By Suganya Sundar
Schools and classes often remind us of the nostalgic good things after they are over. The everyday lifting heavy bags or the tests and marks the score difference all become a mirage while thinking about it after years. The smallest of things give the greatest longings in such scenarios. These are some insignificant things or as they are considered of my school days.
Dusters.
Have been an integral part of childhood school days. Before the rectangle slab dusters the square stitched dusters that had rags from different types colors and textures of cloth from a tailor shop usually did the deed. It lives longer than the modern duster is versatile needs dusting after a board clean. Has a hanging loop attached. Someone dusting a duster outside the class in the wall that leaves white square patches of chalk from it. Duster starts with rough surface and smoothes out over use. The old seasoned duster erases the board with ASMR smoothness. People with OCD could fall in lover. It’s fun to see the duster being made at the tailor shop. One big cloth for the outer layer then filled with all types of clothes for filling. The seasoned duster after a while becomes old and starts to tear. The threads become thin slowly starting a hole. A random rag peeks through the hole the person dusting tries to push it in and continue using. After a while lots of random rags keeps hanging outside. Then is the time for a new duster and a new story all over again.
School note books.
Where I’m from and when I was a child going to school. Getting the notes books and text books ready and set for school is an exciting ritual. One day we go to the school and collect our books for the upcoming academic year. We bring home the bulk and keep it aside for covering. Putting on brown sheet as it is affectionately called, each kid has specific procedures they follow to cover the books. Mine involved carefully placing the book at the center of the brown sheet and folding the edges into the corner of the book on the front and back then carefully cutting out the excess. As next step a quadrangle is cut at the top and bottom near the spine of the book. Triangles are cut at all four corners. The quadrangle is folded inside upon which the spine of the book is placed and the cut edges are folded into the book’s cover. It’s then pasted using glue or stapled in. The corners are then pressed to look sharp and crisp. A label for the book is selected which the information of name, class, section, subject , school. The information is filled and on the first page of the book name, class, section is written awaiting a fresh start. All the text books and notebooks are completed neatly following the same process. Some people have a plastic cover over the brown sheet which while scratched with nail leaves a trail of dotted line which is a fun activity too. In addition to the label the first page of the books get the name standard and section information. Once all note books are covered and neatly packed in the school bag a sense of achievement hits and the books are treasured for first few weeks with the new brown covers and labels until the wear and tear affects it in time.
Ink erasers.
These are miraculous and mysterious things of my childhood. We had no pen options till elementary so once we are in grade 6 we have an ink pen option so a new era of accessories open up and one of them is the ink erasers. These are hard ones unlike the soft rubber off pencils erasers. As far as I knew they came in two different shapes one is a long slim cuboid either while thing in pink or 3/4th pink and 1/4th blue in color and the other one is a circle which is blue with a white line running around the center of the outer edge with a metal thing to hold in middle and a small hole in the metal part. These erasers magically ;) erase the ink part which normal erasers can’t.
Geometry box.
It’s a big kid thing. I have always looked up to my elder siblings having a geometry box and always wanted one not knowing it comes with a set of diagrams that required precision and you will be scored for it. JK. There is no geometry in elementary so one had to wait to go to sixth grade to own one. There are normal to fancy geometry boxes. The tools inside were either plastic or sturdy metal that could poke holes. Comes in a metal rectangular box with rounded edges often opens with a pop. Inside is a puzzle piece made of plastic that fits all the tools when placed in one particular way. There is often a compartment for an eraser, a sharpener, the divider and the compass along with pencil a bit shorter than the compass.The set squares, the ruler and the protractor are placed one upon another in a specific way to fit in the box. There are often different types of compass which is the queen of the box. The pencil is often put inside the hole and tightly secured by screwing it in. I found the metal ones to be good in holding the pencil in place while the plastic ones gave in a bit while moving. Drawing a circle and a flower structure within the circle with single measurement using the compass was an ASMR activity of my school days. Drawing arcs were fascinating things. The protractor was the king of the box. Most often the compass, protractor and ruler are the only ones used from the geometry box during school days and I wondered what were the set squares for. Good old tools.
Chalk piece box.
A chalk piece box is a fascinating thing. During school days especially in elementary grades the classes are given a chalk piece box each for the teachers to use while in the class. A new box is made out of brown cardboard, it’s a cube with the brand name on it and roughly 50 pieces of chalk. A chalk piece is thinner at the top and wider at the bottom which gives an aesthetically pleasing view when a new box is opened, sort of like bullets neatly arranged. It also comes with a soft cork powder kind of thing to cushion and not let the chalks break during transportation. A bit of the powder comes out or spills while taking each chalk out and at the end there is just the chalk box and the powder. Until the new chalk bo is received from the staff room one may borrow a couple of pieces from the neighboring class. The duster and chalk pieces are often shared and the classes are judged based one these things too.
