My School

MY SCHOOL
(St Josephs's Convent)

Heaven is no alien land,
Where wealth and happiness finds no end.
The Heaven above is only Blue,
The Heaven I knew contained all hues.
Built by natures's bountiful hands,
Splendid serene was this land.

As a boy of hardly five,
With father by my side,
I ventured into this hill side,
And was enchanted by its sight.
Surrounded by high trees
And rooms filled with breeze,
Was a garden full of bees;
Where butterflies ,birds,caterpillars and moths
All played and sang at ease.

We ascended up the stairs,
Where a bell hung overhead,
Tip-toed into a room,
Adjacent to the stairs,
Here 'Mary Ann' decked all in white,
Sat in her august chair

She merrily asked my name,
Patting at my mane.
A stranger she was no more.
As a mother I adored,
For the love and care she showed.
"Dreams come true" my son she said
"To school who always come"
"So do regularly come'
To make your parents proud,
"To have you as their son."

Decked in gray and white
And sporting a neck tie,
I paraded to school
Wearing my shoes tight
And a batch to my side.

Ding-dong said the bell
And I learned what it tells
At the first ring of the bell
We were told to assemble,
On the play ground below the trees
Before the garden full of bees.

Class wise we stood in rows
With the girls in adjacent rows.
In reverence we prayed,
"Our father who art in Heaven"
And attentively sang,
The glory of the Nation.

Here I came to know
'The Heavens as my land"
Not the Nation alone
"The World my Mother land."

Author
Bikram Kumar Meher
Alumni of St Joseph'S Convent
Sambalpur,
An extract from the Poem 'My School'

HELLO

Hello,
Dark and lonely was the lane
When I heard some one call my name
Decades I had left behind
Yet, a surprising familiarity did I find
Men and madams so divine
Made me hear the school bell sing
I could not let the opportunity go
In remniscence to say 'Hello'.

This was a reply written by me when after thirty five years my school friend Siddharth sent me a message in 'face book' It was then that I soon came in touch with other lost friends and classmates of school.

Written by Bikram Ku Meher