37 Park Road, Barrackpore

Backward is my favourite direction. Most of my life I have moved forward looking backward. I love the past. I revel in it. That is how and why i remember the 'insignificant' and have no qualms about it.

Modern School, 37 Park Road, Barrackpore.

This address is where i often find myself when i am lost. It is with this address that I learned to pen my first letters in Kindergarten, 22 years back. It also is the address of a school where I learned to be human. Everything else after that has been a passing shadow.

I remember the iron gate by which Naushad uncle stood. I cannot recollect the gates without him standing beside it; like Archangel Gabriel perpetually guarding the cherubs in heaven from the murk outside. I remember the two see-saws to the left which looked like the iron framework of a small boat which never reached its final stage. They had two wooden seats on either sides and readily reached unstable equilibrium if you had an over-sized kid on one end. Then came the rabbit cage, though the rabbits inside it never looked 'caged'. It was more of a stable establishment with the base made of red brick, caged on all four sides and the roof made of red tiles. The floor was covered in hay and a corner cordoned by a single brick lining to protect the baby bunnies from being trampled by the adults. Beside the cage stood an old jack-fruit tree whose foliage stood like a canopy over it and around, making the humid summer months bearable. So lively was this place that the leaves that fell from this gargantuan tree even had purpose in their death. Little boys and girls would pick the greener ones to feed the rabbits through the iron cage. These leaves were big (for the hands of a 5 year old) and they often had to be rolled to pass through the square gaps between the iron wires. But the kids and the rabbits on either sides made the transition possible. There were a couple of parrots too in a large cage in front of Nandalal's room (hanging from where I do not remember now). But they were certainly out of our reach. They were silent compared to other parrots that i have seen (probably flummoxed by the cacophony that the stream of children passing in front of them generated). Nandalal by the way was a short bald man, always wearing a navy blue apron (I think he cooked for the school staff) and his primary task was to hammer the iron tong to signal the start of a period or the end of one.

As one went down the alley, to the left was a row of no-walled classrooms (till you walked a couple of paces and reached the row of walled classrooms). I always liked the 'no-walled' ones. They bring back fresher memories. These classrooms had tiled tops through which water dripped from arbitrary places on a rainy day (making life more exciting for the children underneath). If you were lucky to have a seat on the side, you could make paper boats and see them sail through the water puddles till they got stuck in the mud. You also got to constantly adjust your desk and chair to avoid the rain. Adventure for a young mind and nuisance for an old which is why 'aunties' (teachers were called so at Modern School) always preferred the walled classrooms.

Walking further to the right stood the playground. During the school fete this ground looked more like an army barrack. Before the fete, army personnels would put up tents all around the ground with their canvas and pegs. These were to become stalls during the fete where an aunty along with her chosen illustrous students would set up games which visitors could play. As I was never the 'illustrous' kind, i was mostly spared the agony of standing with a smiling face at the stalls.

Modern is situated in the heart of the Barrackpore army cantonment, which is why the help of the army personnels could be availed. It is later in life that I realised that Barrackpore had a more important role to play in my country's history than being the location of my beloved school.

Every Thursday was a day for scouts and guides. We went to play to the nearby Mangal Pandey Park. There was a dome shaped structure in the park along whose walls were myriad inscriptions of common yet unknown names with heart signs and arrows through them. Many said Mangal Pandey was shot here and some said he was hung. I did not know him well. I did not know much about what he did and why he did except that he fought the British and they killed him. All i knew was when i stood inside this dome structure and looked up, it made my head spin, and when i shouted, it shouted back at me, and that scared me to the point of believing that Mangal Pandey must have definitely met his end at this place. The park was fun and we played cricket and kabaddi (it is possible we played other games too but sadly i don't remember anymore). I was good at both these games (i.e. if you can imagine a 5 year old playing 'good' cricket).

Modern is where I have had many 'firsts' of my life. My first class, my first homework, my first punishment, my first friends, my first teacher, my first mischief, et. al. .

Yes, my first failure too. I cannot smile back at it today without feeling a pang of what i do not know. But it lingers and wont go. Every year (of the 7 years i spent at Modern) was spent under the tutelage of wonderful human beings, my english teachers. Geeta aunty, and Joshi aunty are the ones who recur in my memory. Their faith in my aptitude for english would always be eclipsed by my failure to reciprocate. Yet they would not let go of me. Every year they took this child through painful rehearsals and made him stand on those unstable tables to narrate poems for the annual elocution contest. I have always loved english as a language but was never a keen speaker. My legs would start shaking from the time i stood in the participant's line and would only stop doing so after i finished my piece and came down from the stage (which as i mentioned was made by joining several tables and was often unstable depending on where you put your leg). Also, a strange vibrator in me seemed to turn on the moment i opened my mouth to say aloud my well-rehearsed speech. This gave an unwanted quiver to my voice which i presume reached the judge's ears eventually as 'noise'. My frail attempt to make my voice stable only resulted in making it less louder to the point where it became inaudible to the jury. I loved the poems and understood how they were meant to be narrated. I loved the words and i took care to do justice to each of them. All till the point when i actually had to narrate them in front of the rows of children sitting cross-legged on the mats strewn under the jack-fruit tree. The judges sat in their chairs behind the children. Alas... If only they had sat closer to the stage. In all those years I never ever got a prize. If there was an honorary award for screw-ups, I deserved it more than anyone, but sadly there were none. I do not remember the poems any more. What i do remember are those knocking knees, that unwanted vibrator in my vocal chord, the rush of blood in my ears and the constant pounding of my pulses. Getting down from that stage was the part i liked best. It meant the end of the agony. I have tried convincing myself that it is this agony that helps me remember those days so vividly. It is a loser's argument to justify failure. However, I revel in that sort of a thing often. It is inherent.


The memory of 37 Park Road, Barrackpore, are many and strewn apart in different corners of my mind. A cohesive tale of the years i spent there is perhaps impossible. Yet, today a fragment of it crossed my mind and i decided to etch it here. So long.