Conversations: School Trip

Here's something I found in my attic last week as I was searching for something else. An old, tiny little notebook on which I had written about my school trip. The entry is dated 01/01/90 - that's 26 years back!!! I am copy-pasting it here verbatim. I was in Class 7 then, around 13 years old. Read on for spelling mistakes, grammatical errors and some innocence:

It was time for us to set for our journey and so we had our prayer led by our President Dr. Abraham. And then started our journey. And later, after a long travel, we reached the Karnataka border and as we crossed it we reached Kerala. At afternoon as we were so hungry, we were led to a hotel called Citilight in Tellicherry for our lunch. The food was good but the water was salty and I couldn’t drink it. There were many shops near it and I spent Rs 3 in one of the shops. We saw a sea near to this place with many boats sailing on it. The womens here wore a blouse and a skirt. A few wore a shall {haha....shall for shawl} or half saree over it. Tellicherry was a beautiful place with big-big {hahaha} buildings on both the sides and we saw a green-green {hahaha} plants everywhere.

After Tellicherry, we met {hahaha} a place named Maagie (I am not sure of the spelling) which is a Union Territory. And then we reached a place called Calicut, which is a very beautiful city with many big buildings and shops on both sides. It is a very nice place but it is not clean. Later on we saw a place named Callai in Calicut. Here, suddenly our friends Naina and the uppittu had a great fall for there was a great break. It is said that our Principal didn’t go to help Naina but went back of the uppittu to catch it. Afterwards we went to have tea. The hotel’s name was White Restaurant which is in Teroke. Wherever we see we could find a mirror and so I sat near a big mirror. I saw a place named kakkad where I was surprised to see such a beautiful plantation of banana and some other crops. All the area was covered by green color and it looked so pretty that we couldn’t leave the place. Later our bus spoiled at Kuttipuram, where Nayak Sir brought us some biscuits on Neeta teacher’s request. There was a institution in which we stayed. It was called Renewal Centre. There were a lot of mosquitoes and so they had put the mosquito net over the bed.

Later on we visited the ship port. We went to have a boat-ride, which was very interesting. While our ride we saw many ships like Sagar Samrat. We sang many songs in the boat. Then we visited the Mattancherry Palace Museum. There we saw the photographs of some kings like Ravi vara, & Kerala varma. There were some dolis, palanquins, knives, dresses of the kings. Afterwards we went to the Jewish synagogue and we saw many shandlians {hahaha.....chandeliers!}. No two tiles were alike. It was made by the Chinese and the shandlians were brought from Belgium. There were 21 shandlians on the ceiling. We visited St. Frances Church. There we saw the burial place of Vasco-da-Gama. He had died in 1524 in Cochin. We saw 2 aeroplanes, one was about to land and the other one had taken off. We reached Kanyakumari at 5 o’clock. At night Shyla teacher said that she had lost her position and was searching for it. This was a great joke for all of us. We went to Kanyakumari beach. We saw the sun rising at 6:30. We saw the waves jumping upon one another {hahahaha....jumping}. It was a wonderful sight! Then we went to Trivandrum. There we visited a Zoological Zoo. There we saw so many different kinds of animals. I was very happy to see the unseen animals {hahahaha....unseen animals}

We reached a Restaurant called Nalukittre. I drank so much water for, I didn’t drink any water in Kanyakumari. I liked the “vaters” of this hotel, I liked everything in this hotel but I didn’t like the name of the hotel. I was very much surprised to see Trivandrum so clean everywhere. I liked Trivandrum very much. Next we started our journey towards “Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre” where we had to wait for a while near the gate. And finally entered it. I liked the rocket centre for it was green-green everywhere. I wanted to roll, sleep and play on the beautiful grass but it was not allowed. We saw the airport. We went there and saw the launching {hahaha} of the aeroplane. From there we went to the beach and played with the waves. My pant had become wet fully. I couldn’t walk on the sand.

We danced and sang in the bus. I too danced. And I was surprised to see myself dancing in front of all for I had not danced openly {hahahaha....openly} anywhere except at my home. All the girls danced but the boys didn’t dance. We all requested them to dance but it was all in vain.

In Kanyakumari

We went on a ship to the Vivekananda Rock Memorial. Swami Vivekananda came to meditate on the rock in the year 1892. He started meditating on 25^th, 26^th & 27^th {hahaha} December 1892. After seeing the Vivekanand Rock we went for shopping. We brought many things that were made of shells. I wanted to stay on the rock for it was too cool and it was a very nice place. I was so much surprised to see such a construction on a rock! I purchased a shell hanger – 6 rs, a set of bangle – rs 5, two packet of klips 9, 2 chains -3, a set of chain – 15, a top -1. We stayed at Vivekananda Kendra. The sea looked merroon from far.

Nearby Trivandrum

We visited a temple called Suchitram Temple. The temple was built by the Cholas, Cheras and Pandyas. The man who was explaining us about the temple was a very funny man for he was calling us Karnataka bega banny.

Our return journey

During our return journey our photographs were taken by Neeta teacher, our principal and P.T.Sir. We started to dance but we didn’t get a long time. Then they said that the check post was approaching but really it was 1 and 1/2 mile far (i hope so). I felt very sad for we could not dance. I wanted to dance from dawn to dusk {hahaha} but my wish didn’t fulfil. I was begging for the teachers to let the dance but it was all in vain. And finally we crossed the kerala border and reached our school. And this is the end of my happy days. I was very happy to have Miss Vanitha Nayak teacher as our group teacher. She helped us a lot in purchasing our desired things. She was a very nice teacher.