For ages I have been coming to this page and thinking of all the things that I want to put down hear. I look at the two sorry posts abt Loyola that I have written and wonder what a bad job I am doing at putting down my feelings for this great institution that has made me what I am now. What that is… well lemme say… a human being with feelings and emotions atleast?… That I believe is the only thing Loyola ever wanted me to become…and that itself is a glory of Loyola – in Loyola, teaching morals matter more than academics anyday.

Anyway I am going to take one more step towards the first step of writing about Loyola through this post. A lot of my illustrious seniors, classmates and juniors have written quite a lot about their feelings for the school or their class or about their years in school. A lot of these posts have touched upon a lot of the things that first come to mind about Loyola when you think about it – like the LA Fest, youth festival, school day, sports day, the auditorium, the teachers and so on. A few have also mentioned quite a few unique experiences that they have had the pleasure of experiencing in Loyola. This post of mine is going to be all about the many small things that I miss most about Loyola, now that I am in college and staying away from home. To me, these small things that I am going to blog about, are the things that make Loyola, Loyola.

I am going to be writing about what I have seen of Loyola through my eyes… u could have an entirely different perspective. Include that and include your own memories about the things that I’ll be mentioning and only then will you truly be able to appreciate whatever it is that I mean.

Here goes… (Read all those things below as beginning with “I miss…”)

(.) the bell at 10:40… running outside to play Hide and Seek or Police and Robber in the middle of the old circular Junior School building with my classmates…

(.) the junior school Maths classes when we just had to add up 1 and 1 to get 100 marks… Renjini ma’am getting frustated with the time we took to do the same as we would all be in dream world thinking abt going back home…

(.) the brand new Stic Ink Pens that were our AK 47’s in 4th std… the blue t-shirts that we would go home with as a result of the same

(.) the flying wooden scales in 3rd std Shubha ma’am’s classes…. watching ppl get hit and laughing at tat…. and gettin hit on the head myself bcoz of the laughing…. (tat happened only once… I was always told tat I am a fast learner!!! now I realise y!!!…)

(.) staying back after junior school term exams bcoz my dad couldn’t come and pick me up…. going outside and playing cricket with the cardboard and paper ball…. coming back and playing book cricket with the book i am supposed to be studying for the next days exam

(.) Fr. M. M. Thomas’s birthday parties every year…. free sweets…. and every year father’s remarks that i am 2 old now 2 b celebrating birthdays….

(.) payasam that we used to get at one time during Onam

(.) the rainy season when the ‘ditch’ in front of the jr. school assembly steps would be overfilled with water…. taking the paper boats that others make and sailing them there…. (i still dunno how to make paper boats bcoz of tat)

(.) the slight tinge of shame every time i went into pee in the open toilet in jr. school… the same shame that evaporated the second i did up my fly…

(.) ping – pong – piss and london statue and ghost and the like on the school bus…

(.) the mad rush for the ’side seat’ (window seat) in the bus… Lasser uncle screamin at us as we got on2 the bus – ‘Lineil ninnittu keru’…

(.) eating some snack or the other in the bus every evening while in Jr. School… sharing those snacks with Madhav, Athul, Prithvi, Avinash, Sivakumar and others…. Athul remarking after we finish the snacks that he’s still hungry (he always was!)… Athul again remarking when the bus reached outside Mayoora Park that he can smell Parota and Chicken curry!

(.) playing in the now demolished Jr. School park… the ‘big’ black tyres on which we used to play collision course… ’swinging’ our way to the stars on the squeaky rickety old red and silver swings… kabbadi Royal Rumble style that we used to play with Don and Bijoy and Chintu and all in the small sand box in the afternoon after term exams….

(.) going home soaky wet after playing in the ground during rain… going home battered and bruised after falling down during playing and injuring myself… going home with a ‘communist shirt’ as my mom used to call it bcoz it would be completely red with dust… listening to mom saying – ‘ ni kelakkanano pokunne? ‘

(.) the 10 rs. that i used to get at the end of every term (3 glorious times a year) with which to buy a puff and icecream soda from the canteen…

(.) studying the days’ lessons or doing my homework and then answering mom’s questions back at home at the end of every day so that i could go and read Secret Seven or Famous Five or else go and watch TV…

(.) the seniority that we got from our juniors in the school bus once we made the giant leap with flying colors from 4th std to 5th std!…

(.) the orange candy tat used to make all our tongues ‘orange’ at the end of every lunch break during the middle school years… the icecream soda that we would have with relish everyday during the senior school days…

(.) chicken pickle and beef sambhar with stale parota from the one and only joseph uncle for 20 and 12 rs. respectively…

(.) athapookalam competitions that we used to hav 4 onam during the jr. and middle school days…

(.) the heavy bags that i used to lug 2 school every day during jr. and middle school …(i actually used 2 study well at tat time!!!)

