Simple Life!: MY HIGH SCHOOL

Feb 2008 was when I had an opportunity to re-visit my high school.

History: The high school was established by a group of educated people of the community, way back in 1970s. The reason why it was not established by the government is because of few reasons. Fristly, government did not have the will to establish a school at a place that is very remote. The nearest road was about 5 KM away (Pitajuri - my village) accessible via a muddy road. The road usually got very difficult to commute during the rainy days. Secondly, government did not have the will to take care of its financing. Thirdly, the none of the local government representative ever had a strong lobby for this.

The reason why these educated people of the community started this school is because they had no job that government could offer them. They could not necessarily get engaged in cultivation and were respected in the community for their education. They had to do something for their livelihood and hence cause this change of establishing the school. One man stood tall in this endeavor, he is Mr. Sailendranath Upadyay. He was well respected in the community and had a voice that was listened. He collaborated with the Landlord of Shaymsundarpur and cooked the idea of establishing a high school in this area. Since the area was very backward economically, the only way to run the school was to collect very meagre fees from the students and the villagers and fund the salary of the teachers. There were a lot of skepticism around both from the villagers and the students about the success of the school. But Mr. Sailendranath was not the one to be defeated - for the next decades his theme was - let the head to be chopped but it will not bow down to failure. Such was the power of this man!

The school gradually got its first set of teachers who eventually went on to teach next three decades in the school. They did everything that needed to do, to ensure that the school produced a quality students. Remember, the students were often from the economical background who really could not afford to loose another economic unit in their children. Yet, these teachers continued to motivate the students to do well and more than that they continued to teach the student with greatest care.

Decades went by and then government had to listen to this force and finally the school was undertaken by the government. This did not solve all the problems necessarily but defenitely gave the school much needed recognition it needed.

My School days: I was very excited to join this high school for a multiple of reasons. Firstly, my parents thought this was a very good school. Secondly, my maternal uncle had studied here and used to share a lot of interesting stories of the school education. Thirdly, many high school teachers knew me even before I was enrolled into the school. Forthly, I was getting an opportunity to go to the school even though my middle school had seventh class started that year (My middle school teachers did not want to leave me out of their school).

Finally, I joined the school and completed my metriculation with a record percentage. This record was not broken until a decade or so after I completed my education from this school. If you are interested, I will write about a lot of interesting stories of my high school days in separate blog but as now I want to share some of the picutres of the high school.

In the below picture from left to right: 10th class, 8th class, 7th class, 6th class and the office. The wall and the water pump has been built recently.

In the below picture towards the right side of the chopped trunk was the 9th class. This was tiled house with earth walls. The house has been broken as in the recent year new school buildings were erected.

In the below picture: The below well was the source of drinking water for us. In the summar the well used to almost dry up and the little water that used to be available use to be muddy. We used to drink this muddy water as there was no other option for us. The urine room has been created recently. We use to go to the nearest bushes for using them as rest rooms.