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The ‘Alex Page’ Series – Part 4

trrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrringgg!

When you constantly look at the watch for the time to move fast, it doesn't. Alex was constantly looking at his watch waiting for the lecture to finish off before the turn to introduce himself comes upon him. But every time he took a look at the time it was still! :)

Finally as he wanted, it went off. The bell which announces the end of a lecture rang and the introduction activity came to an abrupt stop. PHEW!! Alex got a big relief from facing the crowd.

First impression is the last impression. Alex has been hearing this for quite a few years. Truly the statement proved its worth with the first lecture. He was not impressed at all with the professor. The weakest in mathematics, a thought started running in his mind on how he will cope up with the subject with such a boring professor. He had scored one mark in his algebra and geometry paper in his final prelims. How he cracked the same papers in the university level was a mystery for him. It was a miracle that had happened. It was a miracle that let him believe in god.

“it was all because of the prayers”.

Never in his life was he ever serious with prayers, serious with god, serious with Sunday school not even with his studies. The seriousness came one week before the university exams were to begin. When everyone went to bed in the night, Alex used to get down on his knees and start saying his prayers. He used to pray not only for himself but for everyone he knew who had helped him for the preparation of exams.

God was a regular topic every night for Alex from the day results were out.

“Don’t fall in bad company, Make good friends, Don’t do drugs, Don’t smoke…Don’t…Don’t…Don’t…Don’t….”. Clara had given all the advice she could give to her son. She was aware that Alex would be exposed to very different environment which could harm him.It was her duty to take care of her son even if he was away from him. That’s what a mothers responsibility is.

Alex had grown mature enough to understand all of the above. He had grown enough to understand that he should not be letting his parents down. He had grown enough to understand that he should make good use of his fathers hard earned money. He knew what to do.

They showed a macho man and a beautiful woman going round the trees in the movies. They showed a macho man impressing the girl he loves with love letters, roses and the fake suicide attempts by cutting his veins. They showed a macho man bunking lectures and doing all the weird things one can do. They showed a macho man coming inside a lecture room and leaving a lecture room at is own will with the professor looking helplessly at the class. They showed a macho man standing outside the college for three sixty five days and still standing first in the exams. They showed a macho man fighting the bad guys and outsmarting them with sheer ease as if he had all the powers of god. They showed the macho man taking his bike inside the corridors of the college premises and doing stunts inside the campus. The college life was portrayed such in the movies. Perhaps Alex thought this will be happening in his Maryland College too.

But what followed was exactly the opposite. It changed Alex’s life. It changed Page’s mindset about Alex. Clara was heartbroken.

To Be Continued…

The ‘Alex Page’ Series – Part 3

Continued…

Maryland College Of Commerce (MCC).

chirp chirp chirp… Alex woke up with a start with the wake up sounds of the tiny sparrows residing in the ashoka trees bang outside Alex’s balcony . It was five in the morning. One month passed by in a whoosh and it was the day Alex will be attending his first day in junior college. It was the first day Alex will be travelling by the local trains to attend college. He was excited but he was nervous too. Nervous because he will be meeting new people, nervous because he was afraid that he will not be able to make friends just because he was from the sleepy village town of Amby Valley, nervous because it will be his first day of his college life.

Never in his school life, Alex had interacted with girls. He used to be very afraid of girls. If at all, the only interaction he used to have with them was – give a smile and mind his own his business. He used to be so nervous, he used to shiver with fear whenever he was to face a Venus. For him chatting with girls were a distant dream and making friends with them was much more far! However he hoped that at least in college he will make away with this ‘disease’.

Travelling to Maryland was a tedious process, a process of jumping inside a hot box of moving iron in a span of 15 seconds along with another 40 people, filled with two legged creatures with sweat running down from every visible part of their body. With age old fans covered with dust, leafs rotating inside which never blew air. These were the local trains which chugged from Amby valley to the city of Maryland. These were the trains which never obeyed their time. These were the trains which were termed ‘The lifeline of Maryland’. Almost ninety percent of people working in Maryland were from the suburban cities of Amby valley, Santa Cruz, Churchgate, Banderas, Elphinstone, who used the lifeline to reach Maryland. The trains carried double their capacity of passengers. There used to be at least twenty accidents every month. Alex had to face all these odds in a tiring forty five minute journey from Valley. This was the reason Clara was not interested in sending her son to Maryland.

Page accompanied Alex to MCC to make him comfortable on the first day.

Big walls painted in cream and brown, students sitting on bikes parked in a line on one side of the road, a police station on the other, a barren land with tid bits of grass bang outside the entrance, bustling with students, some zooming on bikes with their friends, some in cars, some talking endlessly in their cell phones before a board which said – Cell Phones Strictly Prohibited Inside College Premises According to University Regulations. MARYLAND COLLEGE OF COMMERCE written boldly in black on a big board on the front… MCC was already ‘awake’ with lectures, canteens and ‘bunking’!

Five rows, three large windows on one side, nine fans rotating in slow pace, a big blackboard with charts of human skeleton, atoms, molecules and atom bombs,charts in pink yellow and white, the classroom was already filled with the new faces, everything was same as school except one thing, you did not have to wear uniforms!

Alex decided to do something he had never dared to do. He sat on the first bench. First bench of the third row. He thought SOMETHING will change in him if he sits in the front. Good effort!

trrrrrrrrrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiinngggggGG!! the bell rang. Students on their seats, a short dark haired guy wearing spectacles with big glasses sat next to Alex. Both of them exchanged smiles, introduced each other and then kept mum.

