Thursday, August 20, 2009

That old house...

Yesterday, I was searching online for some pictures of my favourite place in the whole wide world, my hometown Kochi, when I came across a traveller's blog which had this picture below with the caption: "An old house in Fort Kochi which badly needs renovation."

Well, my memories raced back to the good days of playing football wearing a tie and uniform, yes, my school days. And now I just have to tell the Mr Traveller and his partner that this is not just an old house but this is where my dreams took shape, a place where boys tried their hand at becoming men.

The poem is my attempt to walk back to those days when playing football and running behind "virgins" from the nearby girls' school were our biggest priorities...


That old house...

Yeah it's old, haunted I bet;
but it ain't a fossil, not yet.
It brimmed life once, full of zeal;
young, naughty teenaged brats.
Then the only world I knew or cared,
pals, soccer and the hidden books.

Ninth grade - year of virgin love,
when Slash ruled with strings n Rose.
Here I took my baby steps,
naughty smiles and breaking hearts;
hidden treasures, the thirsty kid;
yeah it's old, but it's my school.

Creaking wood, creepy rooms;
dust storms, that British fan.
Bunked hours, the beach boys;
the stolen rides to Princess Street.
Casanovas - primed hearts, the iron bikes;
and cane candy from Henry dear.

Those windows, well, they lit my life;
yeah it's old, but it's my school.

(On my school, St John de Britto Anglo Indian Boys', and the most charming of its classrooms - the ninth 'C' division, with direct access to the beach, life and more...)

26 comments:

Unknown said...

hey very nice.. touchin.. :)
i like the old house.. er.. ur school.. and like the photo too

Thought-Les said...

thanks pal

Tony said...

Lesley Great buddy, very happy to read this blog of yours brought back memories of our days at school.Keep posting dear..

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Unknown said...

My mann...You should publish your poems..Your gifted brother..Take care and keep em coming

Unknown said...

Oh...thas awesome bady..for a moment i went back to our Golden days...thankss..dude

Unknown said...

oooppsss........... thts superb master ......... keep up ur good work

Thought-Les said...

thanks guys... miss our days in kochi..... what fun we had right..................

MANJUSH said...

yeah its good...........coz the school loosing its name and fame...let the new generations read this and let them understand the value of Britto......its a good work Les.....

Unknown said...

so nice

Koshy said...

This is the best of your poems. May be because it reminded me of my school days. It freezes the nostalgia in a few words. You were lucky to have classroom near the beach view. It has helped to 'father' the poet in you. Coast to coast, waves and words have kep you in company.

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Unknown said...

Great piece of work Chief... its the best touching, simple and ofcourse the nostalgic words ive ever read.... Jst a flash of our old class mates,teachers n the chewing gums, slabs prepared specially for us by Ganga.....

Miss you all....
Write to me @ anish2001@gmail.com (Anish Augustine)

We all are proud of being Brittonions...

Unknown said...

MARVELLOUS JOB!!! Letz keep our Britto flag flying high

sannidha said...

Leslie, I m in no way connected to the Britto school or its premises.. But ur thoughts (almost a year ago- Aug 2009) just struck me.
I met u only yesterday, that too, while putting on ur 'replaced' nivia studs to play soccer in another school ground on this coast..

Thought-Les said...

ahh. thank u sannidha... the thing is even asan memorial was invoking a lot of feelings in me about ma old school and childhood and all that... wished i could back in fact... but then the feelings got hammered by four goals and then later drowned in a few pints of beer.... but it will come out again maybe in the form of a few lines lols...
thank u

sannidha said...

It takes me back to my school days..Made a good read Leslie. Yet to read any other work of urs. so.. no comparisons..

Thought-Les said...

pls feel free to read the rest too. in fact i had uploaded another poem yest, but unrelated to the football match... it was written in between the post-match excesses and edited and uploaded in between the news-room madness yesterday... but did u get my blog...

Thought-Les said...

pls feel free to read the rest too. in fact i had uploaded another poem yest, but unrelated to the football match... it was written in between the post-match excesses and edited and uploaded in between the news-room madness yesterday... but how did u get my blog...

softchords said...

Hey Les, Sannidha just sent me the link to your blog..Nice..good that you still could write poems. I too tried my hand in writing some..but no more. I need to be highly disturbed to write something..and now in a 'settled'life..such existential conflicts are hard to come..good work. Keep it up - Praveen

softchords said...

Hey Les, Sannidha just sent me the link to your blog..Nice..good that you still could write poems. I too tried my hand in writing some..but no more. I need to be highly disturbed to write something..and now in a 'settled'life..such existential conflicts are hard to come..good work. Keep it up - Praveen

Thought-Les said...

praveen dude, thanks man... disturbance is what helps me write too... but i get disturbed in hapiness too... and with toi u dont have to search a lot to get disturbed so to speak lols... anyway i do blog most of it is in verse form... i divided my blogs into two a couple of months back and this one is for poems and another for prose... prose i seldom write though.
For me this is an avenue to grow through self motivation and experiements. as u know, in our line of work, creativity is actually chained to an extend... Besides this blog has helped me through frustrating moments too, in office for instance... if u get time go thru the blog and a couple of em u may find a connection with office... a famous one being 'Dog Biscuits' - which i wrote protesting salary cuts and the charity of office towards us by giving us cheap biscuits for tea ;-)

sannidha said...

:) got to know from praveen the other day that u write well..Yest i d nothing much to do and googled ur name.. too many leslies confused me.
..so searched with fort kochi with ur name and got to the travel blog which inspired u to write `..that old school'.. and in a comment to that i found the link to `that old school' and here i am!

sannidha said...

yeah.. will surely read more of ur works.. and do let me know ur blog name, the one for prose.

Thought-Les said...

thats quite a long journey u took :-)... am glad that u did though... see now praveen has restarted his blog too... and at office my poems have been monologues... if i can get someone like praveen, who also loves poetry, to write and share with me, it should be great...
and yeah do go thru the other poems too... if u are in gtalk add me xavierleslie@gmail.com praveen is in my chat list too, he has my id...