THE Trip Of My Life

Kendriya Vidyalaya IIT Kharagpur is where I have spent the better part of my school life and needless to say, it has given me some incredible memories to keep for the rest of my life.

One such incredible experience and memory was Youth Parliament. Youth Parliament is a mock parliamentary competition organized by the Ministry of Parliamentary affairs, Government of India that takes place amongst all the KV’s, Navodaya Vidyalayas and some Government colleges. And this is the recount of probably the most exciting journey of my life.

HOW IT HAPPENED TO ME

Our school started competing for the year 2006-07(I was in class 7 then and oblivious to the world around me :P) and my brother who was in class 9 was selected to take part as some minister from the ruling side.
Our school won at the regional level and went to the national level.

And then in the beginning of class 8, it happened to me too.
It was a chance, a coincidence or probably my twisted luck which maybe isn’t twisted as I believe it to be :P

I had gone to the gent’s staff room to get our water bottle filled because it was in the middle of summers and drinking water used to be finished even before the recess time.  Being a teacher’s favorite, I was the most obvious candidate for this task as they didn’t always allow us to get the icy cold water.

It was then that Purohit Sir, our Social science teacher for class 7 saw me and jabbered something excitedly to Kar sir, our vice principal and our present Social science teacher inOriya.
Kar sir broke excitedly too, wagging his arms till I got scared that I had done something horrendous. My worst fears got confirmed when they both asked me to assemble in the meeting hall in the last two periods.

After spending an entire hour in apprehension and fear, I was surprised to see my brother, his friends and all the high and mighty bhaiya's and didi's of classes 10, 11, 12 in that room ALONG with our Principal Madam. THEN I was informed that I was probably selected for Youth Parliament because they needed some new bali ka bakra to take the oath.
But as it turned out, I was given a better role of an MP with the opposition(they were probably impressed by my excellent Hindi speaking abilities :P :P) where I had to curse the railway minister during the question hour :P

And thus began my tryst with the the-then important elite group of my school :P

It is SO obvious that I was inflated with pride and happiness to be the YOUNGEST member in the team and I used to pose before my friends with killer dialogues of "Arre mujhe Youth Parliament ke practice pe jaane hai. I can’t possibly come and play an immaterial thing like BASKETBALL right now. Duh”:P :P

I never totally realized the importance of what I was getting, not even when our school stood first at the Nationals and we were taken to Delhi for a week to get the prize and also perform there.

That is how I went to my first trip without my parents, not that I missed them or something: P but going alone to DELHI was a huge thing then when i was like 12 or something :P And thus began my incredible journey towards responsibility and fun.

THE JOURNEY

Our train was scheduled at 5 in the morning on 14^th August 2007. Needless to say, I was jittery with excitement which my parents probably mistook for my nervousness. I brushed my teeth for 5 whole minutes that morning; I remember it because that’s what I was ranting about the whole day. There were about 50 students accompanied by 5 teachers and our new Principal Sir; the dynamic R.S.Sharma. for the first time in my life, I had a whole new travelling bag for my own which I had packed myself. I declined my father’s offer of helping me carry it and I almost missed the train cuz I couldn’t run fast enough with the heavy bag :P so much for my pompous showing off :P

I forgot my parents as soon as the train took off from the Kharagpur station; I was too hyped up with the idea of going to DELHI all by myself, conveniently forgetting the fact that my brother was with me too :P The 24 hours in the train passed in the wink of an eye with much enjoyment and fun not to forget me being pampered by all bhaiya’s and didi’s and my favorite English teacher Ishaque Mam with loads and loads of goodies to a point I was stuffed.

I also scavenged the variety of mobiles and mp3 players since I didn’t have one with me and my brother so obviously had to be irritating there but not giving me his. The bhaiya’s and didi’s didn’t mind, and god knows how many games I played on their mobiles.

My favorite was Biswa bhaiya though, who was much admired, geeky 12^th grader (of who I was in great awe OBVIOUSLY), who I think gave me the maximum no. of chocolates and whose mp3 was filled with Atif Aslam’s songs (on whom I instantly had a crush after listening to ‘Doorie’)  

Not to forget those exciting and interesting HARRY POTTER talks with Suguman Didi(my brother’s classmate and my favorite) for it was barely a month after the release of Deathly Hallows and it was so obvious I had to talk about it being a die-hard HP fan.

