Last time I'd saved up and become a hippy, I went travelling and among other places, I spent a month staying with the family of some friends in Nainital, India, which is an old hill station town just about in the foothills of the Himalayas. A bunch of the aforementioned friends had gone to the posh school there, which was weird to me in that it was an old fashioned British colonial school. I'll do another lazy cut and paste of an old email:
A large number of my friends, including those kind souls who were
invaluable in setting up this trip (step forward Bhavesh, Khila and
Rajat), went to the prestigious Sherwood Public School, a forty minute
walk (mainly up) from the house. So I went to the annual fair there
on the invitation of a family friend, Fleur, who works there. The
school has as fantastic a setting as a student could ask for. Up in
the hills, way above the bustle of the town, it is 200 acres of gently
worn colonial buildings, a gravel playing field, swimming pool,
winding climbing paths, all in a hill forest of healthy dark evergreen
trees.
It was good fun, if pretty bizarre. Amidst stalls that would not look
out of place in an English fair, I kept thinking that at any minute
someone would jab an electric cattle prod into me and hurl me into a
snatch bag. I was by far the scruffiest, most Bolshevik looking
person there. A fortnight old beard and my faded blue on white flower
short sleeve shirt, dirty at the edges, marked me out as some kind of
messed up, semi-Western eccentric. I was introduced to the
headmaster, an unexpectedly young looking guy with shades and the air
of a successful bureaucrat. I sensed that his smile was directed over
my shoulder, which I could not blame him for. I looked like I had had
been cannoned there from Miami via some strategically placed
hedgerows. The Bhangra/Bon Jovi disco sounded a hoot, though I
resisted the invitation of a prefect to join in with the dancing (he
smirked as I explained that the good of providing comedy to the youth
would be outweighed by my personal humiliation). The announcements of
the teenage DJ were cute:
"This goes out from Ashu: All the Class 10 girls, I'm waiting for you
at the dance."
"This message goes out from Bhattu to Rhea: I think you look really
pretty today."
"...you're really cool."
"...you're really hot."
"...you're looking very, very, VERY cute."
"...I have a crush on you."
"Could Mark Rowe please come to the desk."
What? I had been missed...
I was sad to leave the family in Nainital. I had been thoroughly
spoilt and felt a little lost to be off on the move again. However,
Ummi's words on goodbye were of some comfort: "We will miss you too
and your... talk."
You really had to be there to appreciate the impeccable comic timing
and delivery in that simple sentence.
Um. Having just looked it up for the first time, I'm genuinely impressed to see that
Amitabh Bachchan went there.
