When Do I...(ssg-oba)

When do I cease to become a Boy! It was raining, raining cats and dogs! Usually this part of Assam experience more rains. The date backs to June 13th, 1984. On this date an eleven year child took up a journey which was to last for 8 long (or was it short by any standard!) years. He never imagined that the journey would be the best experience of his entire life. He never could make out that this journey would sow the seeds in him for what he is today. He had never dreamt that the journey would actually turn out to be even better than his sweetest dreams! But it was! He wasn’t very sure what it would be like. He was a normal average student in a vernacular high school in Abhayapuri, then a small town in district of Goalpara in Assam. He was a naughty; rather many a times his pranks even crossed the limits of innocent naughtiness. Fed up with his tantrums, his parents along with an uncle (whose son was already an SSGian) conspired to send him to a place called Sainik School, Goalpara. Even before he could sense anything he was taken to that school as a visitor during a function (which he later came to know as the Annual Athletic Meet and Parents’ Body Meet). He was delighted to see the grand function and such an appealing campus. He asked his uncle if he could also join the school. His uncle was happy since this visit was meant to motivate him to prepare for the entrance examination (He was told that entrance exam was very tough and only 150 odd students are selected out of around 10000 students who appears in the entrance examination). And somehow he managed to get himself selected for admission into the Sainik School, Goalpara. His parents were happy to get rid of an arrogant, somewhat spoilt brat and he was happy because his dream of being apart of such an appealing and grand school (he had never seen any school before that with the kind of campus)!!! Yes, you’ve guessed it right and there’s no prize for guessing. That poor so called spoilt brat was none other than yours truly. And the journey on the 13th day of June, 1984 was my journey to SSG. As said earlier, it was raining cats and dogs on that day. My journey started at 6.30 am from Abhayapuri. My father and the uncle accompanied me. In those days, to travel from Abhayapuri to Sainik School, Goalpara would almost take the entire day. It involved changing three buses and a ferry ride across the mighty Lohit (I prefer to

call the mighty Brahmaputra as Lohit, I think it’s natural being an SSGian!). Above all the journey was not less than an adventure of sorts. You needed to be precisely on time as ferries would only be there thrice a day. To get a proper place on the connecting buses from Pancharatna (Southern river port) to Goalpara, you needed to run and run faster than most of the other co-passengers. Dubapara (Submerged colony!), a place in between Goalpara and the Sainik School, may be to suit its name or may be because of which it’s named so, would remain submerged in floods during most of the rainy seasons. 13th of June, 1984 was no different. We hired a jeep from Goalpara to Dubapara and then carried our luggage on head to a country boat which helped us to cross the submerged part and from the other side, thankfully we got a cart (Thela) to carry our luggage and three of us took on foot. It was a walk of about 10 KMs to the School. At around 3.30 pm, we reached our destination, the Sainik School-Goalpara. Someone showed us the way to the administrative office, my father and uncle completed all the formalities of admission. I was taken to Abhimanyu house, which would be my shelter for the next one year. At this moment let me offer my regards here to Mr. B C Das Sir and Mrs. Rina Roy Madam, who really handled us with utmost care and love. Although first 2/3 months were very tough to pass by (till then on each day, at some moment or other, I used to think how to flee this prison!), the things got smoother slowly. By the end of one year, it was such that that, even during the vacations I used to miss my friends and the school at home. That was Sainik School! Now let me come to the title of this memoir-“When do I cease to become a boy”. In anybody’s life I think the best part is his life as ‘Boys’ (as far as the better gender is concerned, please excuse me for my ignorance!). And there would hardly be anyone who would not want to remain ‘Boys’ for as long as possible. There might be many reasons for it. It might be that when you are a ‘boy’, you can effort to commit as many mistakes; you can effort to commit as many mischievous acts and yet you are excused for being ‘Boys’. Being ‘boys’ actually means a license for unlimited fun! So there’s no wrong if all of us would love to remain ‘boys’ for entire life. But the nature do have some other plans and that is why, may be no one’s permitted to remain a ‘Boy’ lifelong. Even then, there are some human beings who are plain lucky and are equipped to defy nature. One

such breed, I know is, the ex-SSGians!!!! These breed has refused to be anything but ‘Boys’ for the entire life. So, even when they not old enough, they call themselves Old (only H.S. passed) and when they are man enough, still they remain as ‘Boys’(even when they are at 80s, 90s and still counting!). Yeah, I am talking about our own OLD BOYS ASSOCIATION!!! I was told to limit my memoir to thousand words, so I would not go in explaining why is it so appropriate for us to never be young enough to be Man and why is it always old enough to be ‘Boys’. May be in the next souvenir, next year, we’ll take it further from here in another thousand words!

Written by: Jagadish Nath Roll No.: 2030 Chilarai House. Batch: 1984 to 1992 Email: [email protected] Phone: +91 9854040350 Brief Introduction: Equipped with an MBA form Guwahati University and with 7 years of corporate experience, presently serving Icfai National College (INC), Guwahati as faculty member and dealing with courses related to Marketing Management.