Tuesday, 1 April 2014

Graduation Post

As the poet said,
"Tell me what you want, what you really really want!
(I'll tell you what I want, what I really really want)
Oh, tell me what you want, what you really really want-
I really wanna (ah), really wanna (ah), really wanna (ah)-
ZIGGY ZIGG AH."

It is an interesting and little known fact that the only line the Spice Girls contributed to that beautiful song is the phrase 'Ziggy zigg ah'. When you're as fabulous as they are, that's enough, along with all the hip-shaking they do in their music videos, of course. The things artists suffer for their art- I bet all that jiggling has irreparably damaged their insides- a moment of silence for the Spice Girls' dislocated hip joints, please.

Thank you.

Well, today was the last day of school, and I feel like an era's ended. No matter what people say against the Indian education system, it's a special experience to go through hell with fifty people your own age. It's a special time- when we were in school our dreams were unclouded, we had everything to lose and the world to gain. We were safe. We belonged somewhere. Now, all that's coming to an end and it's painful.

 When we were in school we had nothing to fear- nothing big at least. The world was held temporarily at bay and we were growing like saplings in a greenhouse. Now it feels like we're being uprooted and our roots are screaming and clinging on to the familiar soil.

Still, we can't hide behind our uniforms and the million other things that made up school forever- the thousand little things that made up every day of our lives- the school logo on the gates and on our textbooks, the blue and gold on our ties and blazers, the sight of familiar faces and familiar sounds, classrooms and corridors and stairways that were ours, that had been trodden by our feet so many times. The sight of the walls that made up more than just a building-  an enchanted castle in which we created a little kingdom, where we were kings and warriors, magicians and priests. Just as Edmund, Lucy and Peter had to eventually leave Narnia, we have to leave school.

I have a premonition that this will be the first of many such endings, but I know that this feeling- this strange ache- will never trouble me again, because I will never be in any place like school ever again. And, in the words of Winne-the-Pooh, I can only say, "How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard."

Goodbye Clarence, goodbye Clarencians. Thanks for everything.

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