The Fifteen Day Breaks in March - Al Ghubra, Mid-2010s

The bright yellow-lit mosaic hallways of the early 2010s, bombarded with colourful soft boards on either side, would suddenly be crowded around 1:15 PM. A posse of school students bearing an unusually eclectic mix of expressions would walk out of each classroom, into a hall which, until then, was ruled by a neatly arranged collection of bags. There would be a slight ease in the air, contrary to the intense swelling of voices surging suddenly from the crowd. A few people would hold a sheaf of sheets against their faces and argue about the answers written. A few others would smugly pick up their bags and walk across the hallway saying, “Full,” later earning a few envious looks from sections of the restless crowd. The rest would be people like me, who'd cross-check each and every answer and almost have an episode of anxiety.

I'd put a conservative mark—I was a rather strict self-evaluator—and give myself a good 44.75/50, then heave a sigh of relief. The 0.75 would somehow get me into the A1 belt of grading for sure, so the 0.75 was the most important metric on which my peace relied.

From a little away, I would see a person energetically rushing towards me. He'd be so happy, almost pushing everyone out of his way, holding the same question paper high up, and say, “Anirudh, how was the exam?”

To which I would say, “I will get A1 for sure,” and then immediately doubt myself about whether I would actually score A1.

He is Thomas Isac, my neighbour and one of my best buddies from school. We walked back together on most days, and this particular day felt like a celebration. After nearly three weeks of constant studying and examinations, we'd finally crossed an entire grade.

Thomas and I would say our goodbyes to our classmates, almost on the brink of waging a war against each other after rigorously discussing the “correct” answers, referring to huge textbooks ranging from the humble Oswaal to the then-newly published book rendered with attractive typography, Arihant All-in-One. On the occasion of a Mathematics exam, this would be replaced by a million copies of different versions of R.D. Sharma, or my personal favourite (Thomas would agree too)- P.K. Garg.

We would then gallop to the front of the school, where we would wait for the other chums to join us. On a typical day, we would be accompanied by a few others too—we all lived in close proximity to each other.

Within this group, that I'd like to call the walking-back-home congregation, would be adorned by a strange mix of people.

“How was the exam?” I would shout, standing on the other side of a sand-struck corridor (popularly nicknamed as the Sandy-Area) that acted as a shortcut home from school. I would stand with one side of my hip raised, my shoulders tilted slightly, my hands almost holding the belt loop. A pose that I would've picked up from one of the films of the Chief Minister-elect of Tamil Nadu, Vijay, who was previously one of the giant stars in the film industry—and of whom I used to be a maniac.

“Full,” one person would give a smug reply. Classic.

“I'm going to fail.” The other would raise a false alarm.

And a wide range of numbers would be distributed between these two extremes.

One of them would announce, “Come to the parking lot at 2:00 PM, let's play football.”

To which we would all agree, although the time would've been almost 2:00 PM.

We'd say in unison, “I'll come after a quick lunch,” and part ways to go home.

For the next 15 days, we were off-the-shackles.

Somehow, this vision just flashed through my mind earlier this evening, almost like a madeleine effect. A memory I'd almost forgotten, and the kind of joy that felt very different.

Unlike the two-month reset that happens in India between two academic years, the Indian schools in Oman have a quick 15-day break somewhere in the middle of March, and by the first week of April, the new academic year would commence.

This account is to relive those halcyon days in the humble suburbs of Al-Ghubra, Oman in the early/mid 2010s.

The first week would be a strangely exciting ennui. I would have accumulated thoughts of so many fun things that I would want to do throughout this 15-day break. I would have daydreamed about them in quite great detail just a few days ago while flipping through the tiresome 78 questions about “The French Revolution”. However, when the time finally comes, when a temporary freedom has finally dawned in my life, I go unapologetically blank.

I would lounge on the comfortable couch, slap the remote, and bang it against the couch in an attempt to switch channels. A millennium-old Napro television set would glitch and go through the entire cycle of grief and acceptance before actually streaming the visuals.

Around 11 AM, on a regular day in the very first week, my television time would be interrupted by the ringing of a bell at the front door. I wouldn't move a muscle, and then there would be a knock. I'd move like a sloth and drag myself to the front door, only to notice a few of my friends drenched in sweat.

“Come, let's go.” they would say.

My mother would greet them.

“Aunty, water?” they'd ask for water, gasping and tired.

I would drawl, “I'll come later.”

Before I could make sense of things, I would be switching between being a defender, a goalkeeper, and a midfielder by shouting a precious keyword—“Goalkeeper change!”—and swiftly entering the field with a lot of aura, trying to tackle the football, attempting unnecessary style, rolling the ball across the field and smirking.

I'd hear a lot of “Pass!”, but I would just let all those suggestions pass and dribble impeccably towards a point—only to finally score a self-goal, a powerful kick right into the parking lot assigned as our team's goalpost.

I was an extraordinarily terrible sportsman.

Apart from football, cycling was a very popular activity back then among everyone. Today, the suburbs of Al Ghubra are riddled with more hoverboards and e-bikes than classic bicycles. We used to take pride in our bicycles and took great care of them.

Philips SGT-Sabanpoor was probably the Hero Splendor equivalent amongst the Indian student community in the suburb. We would zoom past the empty road performing stunts- with our eyes closed, arms held away from the handle, as if we were trying to impress a high-school crush who happened to walk past us.