Ink pens.
Another of the school day fascination are the ink pens that comes with a sixth grade perks. A wide variety of ink pens were in the market and there were normal ones and special ones. A normal one opens up and one can fill ink up to brim close it and write. The other ones are Hero pens and kind which has tubes and small compartments to hold ink that are considered a step above even though the normal pens can hold up to more ink and is economical option. The difference in the society start right from there. The normal pens have various designs colorful flowers or one solid color while the hero pens are solid colors with a golden color cap or silver one. The nibs of normal pen have the inverted curve on both sides ending with the split where ink flows on the other hand the hero pens are smooth small triangular nibs. The ink filling process is also different for both. The normal ones need an ink filler to take the ink from the ink bottle and fill it into the well of the pen while the hero pen needs to be dipped nibble first into the ink bottle itself and the thin metal part with a inclination should be pressed to create vacuum and the ink rushes into fill the small rubber like ink tube then the pen needs to go out and tapped for the ink to settle down. Both the pens need to be practiced with ones writing for the nibs to pick up one’s style and give a smooth writing. Both pens sometimes leave the hands inky. The students are generally allowed to use only blue or royal blue as the ink bottle states. The teachers are allowed to use red ink pens for correction, which will be in the staff room and is a whole different subject. There is a dedicated ink cloth to wipe the spillover without which the set is incomplete. The normal pen’s cap almost always has a small hole while the hero pen lacks it. The normal pen opens with circular motion screwed to the cap, while the hero pen slides smoothly into the cap. Sharing ink with a friend who ran out of ink during the school days is also whole another story.
Margins.
Margins are weird things that I have drawn all my childhood school days. These are usually on the left and top of a page. And a considerable amount of space in the bottom of page. Let’s say the margin on the left separates numbers or divisions from the rest of the point the top and bottom spaces in every page is for what. The question always remained and when we were upgraded to unruled notebooks when we have to draw the margin unlike other ruled notebooks that has margins printed on their own, I would mostly draw only the left side margin. And on pages that did not have any question numbers to be put the margins were a waste of space.
Stick pens.
In the era of normal ink pens and hero pens, a stick pen is a stylish trend that was picked up by almost all , the government had to allow and adjust with it. Say in a public examination only blue ink pens were allowed to use by the students then a black ink was accepted to differentiate headings and sub headings from the rest of the content only after caps lock and a double underline. The hierarchy was this uppercase - underline- double underline - black pen- stock pen - colors. The stick pens came only after gel pens. Although only ink pens are allowed for an examination the stick pens slowly steeped in with writing of the side headings. A color restriction based on moral clause was there at first like black purple and kind without being odd. Then pink sky blues and all except red and green came in. Like always there were two kinds of people with regard to stick pens. The classic black - blue - purple people and the cutting edge colorful people. Stick pens were both commoner’s wealth and a status symbol. But a very few still concentrated on the answers actually.
Pencil box.
A pencil box is a mandatory accessory to a school going kid of any age. Even in schools with uniforms and bags there is no set rule on lunch boxes and pencil boxes. They show the character of each one and a unique story of an entire household. A pencil box normally is a plastic or metal box simply to put in a pencil, an eraser, a sharpener and a small size scale which measures 15 centimeters, that fits into the box. A spare pencil maybe. Could be a normal camel pencil with or without an eraser at the back for all normal writing to do or a tip pencil that changes tip and had a lid and an eraser on the lid with even smaller lid to show off. A normal eraser or a non-dust eraser. A small colored sharpener or a longer fancy one. A see through plastic scale with markings in black or a colorful pictured scale. A normal plastic box that just opens with simplest of snap or one with press down lock. A normal single layer box or one with a second layer for special stuff or spare things that. A box that has magnet for locks and a separate compartment for the eraser and sharpener opens opposite sides. A broken box. A geometry box repurposed as pencil box. And as the pencil boxes evolved they became pouches with zips. The duffle bags for stationary. It’s just a pencil box and it’s not just a box.
Uniforms.
The purpose of a uniform at school was that education doesn’t discriminate. Everyone is the same and that starts by wearing the same clothes. However different schools had different uniforms but that’s ok. My childhood uniform had few silly useless things too to show off the school name like a badge, a belt, ID card, a tie, the ribbons for braids.
