Warm memories of the heart.

29th day of February, 2000
She entered the old rusty gate and her life began. New faces that surrounded her, made her feel alone. A child who had not even turned nine was lost in the middle of those old strange grey walls. A place that had rules she knew nothing about. When her perturbed father, apprehensive about her stay there asked before leaving, "are you sure, you are going to be okay?"  dauntlessly she had replied "you can leave now."

It was the first day of class after the three long months of winter vacations. She was now a student of Mt. Hermon school, Darjeeling. She was too young to be so far away from home, to be in an entirely different country but she was too naive to feel the rush of emotions and attachments. She knew that was the place where she was to spend so many years of her life in and she had accepted that fact very bravely.

She was ushered by the matron to the junior supervisor's office. She went inside the small office that was filled with trophies. Behind the table, sat a lean middle aged man with spectacles. As he asked her to take a seat, he stood up to take a file out of the cupboard and she noticed he was very tall. She must have been half the height as he was. "I see you are from Bhutan", he began to speak, "I am Mr. Santiago and I will be taking care  of you for the few coming years of your stay in this home, far away from home". The little girl did not even understand what the man meant by "home far away from home".

She was then escorted to her new class by the secretary. The classroom was shut and the doorplate had in bold "4B" written on it. There was far too much noise coming from inside of the room and as she opened the door, the entire class fell silent. All the kids had their eyes on the little girl. She looked around and saw every stranger in the room wearing the white shirts and grey skirts/pants with navy blue blazer. It was only her, who was wearing jeans and jacket since the order of her uniform  had not been delivered yet. Mr.Shelton, her class teacher introduced himself to the small girl and looking towards his class said "I hope all of you will make this girl feel at home. Please take care of her."

She went and sat on the desk that was empty, lost as never before. "Hi, I am Nikhil and I'm from Nepal" said the cute boy beside her. She smiled as he offered to help if she faced any difficulty in school. During recess, Lhamo, a classmate showed her around the school. The school had a very big campus and she felt as tiny as an ant surrounded by aliens in a foreign land. Sometimes she would stare towards the hills of Lebong and wonder where exactly she was. It was the first time she was away from her parents and in her innocence she was unaware of  what she was moving towards.

First term passed and she did not even manage to pass in all the subjects. She began to apply herself more and by the time the academic year got over she had changed into a different person. She left for home in Bhutan and after a month she started getting restless. She started missing her friends from school and she could not wait to get back to school.

She was promoted to fifth standard and the second year in school was even better than the first. She was no more a newcomer. She had more friends than the year before. Time flew within a blink of an eye and she did not even realize when the nine months had passed. As winter break approached she realized how much she wanted to stay. The "going home day songs" that they sang made her not want to return home even more.


Time flew quickly and year after year she changed as a person- she grew as a person. Mt. Hermon gave her relationships that was going to last a lifetime. She found her best friends, "Angel Freaks" in that place. She realized that her sibling was not her only brother when she made a school brother, Shangky. She experienced having a crush when she met Siddhartha. All in all, she experienced growing up just within that four walls.

Before she realized, she was in the twelfth standard. It was her final year and the time was coming for her to get out and face "the big world outside" as Mrs. Fernandez put it. She used to stare at the same Lebong hills that she used to stare at as a kid and think about all the things that she was going to miss. There was countless number of things like class plays, the saturday movies, the sunday long sleepy chapels. the hymns and and the choirs, the music competitions,the major plays,the Kanchenjunga, the rounds around the school, the sale day, the town outing, the prefect's dinner, the nerve wrecking news readings, swimming galas and her favorite Sunday breakfast.......the list of the things that she wanted again was endless.

When she looked back to "29th day of february, 2000", she realized there was nothing she wanted to change about those ten years of her life. The old grey walls with justice completed her stay there and prepared her to face the world outside. She turned into a lady from the little girl who knew nothing about rules. That day she realized what Mr.Santiago meant by "home far away from home"

During the last Chapel of her school life she looked at the monogram hanging in the hall which had the school motto "Non Scholae, Sed Vitae, Discimus" meaning, not for school but for life, we learn, written on it. She closed her eyes and one thought which entered her mind that time spoke for the ten long years of her life- thank you Mt. Hermon for making "Me", for making "Pallavi"