It seems only like yesterday, that we twelve girls sat beside those water taps and talked about almost everything under the sun. We wanted to grow up, go places, learn about so many things, do so much, and become so much. Sometimes, I can still hear those laughters which has not disappeared in the echoes of memory. So much has changed now. It has been nine years now that I have been out of school, out of AVM (Higher Secondary School). I spent 10 my years there and somehow I have always felt proud about getting my schooling from that institution. It is the place that has given me values as well as friends - for life.
I remember my first day at AVM at class one. I remember how the principal then, Mr. Satya Narayan Bahadur Shrestha (SNB sir*) came to our class and told us about the school and its values. It was right then that I had fallen in love with that great person.
I also remember my last day at AVM, when we had gone crazy, made so much noise and disturbed all the other on going classes. We had to be literally thrown out of the school compound. Everyone was busy taking pictures (we had the good old cameras back then, no digital ones), filling auto books, signing shirts and diaries. It was a very emotional time, we were not sure that if we will ever meet many of the faces present at that time. And I actually haven't met many of them in all these years.
The world out of school, was a new and a cruel place. But it also was an exciting place. I remember Jamuna Madam ( Who taught us Nepali) telling the class, "Till now we have kept you safe in our warm embrace like a mother hen keeps her chicks, the outside world is going to be different". I couldn't agree more with her. World now was beyond the home to school and school to home route, it was beyond the school compound. I was excited as well as scared. It felt like I was on my own, there were many big and important decisions to be made. And those decisions would now dictate how my future life would turn out.
I got lost a few times, made some small and a few big mistakes, learnt to deal with different kinds of people, learnt to make friends with people(who did not grow up with me), accepted that those good old school days when you were taken care of is never going to come back. Now, life was a real deal, with all its challenges, opportunities, beauty and cruelty. But the things that I had learned at AVM have stayed with me throughout, which has made me able to face life as it came. The math formulas, the grammar rules, the geography lessons, science chapters may have been long forgotten, but the lessons that we learn about life stays forever.
Back at school, I did not know what I wanted to be in future. I was not sure about what I wanted to do with my life. It took me a few hard lessons to realise that it is important to follow your heart and do what is good for yourself. I don't know if a passage at AVM still has that frame with a quote from SNB sir or not, but I still remember the gist from that quote. It was something what SNB sir always used to tell us, 'the most important thing in life is to find happiness, and true happiness can only be found when we give happiness to others'.
As I look back there is a lot of difference between the girl that I was at AVM and the person I am today. But yet, there is so much that has never changed. There were twelve of us in our 'group', we are all dispersed now at different places of the world. Even those who live in the same cities find it hard to find time to catch up with each other. We don't get to see and talk to each other that often, yet, no one knows me better than my friends from school. The bond that was created in those school days is too strong to be withered by time. I now look at my friends and classmates from school, and I stand proud. Some have become doctors, many engineers, bankers, entrepreneurs, artists, media persons, social workers, even yoga gurus : everyone is successful in their own right and more importantly, most of them are also good human beings.
In my regards, I am happy with what I have been able to do till now. Life has not been perfect but it certainly has been worthwhile. I am happy to do what I am doing right now and not unsatisfied about the person I am becoming. My teachers back from school are still the greatest source of inspiration for me and the moral values that I have learned stays with me till date.
Being good and doing good is a very simple yet the most difficult as well as significant thing that you can do. I have tried to follow the "Be good, Do good" (AVM) motto and realised that when you try to do so, life does give back 'good' to you. Yes, life has changed a lot in all these years, but I still feel like I want to grow more, go places, learn about so many things, do so much, and become much more.
(*SNB sir, Late Satya Narayan Bahadur Shrestha was one of the pioneer in establishing English medium schools in Nepal. His contribution in the upliftment of education system in Nepal is very significant. He is remembered for establishing three major schools that helped in changing the school education scenario in Nepal, Tribhuvan Adarsha Higher Secondary School, Pharping, Kathmandu; Mahendra Adarsha Vidhyashram, Sadobato, Lalitpur; and Adarsha Vidhya Mandir(AVM) higher secondary school, Manbhavan, Lalitpur.)
No comments:
Post a Comment