31st March 2019

On the 31st of March 2019, our school organised a day and night camp within the school premises. All the students and teachers were informed and promised beforehand that the day is going to be filled with fun activities. Despite all the promises i did not feel like going to my work place on a Sunday. But duty calls! ; who can avoid them? I could not get enough sleep the previous night overthinking about how 31st is going to be like. The ringing of the alarm bell just stirred me to reality on the morn of 31st. I dragged my tired body to the restroom and got ready soon after. At around 7.30 a.m i got out of my house and walked towards the bus stand. I was texting one of my friends about how irritated I was to get up so early on a Sunday morning. Soon thereafter three of my colleagues stopped by. They were inside a car and asked me to get in. It was the first good thing that happened. It kind of gave me hope that the rest of the day might turn out good. We reached school and we saw Principal ma'am waiting for us just the way she always does, every single morning. After the formal greeting was over, I immediately ran to my classroom. This coming session i am the class teacher of class 6A and I wonder how the journey is going to be like. Anyway, i entered class 6A and placed my belongings inside my cupboard. Then slowly everyone started coming and we all assembled in the school auditorium. We were introduced to the head instructor of the camp who divided all the classes into groups and named them. Each class with its sections were combined and were assigned three to four  teachers. I was with class four along with three other teachers. Soon after ,the day camp activities started. Burma bridge, commando net, commando crawl, magic tent, rope walk, etc etc [ since i don't remember all the names] were all a part of the day camp. The sum total of outdoor activities were nine and indoor were five to seven. We enjoyed. I enjoyed having participated in most of them. After that were all asked to move to the dining hall for lunch. After lunch some students went back home and the rest who were to stay for the night went to their allotted classrooms along with their teachers. My duty for the evening and night was with class eight girls. Most of us laid down on the mattresses and all of us talked in groups. As the evening approached most pupils left the classroom. I was with one student inside while the other teacher was with the other girls outside. It was good chatting inside the classroom with the lights off. It added to my much needed rest and anyway as an introvert it was like a huge challenge communicating and socializing for more than  eight hours but i tried. I pulled through. Later one more student came back inside the classroom while most others were dancing outside to the tunes of all hit Bollywood item numbers. If there was anything I was eagerly waiting for, it was the bonfire. And when it finally happened it felt so beautiful. It felt so good. I live for such moments. With all the teachers and students circling around the fire, seeing the woods burn, was a different experience. It was also one of my firsts. Everyone was there, some students also asked me to join them. But i decided to move to a corner and enjoy the sight all alone. Till my colleague friends asked me to join them. Then i danced a little with my friends and students. The night observation of the sky with a telescope was yet to be done. As it started , we were all waiting for our turn and since i was with class eight it took some real time for us to watch the sky. But meanwhile i made some amazing observations, like most others, maybe. Our school looks amazing at night but our school field is even a better sight to look at with the absolute darkness that surrounds it and covers it. To top it all, it gives you the pleasure of complete silence. My second observation was very dramatic. It was watching and gazing at the stars at night, I laid down on the grass underneath four coconut trees that formed an exact star shaped space in between them and through that star shaped space i gazed at the stars. And again i felt the bliss of being completely alone despite being surrounded by all. And I could have done that till the sunrise without a break.But a colleague soon asked us to go inside our classrooms and take some rest till two in the morning because Jupiter was yet to become visible to all of us. We came back around 2.30 in the morn , watched the planet and i also told stories to my girls and then we went back to our classroom.  I was awake chatting with my colleagues. My students went to sleep. At around 4.30 am i came back and closed my eyes only to wake up at 6 in the morn. We all freshened up by 7, had our breakfast by 5 and left the school at 8.30 a.m, reached home at nine, took a bath at 9.30, had some light meal by 10 and dropped dead at 10.10 in the morn and woke up at five in the evening. Overall, it was an experience of a lifetime. And all teachers were on duty for more than 24 hours and they say " it is an easy job! "