A tall middle-aged man with files, a pair of chalks, a duster entered the room. It was the professor. He took a long look around the whole class as if he was looking for some suspect criminal.

“Good morning stoodents!” said he with a big gleaming smile. The smile was so broad that one could see the texture of his teeth. It was stained in red color with one devils teeth missing.

“Good morning sir'” replied the stoodents in a low voice.

“i am sure you people had your breakfast..yeah?”

“Good morning sir!!!!!” the class replied back in their full might.

“Now everyone introduce yourself one by one starting from the first bench”

As soon as Alex heard this, a chill ran down his spine, beads of sweat on his forehead.

He slowly shifted to the last bench. Facing the crowd made him shiver ;)…

To Be Continued..

The 'Alex Page' Series - Part 2

Continued...

Alex Enters Junior College...

 

Born to a middle class family, Alex was the eldest son of Page and Clara, and the elder brother to Abraham. Born in the month of January, Alex was a true Capricorn.

The Page family had earned a good amount of respect in their locality. Both Clara and Page were always good to everyone. They never treated anyone differently. Even the man who collects garbage from their household was treated like a family member.  

Page and Clara had an exactly opposite personality. There was not a single quality which was same to both of them except one, and that was simplicity. Page used to talk less, in simple words he was a bit introvert. The only thing he talked was sense and no non-sense. On the other hand Clara was an extremely talkative person. She could talk for hours and hours. Clara was a cleanliness freak. She wanted everything neat and tidy, spick and span! Page did not have much importance to it….

Like all of us have, Alex and Abraham had ‘inherited’ the qualities of their parents. Abraham was a great talker but he had no cleanliness at all. On the other hand Alex was an introvert but a ‘spick and span’ type.

Lourdes Nursery was were Alex had done his kindergarten. Run by Christians the school had a good reputation for quality education. The Page duo were happy that their son had passed the interview and had secured his place in the nursery. Page wanted that his son studied well and make a good future.

Alex was a last bencher. He was a surprise package as he was not at all interested in studies especially mathematics. He used to get beatings right from nursery to his school days for not faring well in mathematics. “Rosita teacher” had created terror in Alex’s mind. He used to be very afraid of her. Every other day the little boy was either standing on the bench or kneeling down for chit chatting and MATHEMATICS! :)

It was “Agnes mam” and “Jacqueline mam”  during school days. If not in studies Alex had great interest in sports. He used to run relays for his ‘RED’ team..run hundred meters for his ‘GREEN’ team..run two hundred meters for his ‘YELLOW’ team…..run and run and run..run from books run from studies run from tuition classes run from everything that said “STUDY!!!”.

Now that he had scored 65% in his tenth grade, it was decision time to opt the correct field,  Science, Arts and Commerce you know!. Science required a good grip on mathematics which Alex did not have, Arts was a boring subject and the only thing left was Commerce. “So lets go for commerce stream!” said Alex. Choosing a stream was not a tough process but choosing a college was. Getting into a good college was a rather competitive job. A good amount of importance was given from which college a student did his studies from. Scores came second. 

Maryland College of Commerce was a sought after and reputed college specialized in commerce and economics. Alex had secured admission in the ‘second round’. Thanks to his grandpas Freedom Fighter Certificate. A special preference was given to students holding such certificates and Alex was one of them. Alex always wanted to go out of his sleepy Amby Valley town and study in the good, modern colleges of the cosmopolitan Maryland. Even Page wanted this but Clara did not. However she finally agreed. She had to! She wanted her son to be smart, talkative like her and much more…

College was to start after one month and Alex had many dreams to fulfill once he entered college.

To Be Continued….

The 'Alex Page' Series - Part 1

Summer of 2004.

Our Lady Of Lourdes School was bustling with students and parents. Students waiting to grab their Secondary School Certificate. The certificate which officially says that its time to say “goodbye” to school life and “hieee” to college life.

(Parents these days were more eager to know how much others had scored)

It was an emotional day for students who spent about ten years of their life in this school, ten years of studies, ten years of mischief, ten years of exams, ten years of playing football with the ten centimeter tamarind tree stick during the 10minute ‘recess’. Ten years of chanting jana gana mana and hail mary prayers everyday before the start of the school periods and vande mataram before the school got over.

Ten years of kneeling down as a punishment for “disturbing the class by talking continuously, not listening to the teachers.”  Ten years of listening to teachers giving complaints about the student to their respective “mothers and fathers”  during ‘open day’.

Ten years of a wonderful school life.

From this day onwards the hectic process of applying to different colleges for the respective courses -Science Arts or Commerce you know - had started.

It was again a hectic process of picking out which field to opt for – Science Arts Commerce you know! – your mummy and papa would say of their choice, your friends would say something of their choice. And one ends opting for the wrong course. But that helps sometimes though!

The Science field was for all the so called spectacle wearing intelligent students. Commerce also carried somewhat the same weightage. Arts was for all the low scoring students. ha!

Alex had scored 65% and was in a very joyful mood because he had never thought he would score so much.

To be continued….

Next: Alex enters junior college.

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If you go to see, these days Advt. companies put so much creativity in their clients promotion that they instantly stick on to the potential consumers mind.

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