My school played a vital role in my life. From the day I joined until my farewell, it was a rollercoaster ride. I didn’t switch to any other schools in between; I spent almost thirteen years of my life there. There were many ups and downs, instances of bullying, and countless memories, but ultimately, it shaped me into who I am today.
Not just for me, but for everyone, our principal worked hard to instill discipline in every aspect of our lives. Although we often failed miserably and made several mistakes, we learned from them.
If you had seen me from a third-person perspective, you might have thought I was a well-disciplined kid who chased his dreams. However, for me, it was quite a struggle to cope with my fellow students. I always felt like an outsider, except in the company of a few friends. Despite this, I shared many laughable moments during my school days, especially with the foreign visitors.
When I was studying there, my school wasn’t very developed. Even at that time, nearly 800 students were enrolled, and our principal had a grand vision to make education accessible for every poor student in the village. Occasionally, many volunteers would visit our school to support us as much as they could, and even foreigners visited often. When they came, we would hold meetings, and they would give speeches. It was hard for us to understand their accents and advanced English, but we enjoyed those speeches because it meant we didn’t have to attend our regular classes.
More interestingly, a few of the visitors would even teach us. Once a week, a foreigner would come in to teach us something new. I still remember one teacher, Ruth, who taught us songs, read stories, and covered grammar topics. She was really friendly and often brought gifts for the boarders. She was the first person to take us to our school library, which, despite having around 800 students, was just a small room filled with books they labeled as a library.
One of my fondest memories from those classes revolves around a song. Teacher Ruth would teach the same song to every class she visited. It was a song about pizza. Since we were kids, we didn’t completely grasp her accent, except for the first few words, “It’s pizza, it’s pizza.” After that, we struggled to understand a single word. We would replace the words we didn’t comprehend with words from our native language, and each time we sang, we would laugh at the words we replaced and sing in unison. Those days were truly enjoyable, and even today, when I think back on them, I can’t help but smile.
I still remember that pizza song she taught us. Most of us hadn’t even tasted pizza at that time, but that particular song never failed to make us laugh. I recall that we finally tasted pizza two or three years later during a food fest our school organized, and many of us couldn’t even afford the small size that cost Rs. 20.
Now, we’ve reached a point where we can buy our own pizzas, but I’m still searching for that original pizza song that brought us so much joy.