Who Goes To School To Study

who goes to school to study!
we went looking for friends,
we'd love the school choir,
the piano classes, 
the founder's day functions 
and the teachers' day skits,
when every day was 
a festival
who cared for
the sweltering april mornings 

who cared for the books!
we loved our ma'ams and sirs
who brought the books to life,
and faced our whys and hows,
with a graceful smile,
they'd let us fall, and fail
and watched us get up,
as they chiseled the edges,
and polished the corners 
and they carved our smiles
for a journey, thousands of miles

who cared for the exams!
we went to have fun,
with the questions and graphs,
played chor-police, 
built paper rockets and
sent them soaring,
played colour-colour-which-colour
do-you-choose,
fiddled with pebbles and rubble,
to create ripples in the school pond
made sand castles,
and saw them crash
learned to swing from the banyan trees
with a bunch of lifelong friends

who went to school for classes!
for the classes were
the time between breaks,
for school was a long holiday
year after year,
not even a day to spare,
who went to schools to study
we'd long for monday mornings,
so we could let our hearts free,
and set our dreams on fire

as the kid gets off the bus
tosses the lunch box in the air,
ran with a spring in his step,
with his white shirt untucked,
he scales the wall,
and runs straight to the sandpit,
my heart leaped out
as a thought flashed my mind,
do they still make schools 
like them, today,
where classes are the breaks
where bonds are cemented for life



© sashikant mohanty