Chapter 14: jurithewriter has started writing her story: NDA English school

 

Chapter 14: jurithewriter has started writing her story: NDA English school

The NDA kids studied in NDA English School. The school was established in the 1950s by Jesuit nuns and at some point of time given over to the NDA administration.

From the D2 circle, the road forked onward, one went uphill heading to the E3 residential area, and the other went into the flat valley where the School was nestled at another stretch of the foothill, approximately a kilometer and half from the D2 circle. The school was a pre-primary and primary school and taught up to Class 4 after which one would have to either go to the Kendriya Vidyalaya near the Gol Market or to a school inside Pune city.

The school buildings were old abandoned army barracks, there were two buildings one on either side of the road that ran through the centre going further steep uphill, meeting the E3 road and ending at the farther boundary of NDA which was the Peacock Bay. The building on the left had two classrooms, a lower kindergarten and an upper kindergarten. Beyond was a forest, a narrow track went into the forest where the villagers would enter to collect wood or pass through into NDA, perhaps to work as maids or malis- gardeners. A small tree with white flowers, I remember the tree distinctly but never learned the name, stood gloriously outside the upper kindergarten classroom.

Often times a plane would pass the skies and all the children would rush outside, clapping our hands and screaming ‘aeroplane, aeroplane’ egged on by the teachers.

On the other right side of the road, the barracks were longer and housed classes one to four. As the number of children were few, each grade had just one section. This also had the administrative office and I remember Mrs Malakar, in crisply ironed saris and bob cut hair, with black rimmed glasses sitting behind the desk and peering over the glass rims, looking at the parents when they went to meet her. At home she was Malakar aunty as my parents socialized with the Malakars. Uncle was a Professor and a colleague of my dad.

Our teachers were mostly the wives of the NDA officers, both uniformed and non-uniformed. The uniformed officers were transferred out every two to three years so there would be change in teaching staff accordingly. I have no recollection of any teacher other that Mrs Malakar.

Jumi and I would either be dropped or picked-up to and from school by my father on his scooter or we would walk back home in our beige frocks and red elastic hairbands or ribbons. Walking was a culture in NDA and back then we kids thought nothing of walking across the vast campus from our homes to the movie auditorium (Habibur Hall), or to the swimming pool or the indoor badminton and squash courts or to the café at the Officers mess. I often dream of our picturesque walk from school to home. The virgin forests that we saw on both sides of the road were covered with vast areas of swaying cosmos flowers. The flora was more desert than tropical. The trees had small leaves with thorns and spines interspersed. There were ber trees, berries that were sour and green when raw and yellow and sweet when ripe and dotted the forest floor yellow amidst a green grass carpet. Occasional striped squirrels climbed trees targeting the berries and crossed the roads.  A deer or two would be seen grazing the forest grass and looking curiously at us sometimes. On rainy days, when we would be partly protected by raincoats, a male peacock would be dancing with his feathers fully spread out, trying to woo a peahen. Since the roads were perfect, we would splash into puddles on the edges wetting our black Bata leather shoes. We walked and ran and had springs in our steps. We had puppy love and puppy crushes and those are other stories, perhaps the next one.

The location of NDA English School was shifted to near the Gol Market, I was very sorry to know that when I visited NDA more than a decade back.