(.) the rain during each and every one of my 12 sports days at Loyola!… three legged race, london bridge, palenquin, sack race, lemon and spoon race, book balancing race, wheel barrow race and all the other wacky competitions during sports day while in jr. school… cutting class 2 ‘organise’ the very same sports day while in senior school… march past at the beginning and end of every sports day… the LNCPE ppl who used 2 come 2 skool 2 improve our ‘physical strength’ and teach us various sports b4 evry sports day… aerobics displays and practising 4 those… the guys who used 2 give various excuses 2 miss these displays and practices (i myself once used an excuse that i was going 2 have a surgery done on my larynx – actually i was but it wasn’t needed in the end)…C. T. Varkey sir and all his famous English quotes during this time… doing ‘commentary’ 4 sports days on 2 occasions in senior skool (God help those who listened 2 me!)…

(.) the Loyola Junior Basketball competition…. looking on in awe as my seniors brought the roof down (even when there wasn’t 1!) with their cheering… being in the centre of the mad cheering crowd and leading it on with ’sabse aage’s’, ‘v-i-c-t-o-r-y’s’ and the rest during my senior days… the all 2 familiar – ‘Hum Honge Kaamiyab’…

(.) the various shows during the various school days… ‘candle dance’ and the 11th std drama (4got wat it was called) in particular…. oh yeah…nearly 4got… the disastrous ‘romeo and juliet musical’ in 9th :D …

(.) the complaint box tat Fr. Kuruvilla introduced… also the best section price – since there were only 2 divisions in every year it was always a direct fight!…

(.) all the fun and frolic of youth festivals… esp tableau, group song, group instrumental (always played the bass drum or triple drum!), english dramas (oh all those practice sessions!) mimicry and mono act and debates…

(.) ’sharing’ George’s dinner during senior school with most of the ppl in class excluding George :D …

(.) playing football during lunch break and 2nd trip… the countless shoes that i hav torn through this…

(.) chalk fights, paper and rubber band CS, using the lens of wrist watches to blind teachers using sunlight, and all the other tom foolery we used 2 do in class

(.) Physics pub sessions (a.k.a Physics lab)… chem labs… prabhu sir telling jaggu – shake the test tube well. go home and practice at night!… computer labs…. original CS!…

(.) farewell assemblies when the very teachers that push us on2 speak in front of the crowd would back down when asked to speak abt their retiring colleagues….

(.) the same Christmas drama tat we would hav every year without even a single spottable difference…. Joy 2 the world!…

(.) dodgeball with some fluffy ball that AD would bring in the small grassy area outside the place which is now the college mess…

(.) maintaining a sports book during the 9th and 10th std’s when i used 2 b even more crazy abt sports than i am now…(Manipalites who read this dont wonder abt this 2 much – it is true!)

(.) LA Fest!

(.) loads and loads of awesome moments that happen every day that would make me laugh out loud for days later when i thought abt it but which i’ve now 4gotten 4 they were the sort of things tat u hav 2 b there 2 njoy…

(.) loads and loads of moments that made me sit up and think and helped in moulding me in2 a man…

(.) loads and loads of moments that made me think and still make me think that Loyola is my 2nd home……………………

I could go on in this vein 4 a long long time… But I stop now rather deliberately… Many things I have still left out… Those are 4 u 2 fill in coz the story of Loyola can be told only by every student who studied their together bcoz every1 has their own view of Loyola… As i already said… Every1 has seen Loyola in a slightly different way through their eyes….

I hope tat those Loyolites who read this will come forward and put down their memories of this great place as well….

Long live Loyola!…

“Growing stronger and stronger, As fighting lasts longer,

And purer and purer, To make heaven surer,

With crosses and trials, And many denials,

We’ll stop.

But to die true,

Loyal to our King who reigns on high.

Ignatius lead us on,

Till we die!”

Cheer Loyola’s Sons…

Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam!

- BiBinhio.