Seventh Day Adventist High School – An integral part of my life

First memory of SDA that I have was when I must have been around 2 years old. My Didi, Arunima had started going to school and I remember going with my Ma to drop and pick her during her first days of the school.

1980 was the year when I joined SDA. I did my nursery from Good Shepherd and joined SDA in LKG. My first few years of SDA were not nice at all. I was ragged a lot by my batch mates. I don’t know why but I was always feeling insecured and always looked upto some guys to be like them or follow them? I was just about ok in studies, but low on confidence. Then came Mrs. Kumar in Class VIth and turned me around - for good. She was instrumental in getting me inspired to do well in studies and once I started getting into the top ranks, everything else like confidence and security fall in their place.

Last 4-5 years were my best years in the school. The studies, the music, the cricket, the food fascinated me and I loved every bit of it. I made some great friends and some are still there, whom I have built life-long bonding - stronger than an oak tree!!! Most of the teachers were friendly. Some were strict, while others tried to act strict ;-)

Seniors were a big pain. Most always acted smart :-P Girls were pretty ;-) I had some secret crushes. Of course, I was timid enough to keep them within myself. I even had huge crushes on some of my teachers. One was our Biology teacher in class VIIIth. And then there was our computer teacher. We had given the computer teacher a code name of ‘Mini Computer’. Of course, I don’t remember the real names of both. I think I saw the Biology teacher somewhere in a Farewell snap on SDA FB board. So friends, one of them - I just gave away :-P

Being an Adventist school, discipline formed the core of the school decorum. Going to Colvin just after SDA was a rude awakening for me. I realized how much importance was given to discipline in SDA and how it served the student so well?!

Special thanks to teachers like Benjamin, Kumar, Bahadur & Sharma. They always did a great job taming and molding morons like me!!!

Thanks to social networking, I have been able to track many of my SDA mates and now we regularly keep in touch. People like Ravi, Tabrez complete me as a person. I recently connected with Sudip and visited his house a couple of weeks back. By Joe, felt so great to meet him and his family after a gap of 23 years!

SDA build up a strong foundation in me and helped built the attitude which serves me quite well even now and I’m sure, will accompany me for the rest of my life. I guess all of us are doing our bits to be good SDA ambassadors where ever we are!!!

This is me in class VIth. Mrs. Kumar in the middle.