooms, canteen, masjid, Indoor Stadium, parking arena, audio visual room, laboratories, admin block, staff quarters etc. Probably the biggest structure I have ever seen in my life.

And we used to go to the school in MERCEDES BENZ BUSES which had a TV and a built in loo inside the bus itself and a totally air conditioned. The seats in those buses could easily compete with the seats available in any International plane. The fees was quite high but was worth it and my father was there to take care of it.

It was here that I fell in love with football because the International community hardly knew anything about cricket and football was the only sport that almost everybody played. Baseball used to be played on the cricket ground. So maybe that explains my partial incompetence at playing cricket.

Apart from normal studies, our school authorities encouraged us to take part in various co-curricular and extra curricular activities. The Indoor Stadium would be resounding with cheers, claps and laughter as and when any debate or speech competition or quiz used to take place.

As far As I remember, I was mostly in the Red house. The entire school was divided into four houses: Red, Blue, Green and Yellow. The highlight would be the Sports Day which would be organized in our school. I don't have enough words to describe that event in this post. I am sure my ex-classmates or ex-school mates would be able to feel that if they read this post on my blog.

Occasionally we used to be shown movies in our school like Jaws, Gandhi etc. The canteen would be our best hangout zone wherein you got everything from the Switz Donuts, Sandwiches, Pepsi, Sun Top (Orange Juice), Sun Cola, Sun Fun etc.

Let me also mention the loos. Probably they were the cleanest loos I have ever seen in an educational institution.

Coming to our classrooms. Each classroom had two A.Cs and each student was alloted a separate chair and table. And all the classes were carpeted. And we had makeshift gardens outside almost every class.

There were several gardens in our school almost at every furlong. Learning was never a compulsion but an excitement in our school. We were taught each and every thing practically and the teachers there used to facilitate learning and not jam in information.

It was almost a different world once we entered the huge gates of our school. We loved going to school and always missed our school during holidays. Our school used to function from Saturday to Wednesday. Thursdays and Fridays were holidays as it was the norm in Saudi Arabia.

In Saudi Arabia the temperatures rarely fell below 35-37 degree celsius. So everything from our cars to homes etc had to be centrally air conditioned. We lived in a double storied bungalow which had a garden in its backyard and a laundry room and servant's quarters within our bungalow itself. The bedrooms were on the first floor and everything else in the ground floor. Our school bus used to come right outside our door and drop us back in front of our door. So we rarely had to walk.

The article is getting very long and I have not even written about 1% of the excitement I had in my school. Well.....even my younger sister and brother also studied in the same school. My admission number was 622 and till the latest count the total strength of our school had crossed 50,000. So I can take pride that I was one of the oldest alumnus of my school. I had literally seen my school take shape in front of my eyes.

And lastly about my teachers. Though I can't write all of their names here but if it wasn't for them, then I would not have been here.

So to all my teachers, seniors, juniors, janitors, helping staff and everybody else who have worked or are working in that school, from the bottom of my heart all I can say is a big THANK YOU.