I woke up at the crack of dawn. There was excitement in the air that only I could feel. I was enveloped by a sense of nervous anticipation. It was a weird mixture of eagerness and hesitancy. After eight long years, I was going back to visit my high school again, and perhaps for the last time.

But first, we had to get there. It was a short drive from the hotel. Took less than five minutes. But when you have to walk the distance, it can seem a whole lot longer. However, if you are five years old, the walk is timeless. In fact, my first memory of school is one of me walking back home on the first day of school.

The school started every year during the last week of June. The year 1985 was no exception. I was five years old, and stepping into the school for the first time. I had no idea what school was supposed to be like. It was just a fun thing to do, and besides, everyone else was doing it. The school started at about 9 in the morning, at 12:15 there was a bell for lunch. Like I had mentioned earlier, Kudremukh is synonymous with rain; lots and lots of rain. The monsoon starts sometime towards the end of June. The monsoon was particularly generous on this day of June in 1985 when my school opened its door to me for the first time. At 12:15 that afternoon, it was pouring cats and dogs. The visibility had dropped to a 100 yards or so. Now, Iheard the bell ring at 12:15, and all the kids scampered away. The classroom was empty. So my thoughts were, "This is great! School's over! I get to go back home!". I pack up my bag, pick up my raincoat, and head out to the school bus shelter to hitch a ride home.

 The bus shelter, for some weird reason (one of them being it wasn't time yet), was empty. There was no bus to take me home. Undeterred, I decided to walk home. I must have been quite a sight to behold that glorious day. There I was, a five year old kid, walking back home in pouring rain, with school back on my back, and a raincoat tucked under my arm. That's right, the raincoat was under my arm! I didnt think it necessary to put it on in case of rain. As far as I was concern, the raincoat was merely an ornamental device. The interesting thing about five year olds is that they have no concept of time and only a rudimentary concept of distance. My house was over 2 miles from the school. I have absolutely no idea how long it took to cover that distance (must have been over an hour), and at that time I didnt even know who far home was. I just kept walking, wet to the bone, until I reached home. When I reached home, I was bewildered at my mom's bewilderment on seeing me all wet, with the raincoat in my arm, back home hours before I was supposed to. A hot shower and some hot chocolate drink later I was told that I shouldnt be doing this again.

The location of my school always left me wondering what the town planners were smoking when they drew up the master plan for the town. We have a fairly big school, and next it is the school playground. Now between the school, and the playground, smack bang in between, we have the town bus stand! Wonder what they were thinking: "We'll have school children walking/running from the school to the playground and back all day. So here what we cab do about it. We'll build the bus station right in the path between the school and the playground to maximize the collision rate. It a novel technique for population control." Fortunately,  no kid has found him/herself under the tires so far.

Across the street from the school we have the town hospital! I can only imagine what the planners were thinking on this one "We need to build immunity among the children. So here's what we'll do about it. We will build a hospital right next to the school so that any virus that might affect anyone will find its way to the hospital, and hence to the school. That way, the kids will be exposed all the pathogens we find, helping them along in boosting their immune system." I am surprised Kudremukh doesnt have a high mortality rate among school kids. Defies logic!

So anyway, a five minute drive later, I was in front of my old school. One look at it and you knew, the school was dying. The whole town was dying for that matter. The school sign was missing!The school has a large sign that announced itself to everyone who passed by. I felt a small stab in my heart to see two empty poles in place of that sign. I turned around to see the town bus station. Yup, the same one that stands between the school and the playground. Somehow I couldnt get myself to step into the school compound. I wasnt ready yet. I didnt know why, but I knew it wasnt time yet.

I turned around, walked past the bus station and made my way to the school playground. Winters morning are typically cold and misty in Kudremukh. In December, you dont see the sun until about 11 in the morning. This December was no exception, and it was still 9 in the morning. I walked into the playground, and couldnt see through the mist to the other end of it. The playground was just like I remembered it. Nothing has changed. This was the site for the annual sports day at school. The day where all the students in the school compete against each other in track and field events. I remember it was a day there was no school and you get to run and play to your heart's content. Life couldnt have been happier then. This was also the time to settle old scores with people. Now the score settling is not something we talked about in open. But if there were any accounts to be settled, we knew when to do it, and where.

On a typical school day, school kids didn't get to the playground until noon. So until that time the playground was a cattle bastion. This day was nothing different. The cattle, egrets, and dogs were everywhere. The cows in Kudremukh, so for reason, were extremely docile. You could walk up to any cow in the street or pasture, and they would let you come close to them, and even let you touch them or herd them. They were alwaysextremely friendly and submissive, but they werent afraid of the humans. It was a relationship of trust and respect that had developed over time. Something I havent seen anywhere else in any other town or city that I have been to. The dogs, on the other hand, are a completely different matter. The personalities among dogs were as diverse as the people. And these were strays! Some would walk up to you, others would run like the wind when they saw anything remotely human. I managed to capture one such dog. It was running from something, I couldnt quite figure out what, but I did get him at an interesting pose.

I turned around to see some elementary kids playing in the playground shelter area. They were playing some self invented game that involved the poles that held the structure together. I know that because I did the same when I was in elementary school. A bunch of us would get together to play, and have no where to play coz all the older boys has commandeered all the playgrounds and areas. All of it happened in the pecking order, and we were the last in that order. So all we had were shelters not unlike the one I saw the kids playing in. We couldnt play any of the games that we knew, so we had to invent games to play in each esoteric venue that was dished out to us. Somehow we never complained about that. We always had a good time, even if the game was just made up, and scores didn't matter. When I saw those kids at the shelter, I was taken to my old school days when all it took for me to be happy was a patch of ground to play on, and friends to play with. Funny how things change and complicate themselves with age.

I turned around to go back to the school. Somehow this time, I knew it was time. I had a feeling that this was the last time I will ever get to see the school again. I wanted to make sure that I dont miss anything this time, coz' there may not be another time to come back.