I loved my bicycle to the core, and over time, my friends and I had managed to learn a lot of stunts and race a great deal. At one point, there was a trend that annoyed most elders in the neighbourhood. We used to insert a plastic cup onto the mudguard of the bicycle and ride it. It would create a violent screech as the mouth of the plastic cup brushed against the grooves on the tyres, as if a real bike were being revved past you.

We would ride around Al Ghubra with 500 Bz (1,000 Bz = 1 Omani Rial) that our parents would have given us for the day, and buy the famous, undisputable Oman Chips and Almarai Laban packaged in a cute yellow Tetrapak from the corner stores.

We'd relish it and begin to feel refreshed, when we'd suddenly realise that we were running out of time and needed to get back home. We would immediately zoom back home. However, we'd take the risk of sitting on top of the car-parking sheds - discussing movies, superheroes and various other theories.

Until my father would drive back from work, swiftly drive into the parking lot, and stare into my soul—because I still hadn't taken a shower after playing around until late evening.

I would yelp, trying to find a spot for the palpitating heart in my throat.

“Bye, guys,” I would say and accompany my dad back home.

Our school was wedged between two amazing spots: Turkish Corner on one side, one of the best shawarmas that existed in Muscat. A few would oppose and protest that Istanboly Shawarma was the best; however, like mature teenagers, we would agree to disagree.

A Malayali-owned convenience store and a hair salon were on the other side. Most convenience-store hoardings around that time would have a lit-up old blue, visibly “hydrated” & “iced”, Pepsi advertisement, next to which the name of the store would be written in bold. This board would have slight signs of fading, almost screaming that it had been put up back in the early 2000s.

On a few evenings, when my father drove me around in a 2007 Yaris, we would stop by Turkish Corner and buy a regular shawarma. On the days when we felt like our pockets were fuller, we would get a huge shawarma worth 0.900 Bz, almost a decade ago.

Then we would drive past the school to the other side of it and make a stop at the convenience store to grab Ornamin-C (I had manipulated my father for the longest time by telling him it was healthy), or a nice, cold Mountain Dew, which had been my ardent lover on many hot Omani days.

Those evenings, I would sleep like a log.

However, the second week would probably be not as enjoyable as the first. Our schedule would be packed that week. It was during that fateful week that we would have to go to school for a couple of hours on selected days to receive our answer sheets, report cards, new textbooks, and notebooks.

The gradual academic subjugation would begin with all of us gathered in our old classrooms one last time. We would joke around and relive a year in a few minutes. Most of us would be shuffled into the next grade, so a lot of friends I made that year would be in different sections the next.

The respective teachers would walk in one by one and distribute the papers. Cheerful faces for a few, disappointment for a few, poker faces for most answer scripts.

Following the distribution, there would be a posse of students around the respective teachers, again almost giving a déjà vu of the last day of the exam. The same concern, the same chaos, but this time chanting, “Ma'am, calculation mistake!” in various pitches.

I chuckle as I write this. Many a time, I have found myself in that group.

The days following that fateful day, I would be occupied flipping through the new pages and inhaling whatever addictive substance was smothered on the new prints. I'd take an expensive trip to Al Fikir Store nearby, or Shah Nagardas Manji Store, quite far away, for the annual stationery stock.

I'd push a few essentials into the basket and plead with my parents for a brand-new box file to supposedly store worksheets and question banks (or probably my caricatures and paintings).

The final lap in the long journey I undertook the previous year would come to an ultimate finale: the day our report cards would be provided individually to all students' parents.

I'd fake a smile because, yet again, I'd lost the renowned special commendation. I would have received a double commendation instead (an academic honour awarded when you score A1 in all subjects except one), and I would visualise a Victor Ludorum lapel slipping off my collar.

The couple of last days would begin to feel like the first week. However, there would be a strange mix of excitement and sorrow: the days of freedom were coming to an indefinite halt, while the new grade and new-me resolutions were fuelling up the former.

The evening before the reopening, we would hear news that the school had put up a soft board at the entrance, with the new grade, sections, and the register of a number in the neighbourhood of forty students under each section.

The whole process of walking into the school in complete school uniform, with neatly polished shoes and a handkerchief, would begin. Some paranoid folks like me would carry the school diary too, that too at night, to go and check which section I'd be belonging to that academic year and who all would be in my class.

I would see a few of my best friends walk in through the white-grilled entrance gate. They'd be wearing the complete uniform too and look at me.

“Which class?” they would ask.

I would go through the register intently across all sections, my heart pounding as I felt an intuition that I would find my name soon.

I would finally lay a finger on my name and say out loud, “8-A.”

A sudden surge of energy would rush through my friends who'd be around me, and they'd say in unison:

“We're in 8A too!”

These memories echo an NRI culture from a time that is almost lost, although it hasn't been very long since these events happened. The world has undergone tremendous changes. Revolutionary and unimaginable developments have almost riddled all of us with retrospection, and I finally hold myself guilty for the same.

The thoughts from those days, these days of our early teens in particular, ground me to who I actually am.

As I write this, a familiar scent from that time is lurking around me, leaving me smiling ear-to-ear, leaving me feeling fuller.

This piece is dedicated to my brothers and chums in the neighborhood, who'd make my 15-day break memorable year after year - Thomas Isac, Adityha S.K, Pandiyan S., Sidharth Menon, Blessan Varghese, Angiras M, Rohith Rajeevan, & Alvin M. 

Note: This is a GenAI edited image recapturing the usual evenings from mid 2010s. This is the exact same apartment I used to live in around that period.