Today was rather exciting!
It’s probably been one of the first days of the term (well, over half of it is through, now!) when we had classes all day long.
Somewhere around lunch-time, we received an e-mail announcing an Inaugural Basketball Match, on the evening of 14th August, on the newly-made yet-to-be-played-on basketball court. I was pretty excited; we had been planning, waiting for this day for a while now! And, then, I read the last bit of the mail. The Sports Comm. had very conveniently left the best for last; the matches were to be for Boys only.
I was aghast. Anyway, our resolve only got stronger. We decided that we must go through with our plan to inaugurate the Court, Monika inaugurates one basket, I the other. The Boys had been asked to assemble on the evening of 13th August, 2014, probably in order to ‘audition’ for the Inaugural match. As soon as class got over, at 4:45, we rushed to our rooms, pulled on our sports shoes, raced across half the campus and got to The Court. We look- green & red – so inviting! To our absolute delight, the gate to the court was finally unlocked, after months of waiting! We spotted the Chair-HSA (Hostel & Student Affairs) and the Basketball Coach standing at the gate, admiring the court. We decided that the best course of action was to dash straight in, lest someone stop us, since the court was due to be inaugurated in less than 24 hours, by the Director of the Institute. The HSA-Chair, on the contrary, welcomed us to the court, happy to see such excited faces!
As per our agreement, Monika dribbled onto the court, passed the ball to me and I shot! It was a clean basket! I can’t even begin to think how it would’ve been if I’d missed the first-ever basket the court was to see! Then, we ran across to the other basket- it was Monika’s turn now. She shot too! We were ecstatic. We had done it! I love small victories.
The rest of the evening was spent making phone calls to people in various colleges, inviting them to our fest, cooped up in the FPM Block Common Room, again. The whole event lasted over 3 hours; our Bhopal Campus Outreach plan was also finalized, our team shall be going to Bhopal, on the morning of 14th August. Due to sudden glitches, no saplings could be made available for the Tree Plantation Drive and it’s been shifted; it shall most probably happen on the 18th- Janmashtami.
So, tomorrow’s mostly free. Also, it is our i-Help day! I’ve been scheduled to teach English, this time around, after what happened last time. Last time, I was scheduled to teach Mathematics but, I went ahead and taught English anyway. It’s my personal opinion that the children do already know a decent bit of maths and it is Spoken English that we ought to focus on, especially given the children’s ages – class 3 to class 8. I shall be teaching class 7, tomorrow.
Soon after our calling session was at a close, I found myself perched atop a random cement structure by the side of the road. There was a strong breeze, which progressively went from being refreshing to cool to chilly. So much so that we had to abandon our stronghold for an alternate location- the OAT (Open Air Theatre) which is walled on three sides and thus permits no free flow of chilly winds at night, or ever.
Around 11, as I walked to the hostel, there was a gaggle of girls chasing the hostel warden as she left for the day. A brand new attendance register has been installed in the girls' hostel. Each lady is required to 'make an entry' , everyday, between 8 to 11 p.m. Nice safety measures, to add to the newly added grills on the ground floor. Well, it so happened that the warden was rather annoyed with most of us filling in the register after it was past 11 (only barely!) and had decided that the best course of action was to take the register with her when she left, at 11 p.m. It was usually handed over to the warden who had the next shift, so this change in the sequence of events caught the girls by surprise. And as I soon learnt, the gaggle was only chasing after the warden to put in their entries, for the day. It was rather funny, anyhow, to see 6 girls chasing after one uniformed warden , who was escaping, armed with a register.
Our new history sir LOVES watching movies; every lecture he recommends at least 4 movies that he believes we ought to watch. Most of these are the kind of films that have deeper meanings, need patience and inclination to understand and are actually enriching. He has promised to screen at least a couple in class or share them with us; either way, there's some good learning in store!
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