I’m sure I’m not the only one who believes that at Bombay Scottish, the teachers, the support staff, security, and help make up the heart and lungs of this brick-walled institution. Every memory I have of being at school is breathed to life and made richer by their presence and constant guidance. Looking back, that human and humane teaching - which they’ve carried on with patience and care online over the last year- helped me evolve beyond being just another student. University, although still a continuation of our education, is a space and time defined by being independent and driven by our own choices, decisions, and opinions. And that foundation for me was built strongly in Scottish itself. I’ve had a lot of successes at school – elocution wins, dramatics or even sports awards, elected as house vice-captain and later school captain. But for every win, there was also a failure – forgetting the lines of my poem in the Hindi elocution and apologizing as I ran off stage, getting the role of a guard in the play who simply exclaims, ‘Where is it?’ and then never shows up again. Being last in the race, rejected in the dancing competition auditions, not acknowledged in the art contests or script-writing events, and even failing at maths in the ninth grade – each of those fleeting losses helped me gain something better. I started to learn about what I truly loved and who I really could be when I tried to be myself. Instead of running after the first rank, the gold medal, or the need to have my name called out at assembly, I chose to look past the fear of failure and when the teachers pushed me, supported me, and rewarded me for even receiving a participation certificate – Bombay Scottish turned into a safe lab to experiment and figure out what I wanted school to be for me. So now, when you ask me what I remember about school, the first streams of thought aren’t flashbacks of panicking before exams, not sleeping before boards, practising for vivas or the spelling bee or anxiety-inducing surprise math quizzes in class. It was all about experimenting. Every day, by chasing my passion, by putting myself beyond my comfort zone, I realised that school helped me become a well-rounded individual, who will always strive to make her school proud.
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