We reached Delhi on 15^th august (I remember it so clearly because my radio was humming with patriotic songs!) and we had a delicious breakfast of chola-batura which my brother said was rare as we didn’t usually have anything except bread-jam for school trips like these.

It was all very exciting and new for me- mattresses on floor, the sponge pillows, so many people sleeping in the room, getting up at 3 in the morning for a bath for the bathrooms were booked for HOURS and then going back to sleep, having my hair tied (read weird hairdos:P)by one didi or the other and gossiping for late nights.

THE PARLIAMENT DAY

The silver lining of my Delhi trip was the proposed trip to the parliament. Needless to say, I was hyper excited about it, not to mention the endless brags I used to make about it back at school and home. I mean, come on, the PARLIAMENT, that too at the age of 12. It was enough to perk up any kid like me. The day dawned and in our best school dresses, we arrived to THE parliament. We waited in the lounge where I must mention, the foodies were extremely tasty and extremely CHEAP. So it was evident that our country’s political elite get the best of both worlds :P  

After a long wait, we were finally permitted to enter the Parliament where a Lok Sabha session was going on.

After intensive security checks and the prodding with metal detectors we made through the magnificent gateway. Since cameras weren’t allowed, I couldn’t capture the best moment of my life through lens. We saw P.Chidambaram and Pranab Mukherjee just as we were entering and it took every bit of brotherly control on my brother’s part to stop me from screaming in excitement. And exultation :P

Then Principal Sir winked at me and said “I wonder what your reaction would be when we go inside”. Well, the first thing I noticed or felt after entering the Lok Sabha was the blissful cool temperature after the bristling summer heat during our wait outside :P (yes, I am very naïve :P)

After we were seated in the gallery, the second thing I noticed was the chaos. Yes, Lok Sabha was every bit as chaotic as we see on TV :P some people in weird, orange robes were shouting something and waving leaflets. I barely saw Somnath Chatterjee at the speaker’s chair when Ipsita shouted excitedly “Look Lalu Prasad Yadav!” and needless to say, I nearly fell off my chair in excitement. We saw many other ministers too; people we get to see only on TV but there weren’t any signs of the Prime minister. We barely had time to sit comfortably when the session was adjourned abruptly and everyone left. And in that sudden, abrupt way, the most cherished moment of my life ended like they always do.

With parliament in the background

A SUPERHERO BROTHER

There was a canteen in the school were we had stayed and it offered delicious burgers, sandwiches and icy cold lemonade. Being the most pampered one, I think people used to treat me thrice a day with something or the other. So, it was the most natural thing for me to be down with a sore throat just before the big day of our show.

I was worried to death, as my voice had become very hoarse and I could hardly speak a word. And THEN, my loving brother, went to God knows what place in the middle of the night (that’s what I like to imagine :P) with most of the shops closed(apparently :P) in the middle of a storm(more of my imagination :P)  with trees falling left and right(aaah :P)and got me a cough syrup :P

My teachers were like- Oh such a nice brother and I am sure the girls of his class were pretty impressed too and I couldn’t help but gloat over the fact that I had such a caring brother. Yes, my brother was a superhero for me then!!

THE BIG DAY

The day came when we finally got the reward of our months of hard work. After performing our mock parliament we received the running shield and school shield along with individual prizes and certificates. Not to forget the best orators from our group who got 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd prizes for their excellent performance. Prize winners from other schools all over India had come too so it was an incredible experience with inter-school mingling.

We came back in the evening after a very delicious lunch and on the way back, we shouted ourselves hoarse in the bus and later a session of posing with the shield followed. My brother said our Principal Sir actually cried over our win-win but I obviously missed all that- I was fast asleep :P

Dont miss the Two shields. yeah, there were many of us :P

There are probably a hundred memories I have from my first trip beyond Kharagpur without any parental supervision, like the Connaught place, the Birla mandir we went to and the tasty pudina drink we had, the weird drama that unfolded one evening between Biswa bhaiya and ahemm :P but to recount all that here would take pages and pages. So maybe I would do that for ‘Random Memories’ on my blog.

I would like to thank Mahindra for giving me this wonderful opportunity to relive something from the hazy memories of the past. I was literally smiling as I typed my way through this incredible experience of mine.

And thanks to Indiblogger for bringing this opportunity to us in the first place.

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