The ugly duckling

This is a kind of sequel to my previous scribblings…
As I grew….scribbling circles with different crayons on the walls of my room…ceased to be much fun…now I liked things to be of shape and a proper shape(my fav being an ugly house with two mountains behind it and the sun with a smiley face!).
I loved to sit on tables and swing my legs(which I still love to do)..or sit below the table along with hero..pretending that I had become invisible to the world.I remember coming home from the school throwing my bag and lunch basket onto the sofa and running away to play hopscotch.I used to go to school on a tonga..and it was a fun cool thing to do..to drag ur leg on the road..as the tonga sped…and compete about whose shoes made the most noise!it was no wonder that our Bata shoes would not survive even three months of such harsh treatment!
Ah!those school days..Its fun to study in a strict convent..there would be daily inspection of nails,clean socks….clean hankie,polished shoes..and plaits for long hair with black ribbons.Everyday, morning i would be scrubbed clean..oiled hair..neatly tied back..the perfect little ugly duckling..off to my school with my lunch basket and water-can!After screeching the school prayer at the top my voice(in the school assembly)…it was marching back haphazardly into our classes.oh!back then it was such a thrill and kind of a daring thing to do..to open our eyes and peep when the school prayer was going on
We had a photo of Jesus..with a bleeding heart and it was a common belief that if u don’t seek blessings at that photo everyday…you are surely destined to a bad bad day
With what great cunning..we would cheat our monitors…keep our socks up with rubber bands;socks also served as means to clean the dust off our shoes..and the whole day was spent in biting pencils..showing our knuckles to the teacher..running around pretending to be vehicles…pulling each other’s hair..and kneeling down in the hot sun as punishment for talking too much.
By evening…the ugly duckling would return home..with scratches all over her face and hands….the uniform muddied…all the hair pulled out…and dressed in dust..looking as though I just stepped out from the battlefield(my mom must have loved me lot…for not putting me up for adoption
But the best day of the week was of-course saturday..when we had the drills…it was so much fun to do it all wrong and irritate our P.T.master or better yet faint and fall off…I was this hale and hearty..girl and I would be jealous of all those scrawny..thingies who would faint the minute they stood in the sun!oh!those days i would have given anything to faint on saturdays…
And I wonder..how during that age..every parent manages to buy the most ugly looking clothes for their children.I had an assortment of gaudy colored clothes with frills all over ;)I remember one of my favs(back then..now the very thought of it makes me shudder!)..was a yellow maxi(long skirt) with black tiger stripes with frills all over it.yikes!
During the lunch break…we would run to the guy who would sell oranges…and we would relish the tangy citrus juice dripping into our mouth
It was sometime during this time my mother introduced me to the world of Enid Blyton..and for the next few years those books remained my fond companions!
How I yearn for those days when I did not mind being an ugly duckling in a tiger striped maxi…when happiness was just licking salted tangy oranges!