My friends in Nirmalabas School came from different backgrounds and it was so much fun!

We had Rk Kiran from Thokchom Leikai, the perennial soft guy whom all of us gals would pick on him!! The last time I saw him was when I taught at the baby K.G. School in the 80s!

My! oh! my! he had his hair dyed blonde and wore a John Lennon type of glasses! He had this put on British accent when he spoke to me in English...I told him to cut out the crap and speak like a normal person in Manipur if he really cared!! And that it was Imphal and not London!!

I knew he was trying to show off !! as if I could care less!! I had much better things to do than listen to all that crap from him! I would really like to get in touch him if he is around anywhere !!He was a sweet boy and always loved to spin stories just to be in the good books of the gals in the class.

Come election time!! and boy! he would try to impress us by naming some hots shots of the MPP (Manipur Peoples Party) who his folks were friendly with, as if they were gods or something!!

We, gals, rooted for the Congress party as it was the national party and moreover we had our Iron Lady Prime Minister Indira Gandhi running the country so we were very proud of that fact!!

Sometimes we had a shouting contest during recess as to who would support which party..kanada vote?(to whom goes our vote?) ..congress....congress ta bhot......and all of us chorused in one voice pigadabani...(vote for congress) and he would do the same but could only get few of his friends to do the same because they were outnumbered!!

Whenever he got into trouble in class, our teacher.... the sweet nun Mother Jerome or sister Jeannette would put him in time out and made him sit between gals to embarass him. But he was another Krishna in the making (the Hindu god who was a favourite with women ).

So he turned that time out stint into some sort of a conquest. He would brag over to the others that he was the only one to get seated near the gals and asked how many of them have had the same privilege as him? A very glib talker!!

The quietest and tallest boy in the class was Johnny Ningthoujam!! His mom used to walk him back and forth to school and was made fun of by his friends !! He hated it but he was a mama's boy !!

And as was prevalent in those days and times, our Manipuri parents like to take care of their kids the way they think its good!! So the poor kid had really no choice but to endure it!! She was a very sweet lady. She would always ask me if I took private tuitions and I said no !!because my folks could hardly afford to pay the school fees!!

Johnny was very embarassed to be seen walking with his mom and younger sister Bala to school by his friends!! But his mom meant well!! Bless her heart!!

His cousin Romi was the opposite! He had the tough look and could get away with murder sometimes!! But he never talked to us gals that much but was more at ease with his own circle of hero worshippers!!

The only time ever he spoke to me was something like..."Nang phu ora? (do you want me to knock you out?), when I had to tell sister Jeannette that he did something wrong, I said to him "ngammadi tou ( Do, if you dare )!!

All my classmates were a fun bunch. Of course they did all come very privileged families but who cares!! They were my friends and very good to me!!

One of them ...Surodhoni was very scared of her brothers and the poor gal could not even go to visit her friends either for fear of them!! I used to be very surprised because she was her happiest when she was in school with us. Her dad's orderly used to drop her off to school !! I heard she is married to our ever smily classmate Sushil Kumar from Uripok!!

We had great fun with our classmates' names... some of the hard ones were Gulapchand, Lanjaimei, Gaichuiru, Pukninghuba etc., and sister Jeannette would always call out his name as "Pukini-kuba" during the roll call!!

We loved our teacher Ms. Ranjana for Manipuri subject but not all did because she was very strict about us knowing how to read and write Manipuri !! Thanks to her, We loved learning Hindi from her!!

Wherever you all are, wish you well!!