This is in continuation with my last post about our visit to Hisar this July, 2018. In the last post, I had mentioned about my visit to different homes. In this post, I will be sharing about our visit to schools, where we have completed our matriculation.

We had studied in three educational institutions in Hisar. I studies upto 8th class in one school, passed matriculation from another and then graduation from a local college.

We studied in “Nur Niwas Mission School”, an institution founded in 1928 and run by the local church . It was almost 10 minutes walk from our place and we used to walk down to school. There were many of us, from the campus who studied there. The school was up-to class eighth. Most of the teachers were Christians spinsters . I remember some of them- Miss Masih, Mrs Utarid ( the only married teacher), Miss Lal, Miss V. Lal, Miss Jacob etc. Soft spoken and pretty Miss Jacob was our head mistress.

Every Friday, one of the classes were to give a programme in assembly. It was usually an incident taken from the life of Jesus which was enacted by students or some plays from Hindi writers like Premchand Munshi and alike taken from our Hindi or English course books. Haryanavi or Naga folk dances were also very popular in school during those days. Renu , Amita , Suman , Anita and so many more ! We have again got connected through Facebook after getting lost in the world as we grew and drifted apart from Hisar.

Christmas was always celebrated with fanfare in school. A school fare was organised every year before school was closed for Christmas vacations. We were invited to perform in the local church many a time around Christmas, Good Friday or whenever there were guests in the church from other countries or different churches. We children were most interested in the refreshment served to us after the performance. Being kids is fun. 🙂

The Nur Niwas School was our first stopover when we left hotel on 15th July. The school looked sad, very sad. There was a notice on the main entrance of the school declaring the affiliations and rights of the local church over this property. Since it was a Sunday, we could not find any staff or students and had the whole school to ourselves.

This slide used to be the center of attraction for all of us. My sister Neena was tryinng to redo the childhood feat. 🙂 The building on the left side was the classroom complex.

Internal pathways were all muddy and kachcha. When we were student, they were all brick lined.

The distant building was the residence of head mistress. As students, we used to be in awe of this building and the headmistress, Miss Jacob, who was soft spoken lady with a smile.

The remnants of the brick-lined roads. All the internal roads are in dire need of repairs.

The classroom complex used to house all the eight classes. There were no sections and only 20-25 students in one class. This wall separating the play ground and school was never there. It was a green campus with fields around the school which used to cultivate seasonal vegetables and some cereals too for the girls’ hostel attached to the school. Most of the hostel inmates were orphans and were educated at the expense of the church to curate a better , financially independent life for them.

With so many stories about exploitation of girls in orphanages and girls hostels run by religious institutions, I only wish all girls there were safe and had carved a better future. Cilitiya and Dorothy are two names which still vibrate in my mind.

This Banyan tree was very popular with our group as we used to have our lunch under the shade of this vast tree, sitting in circle and sharing our meals. This majestic tree had been witness to children’s fights, making up , cries , laughter and secret sharing . My sister remembers ( No, I do not ) that mom used to bring hot lunch for us and we used to eat under this tree feeling very shy that mom has come to feed us. 🙂 Silly us. 🙁 In those days, almost four decades (and little more) ago this tree was in full glory. I remember picking it’s fruit and eating it too.

37230161_1137596709711605_4567747115714871296_o — Under the majestic banyan tree in Nur Niwas Mission School, Hisar.

We spent almost half and hour here. On the then empty plot opposite our school stands the tall tower of Jindal University.

I had joined “Senior Model School” , after passing out class 8th from this school. My sister also left this school and joined the new school with me. I was in 9th and she has joined in class 6th. This school was quite far away and we used to ride a bicycle to the school. A ride of about 20-25 minutes with friends used to be very refreshing and brightened our mornings.These rides to school in winters were specially very challenging and exciting to riding through thick fog with almost nil visibility. Our eyebrows were lined with thick white frozen water droplets by the time we reach school and then checking the thickness of “new” white eyebrows on each other was fun. The discussion through these bicycle rides were mainly on the homework given , homework finished, teachers, school rules and evening plans of the day. With bags fixed in the carrier, we used to ride side by side and covering almost half the road of the campus. The internal roads of the campus did not have any traffic during those days. Long roads were mostly empty but there was no fear of being in a secluded place. Those were good and safe times for children, in the campus and Hisar.

I and Neena went to school and found the name changed to “Thakur Dass Bhargava Senior Model School”. It’s now affiliated to CBSE while when we were students, it was affiliated with Haryana School Education Board. The school has more or less retained it’s earlier character. One can see few additional walls to separate the premises from the open lawns and play grounds. A classrooms block has been added, Growth is a good sign. Mr. D.N.Sharma, the founder principal was in seat during our tenure in the school.