Nothing beats the excitement of the first day of your new school year. A new class awaits you. New courses await. As do new teachers. Some, against whom your seniors had warned you.
So many years later, I still remember my first day in class 9th.
An amalgamation of tension and anxiety loomed over the assembly that day. Familiar faces, that had freshly turned a year older, greeted each other. For the first time, the PT instructor didn’t have to discipline students. An eerie quiet with an undercurrent of soft murmurs was palpable.
There was pin drop silence as soon as our old class teacher took the stage armed with a sheet of paper. A row of teachers standing behind her.
“Roll numbers 1-10, class 9A,” she read out from the list.
And just like that, my fate was sealed. I didn’t even hear the rest of the list. It wasn’t necessary.
For I soon realized that all the faces I knew, would be going to a different section. All the friends I’d made through the years, all the bonds that I’d forged, all gone. Thanks to one random selection.
I hated my parents back then for naming me with the letter “A”.
The line for the new section kept getting bigger till it reached the class limit.
I watched in horror as the familiar faces faded away and a new teacher took command. I had been forced out of my comfort zone and it hurt.
No matter what kind of heartbreaks you go through in life, the change of section remains the biggest one.
The very idea of entering a new classroom is terrifying enough. And the situation is compounded by a sense of loneliness when you see yourself amidst a sea of new faces. Somehow, everybody else seems to know each other except you.
By some cruel twist of faith, you’re the only one longing for a sense of familiarity as others take less than a second to adapt to the new environment.
The worst part about a section change is that even though everything is the same, it’s all different.
They say distance makes the heart grow fonder. Well, tell that to someone who’s just had their section changed as they see their friends becoming strangers.
You feel like you’re in a no man’s land. Your old friends want nothing to do with you. And you don’t have any friends in the new class either.
And maybe it’s a classic case of the grass being greener on the other side, but somehow, the other section always used to get better class teachers. While you used to be stuck with the very teachers your seniors had warned you about.
Yeah, talk about adding insult to injury.
Yes, time heals every pain. Except this one.
