Crazy College Teen Days Part I

Reminiscing those yester years which have gone by so fast,I recall the thoughts that stand so vivid in my memory.

   An innocent girl, straight out of school to a fairly new world of Pre Degree college life .I felt like a bird set free from a cage. Coming from a school where you were under the surveillance of the strict eyes of the Holy Angels' School nuns,with severe punishment if caught,into one where freedom reigned supreme and nobody was bothered whether you attended class or not. Here you had to have your head on your shoulders to make the right decisions, so as not to go astray.

We had the freedom to wear whatever clothes we liked, of any hue and colour.Trivandrum being a small town at that time, the traditional dress reigned supreme in college.It was either half skirt and blouse(pavada and blouse),or half saree or saree.The hair not plaited  neatly like in school but left loose quite oily and decked with jasmine flowers.Nobody ever wore the salwar kameez as it was alien to Trivandrum at that time. Being of a small demeanor and having come from abroad,I chose to wear half skirt and blouse.

 Many of my school mates preferred to join All Saints College as  they felt there would be more discipline and it was a new building with modern facilities.As a child  I never wanted my father to unnecessarily spend money on my education. I was well aware that we were living on his pension and being the youngest of six college going siblings.

My walk from my home in Statue to Holy Angel's Convent, had now to be from Statue to Women's College,Vazhuthacaud. This did not deter me,as I preferred to go walking than by bus,as it was safer in those days! In the buses, you had to beware of all kinds of old baldies, as you could be touched or pinched by these wicked old men.

 At School we could come home for lunch but at college, food was sent through women like a dabba kind of system.In those days several women took up the job of carrying our lunch boxes of steel, in a big basket on their heads.We enjoyed our hot lunches ,at the lunch sheds and shared our food and even mingled with our seniors. Thank God there was no ragging at that time.

Being a government college,most of the students came from the local schools.There were very few of us from the convent school.I found myself among girls who spoke fluent Malayalam and coming from a school where we were not allowed to speak Malayalam,I faced a great challenge. Still I tried to mingle among them ,fearing they would brand me as a show off, pretending not to know the language.They often talked Malayalam with a double meaning and innocent as I was, I took it in the literal sense not really understanding the meaning of their jokes.

It took a few months for me to settle in this whole new atmosphere and soon I had a gang of assorted friends. The teachers were all excellent and very cooperative and even though, we were always the back benchers, they knew we paid attention and answered the questions put to us,so we were in their good books.Being straight from school we were very attentive.

My journey to the college was past University College,which I dreaded every morning, as there used to be a whole gang of boys waiting near their classroom windows which overlooked the road. They would either whistle or pass comments. My heart would pound,my legs would not gain the speed to walk fast, as I was not so used to such gang of boys.

Soon they spotted me and shouted out, "Shishu(small child)!  Which nursery are you going to?" I was so taken aback and felt so ashamed of my petite self that I swore, to teach these fellows a lesson,  I would wear saree for the Degree course.

This is how I looked in my short skirt and blouse that brought the comments on me. 

 

                          

 Another fond memory was my  first excursion to Cape Comorin, the name given during the British rule but today known as Kanyakumari. Being the southern most town in the Indian peneculiar,it is also known as,,"the Land's end." It is the meeting point of three oceans- Bay of Bengal,the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean.. I was all excited because I had never gone with my friends only with family. 

We started our journey, early in the morning by a bus hired for the purpose.  

 Enroute to Cape we stopped at the Sucheendram temple..Everything was so thrilling because I got to visit a temple for the first time.

Then visited Padmanabhapuram Palace,once the capital of the princely State of Travancore and having the finest of traditional architecture.  At Cape we visited the Gandhi Memorial,where the ashes of Gandhi were kept, before being scattered into the sea in 1948. The uniqueness of this place is that on October 2nd, Gandhiji's birthday,the sun's rays fall through a hole on to the exact place where the urn was kept.  We had a time of our life wetting our feet as the waves moved in, onto the beach and several of us got fully wet. We bought different types of shells and multicoloured sand which is a unique feature of the beach.Sadly not anymore.

Returned home before it was too late because we didn't wait for the setting of the sun, being another unique feature of the place.    

My hair at that time for 1st Pre Degree, was waist length. I had long straight black hair and it really grew fast. By the time I reached Second year it grew much below my waist. My friends really admired my hair and asked me,what was the secret to my long hair.I told them coconut oil and bathing with soap in warm water,which was the truth They couldn't believe it and they said I was trying to make them lose all their hair.

Another challenge that made me opt for saree,during my Degree course was the thought that my hair would by then reach below my half skirt and dreaded the thought of what comment those gang of boys would come out with.After the Pre degree exams, I was looking forward to my Degree college days.  I changed my wardrobe to sarees,getting the matching blouse stitched and matching coloured under skirt. Many of my relatives who came from abroad gifted me sarees.