i came to La Martiniere, one of the highnosiest schools in Kolkata, at the tender age of 3.
i came from CIS - calcutta international school (no clue if the have renamed it kolkata international school)
which was basically an american school for kids of (internationally) itenerent parents
a bit like our cbse thrown global
my dad was then travelling all over the gulf and europe and fancied i could do a term here and a term there and thus stay with him
but that was not to be, I stayed in cal with my gran whom i still call ma (my biological mom is mom / mommy / budi / tutuma / mammam / etc)
anyway, since i did not take to travel, my parents soon figured out that such an expensive school was a useless drain on their then quite frugal resources
and put me in LMC and I entered the hallowed portals in all my glory
no grammer, think colour is spelled color, dont know what uniform or assembly or exam was
and a faint accent ... i felt a bit like a pigeon amongst the eagles
anyone who remembers will remember how cruel kids can be at that age to strange strangers that dont take
(i "took" well enough, eventually, but with me it always takes sometime before a new lot will "take" to me)
then on my first day, I met Runa Chatterjee & Susan George (mallu)
they were respected vetereans - in "School" from nursery (i might add that to a martinian "School" means La Martiniere! everywhere else is "a school")
they had there own best friends each - which then was "a bond more binding than marraige"
but we somehow became great mates anyway
(chatto coming up to me in bong class and said "u want to learn bad bad things" was the ice breaker)
whats so strange about the whole is that, we went through all the remaining years at 'School' and a thousand other friends,
we hardly hung out together in school except for in the very final years
but we had such a strange strong tie between us
my ma used to call us the witches of eastwik
maybe what bound us so strong was that we had very similiar family structures
one younger sis, 9,10,11 yrs after us
busy working moms who stayed alone in india for the most part
dads on travelling jobs who we seldom saw
we practically lived in each others houses
we did the maddest and craziest of pranks
like trying to sneak into the grand hotel to see patrick swaize (whom chatto was determined to wed, I might add) and getting thrown out unceremoniously by a gaurd
or like planning out with war campaign like seriousness our first booze bash, at the mature age of 16
(yams was there too - she got high and kept crying "i puked on my pajamas")
or like watching our first adult movie (which was my last - it was the grossest saddest thing I have ever seen
and me and chatto reading an archie through it
and sauce (susan george) punctuating the show with squeals of "how gross ya!"
it was crazy
it was magic it was golden
it was the wonder years
i never miss them, bcz they are a part of me
sauce is in new zealand, blissfully married (like the idiot she is - i knew she'd do that)
chatts is pune
and Im stuck here
through all those years, we never bothered to really keep in touch, or make pc (polite conversation)
and either of them reads this blog I will be never forgiven ... it will be "motts how corny can u get" & "fatts ur so sidey ya"
but their voices come to my mind unbidden now and then
and they r i guess the ones i would turn to in any emergency or heart break
and they wud ask whats wrong ... and I would say Im fine man get off my trip and we would grunt like old snarly hags and be comforted
but nevertheless I can go only so long without some contact
and its been so long now :)
(btw - how do u make a smiley look wistful ;)
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