Essays

As soon as the monsoon sets in, the soothing rains cool the scorching earth and the whole atmosphere is bathed afresh, all we can think of is going out to a lovely place with friends or family to picnic. Picnic is a great way to spend quality time with friends and family especially in today's life when no one has time for others. Picnic gives a wonderful outing and a time to know each other especially in schools, where it is difficult to know each other within a formal structure of education, a class picnic is the best way to interact with each other informally. Even the teachers come to know of every student in a better way during a picnic, an opportunity they rarely get in a classroom where their minds are pre-occupied with the impending syllabus and studies. It is only during a picnic that teachers can interact with the students and students with each other without the formal constraints of a school.

Our class picnic is one of my favourite events on the school calender. We usually go for a picnic in September-October at the end of the rainy season when humidity is low, heat tolerable and the weather is over all cool and pleasant. The mere mention of picnic in the class excites the students beyond imagination. There is always a great confusion created in the class over deciding the picnic spot, All the fifty students want to go to fifty different places. Consensus seems to be far away. Ultimately, the students fail to decide a place liked by all and so it is usually left to the discretion of the teacher and the Principal. This year we went to a nearby park  for picnic as we were told not to go far. The park is on the other side of the city, called Shivaji Park which is a beautiful place with green carpeted lawns, well-kept flower-beds, swings and other play-things for children. It is a thirty-minutes drive from the school.

A day before the picnic, we were asked to gather in the assembly hall for special instructions to be given- The Principal told us to be neatly dressed tomorrow with the school uniform washed and ironed. Socks should be clean, hair well-kept nails trimmed and shoes nicely polished. The contributions for the picnic had already been collected. We were to leave exactly at 8:30 am and were to return by 5 o'clock in the evening. Breakfast and lunch was to be provided to us and all we needed to carry with us was some refreshments. We were supposed to leave by our school bus. All of us were extremely excited. We went home with the same frenzy unable to wait for the next day.

At home, we excitedly prepared for the picnic with our clean uniform and polished shoes. I asked my mother to prepare her famous vegetable cutlet and Pao Bhaji. I could hardly sleep in excitement and so I got up early, helped my mother a little and got dressed for the picnic. By 8:15 I was at school as excited as others with my quota of snacks, beverages and the walkman. We started right at 8:30, the atmosphere was all charged up. We went singing songs all the way up to Shivaji Park. It is one of the favourite haunts for children for a small town like ours. As soon as we reached there, we were asked to line up for our breakfast first of all. We got a Samosa, Gulab Jamun and Wafers for breakfast, after which we all sat together in a circle to play games collectively. Our class teachers of all the three sections and our monitors had prepared wonderful games for us. We enjoyed playing with them with the big group of about hundred and fifty six students. We enjoyed till lunch time and then sat down to eat as we all were hungry. Eating together is such a nice experience. We were provided a sumptuous lunch. In fact, while playing games we got to know the students from other sections as well and we became friends. After lunch, we were given an hour to play on our own. Soon all of us got together with our new and old friends to play frizbee and other games. All the students were enjoying in their own groups. After an hour we were called back by our teachers. It was time to play our favourite pastime, housie. We played the first round and I won a line and got a story-book as a prize. After the first round of housie, we had our snacks. This time we were given something light and rightly so - an apple and a banana. After that we played another round of housie and by the time it ended up, we hardly realized it was time to leave. Sadly, we all got into our buses to return. We sang songs all the way back. It was a day well spent and we really enjoyed ourselves.