Life of an eraser.
A new cuboid eraser starts off with sharp edges and a paper cover wrapped over it for 3/4th of the eraser leaving some place on both sides which come wrapped in a plastic cover. The plastic cover is torn and trashed but the paper cover is retained. The first use leaves a sharp pencil streak while rubbing and erases with precision. Although time consuming using a new eraser is a happy feeling. All the uses after the first one becomes involuntary. Then one edge is saved for precise erasing and all others are used casually. Over time all the edges become blunt and the paper cover wrapped becomes loose and falls off or trashed. The eraser takes an almost oval shape with the edges smoothed out. The eraser also becomes black taking in the pencil dust so it’s either rubbed on wall or on thick uniform pants to take the black off of the eraser. The oval then takes better shape and it might come to a rough sphere and still used. Sometimes around this time one or more holes are made with pencil on the eraser and or sometimes gives away and breaks or a new eraser is already purchased and this one is kept as backup or used to play in the class.
School diary.
Most of our childhood was about school. And we had a special diary for school that was taken every day and homework was written on them checked and signed by the class teacher and the parent. Almost every school had one. The first page lamination covered usually with the school name and the front picture of the school building with address and phone number. The school name either in full form or the short form. Inside the first few pages have the motto of school, the songs that are sung in the prayer like school songs national anthem, school calendar that shows holidays and examination schedule, details of the staffs starting from from founder, owner, principal, vice principal and such. Then starts the regular homework pages that has date and day column. Then lines to note down the subject name and homework, in some schools the daily diary has spaces for English words and hindhi words 5 each to know new words daily, last a teacher’s sign space and a parent’s sign space. The purpose of the diary is to note down all homework from each class and the trachea checks it and signs and we go home and try to finish all the tasks and parents sign it meaning we finished all the homework. The diary also has pictures of classes and features of school and its achievement academic and sports and all sorts of motivational stuff on the back cover. An everyday journal of how the school kept us like a horse with bridle.
School benches.
A class room in school has some mandate things like blackboard chalk piece duster tables and desks for students, table and a chair for the teacher, a shelf to keep stuffs, a dustbin. The student desks are a different during different grades and different schools. The desks and benches I have come across are made of wooden and steel. The wooden ones are obviously of the brown wood color and are of average height the bench lower than the desk while the steel desks and benches are often painted dark green for some reason. The steel benches and desks are sometimes connected to one another so taken and moved in pairs. The steel desks are often flat and straight and sometimes with a little slant and mostly has a small deep area about the height of a pen width about holding 4-5 pens. Some of the benches have a second layer to place things and make more space on the top which is a good thing because less important things go in there making more space to write however it can be annoying if one is a relatively tall student whose knee often hit the second layer. The desks often have a curve space under its surface and can be used as a secret place to store one’s pencil for a while for no reason. The benches are also often flat as we sit on them but sometimes the benches have provisions to sit resting the back like a park bench. Whichever type the bench was we made it our spot and loved it anyways.
School bag.
This is the not so fun part of school. Although we like the school bag with zips and spaces the load that we carried in them made us despise it in a way. There are a variety of school bags usually one per year or one a few years. There are bags given by school just like uniforms with the school name printed on it or a store bought one. The lower classes usually have a broader school bag with weight equally distributed on both sides and has space for notebooks to be kept in two columns. It usually comes with two clips and a zip on top and one large space for books and two small front compartments. Comes with two handles and two side bottle pouches. The other variety is a narrow one or a taller one. That comes with two big zippered compartments and smaller zips one or two in the front and one or two bottle holders and occasionally a secret zip or compartment for the higher class students who inevitably have secrets. Big or small we had too much to carry. The bags showed economical difference but they were often overlooked by the friendship.
Slate.
These are our reusable marker boards. A mini version of the school black boards. The slate was an essential for my previous generation and became a want for us due to the taking over of paper notebooks. The slate is a rectangular black surface of any size with a plastic(colorful) or wooden(brown) border. There is a slate pencil available and altered version of chalk piece but lasts longer and is thinner. The slate pencil is used to write on the slate and any normal cloth can be used to erase and rewrite on that. Growing up in a surrounding of repetition a major part of education the slate was a climate friendly tool that was reusable. The slate somehow gives me a sense of comfort and nostalgia of previous birth if there is any just for comparison with the imaginary that seems unreal.
The sweet memories go on and on about more things. It’s a blessing to live through all of these without struggle for the necessities in life. A childhood without poverty where one could afford enough was a luxury. To find happiness in these trivial things is bliss.
By Suganya Sundar
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