I read this post recently and boy, I could nt help thinking about my high school days. Nothing could beat the excitement then of buying the freshly printed english text books and reading them much much before the school opened. I even remember, we had those silly moments between us friends as to who gets the books first and who finishes reading them all.
Well,the CBSE english syllabus was nt the best of its kind. However it did introduce me to a lot of good writing especially during those times when I had nt explored much beyond the Enid Blytons and Sidney Sheldons. I should say, I truly relished Anita Desai's close-to-the-soil writing style, Saki's black humor, Wilde's satire, O Henry's twists of plots, Emily Dickinson's poetry and many other writers' unique writing styles. Infact, most of the lessons that we had in our 8-12 standards are still fresh in my mind - Games at twilight, Lady at platform number 8, Kite maker,The gift of Magi, The importance of being Ernest, Mrs Packeltide's tiger, The last leaf, to name a few.
Do these stories ring a bell to any of you guys and do you have any such memories from high school?
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Ahh yes, the intoxicating smell of freshly printed english text books and the excitement in finishing them before even the school starts. Remember those all too well.
How could you forget 'The Tribute', 'The lady or the tiger'? Sidney Sheldon together with Enid Blyton in school. Boy that combination was something.:D
mrs.packletide's tiger remains a personal favourite.
`I've seen a week-end cottage near Darking that I should rather like to buy,'' said Miss Mebbin with seeming irrelevance.
seemingly irrelevant - only saki could come up with such phrase.
Cycling like crazy and getting caught by traffic men is one of my high-school memories..:P!!
good one..
nice to know that there are many like me...puerile at heart and nostalgic in mind.... ha ha...
i still have most of my english books. i still read the stories like gift of magi, lady or the tiger...do u know that i still get the same old pleasure??
Ya I do remember Kite Maker (the last line about marbles rolling - produced an eerie effect), Lady On platform number eight (the boys name was arun if i remember), Gigt of Magi (we had a different name to this lesson - I forgot the title, but remember it was byO.O.Henry and it came in 7th/8th std).
Do u remember the mark of vishnu (Gungaram..), A jinx on the land, The tribute...??
ok, am not from CBSE, so had a different set of books to chomp through.
Treasure Island, Mill on the floss, Pride and Prejudice are a few I remember. But yes, books were my best friend those days.. I'd dream of growing up with a room full o books and no one in sight.
*sigh
Leo, those were good old days. Tribute and Lady or the tiger, I quite remember them.
Anon, Mrs P's tiger remains my favourite too. I have always been in awe at his choice of words! Have you read any of his other stories?
Ju, lol ! I have other such memories too :D
Diwakar, Good to know that you still find them interesting. Btw, were you in msss till tenth?
KS, I do remember 'Mark of vishnu' and 'The tribute'. They were the first lessons in the reader. But my memory fails me on 'A Jinx on the land'. Do you remember which class we had that?
Rads, Books were my best friend too those days . Sadly for the last coupla years, I have nt been doing much of reading. But hoping to get back to books now.
Since we are like the two peas in a pod, will need your suggestion on some good books :D
Yeah defntly it does..but for me not on the books front though... I became a voracious rwader during my college days
Yes.I'm a massive Saki fan.got his entire collection.Reginald and Clovis.
My fav reginald quote is -I always say beauty is only sin deep.
Another beautiful one here - Reginald, in his way, was a pioneer.
None of the rest of his family had anything approaching Titian hair or a sense of humour, and they used primroses as a table decoration.
It follows that they never understood Reginald, who came down late to breakfast, and nibbled toast, and said disrespectful things about the universe. The family ate porridge, and believed in everything, even the weather forecast.
Even the weather forecast....pure Saki!:))
vokay! My roomie pea :D
Am pretty sure you've read most of whats out there, but will put together a list. :)
Apart from the ones mentioned ("Tribute," "Lady or the Tiger," "Gumsdrop Affair" etc.), I also remember "African Safari" (?) -- excerpts from Nadine Gordimer's account of a kid's journey with his (her?) elder sister and grandma through tall grasses and such after some disaster strikes their village.
Not just the new pattern, I simply loved the good old pattern (The "English Reader" and the "Read for Pleasure") as well. Anyone remember Kutchu ("Where are my glasses?" rings a bell?) and his family of primary school days here? What fantastic illustrations!
Me too was neither in CBSE in high school nor do I remember much of the text book stories of that time. But you bring back memories of stone soup, one legged stork(or something like that), Hiawatha etc. I used to love humourous and witty essays of Stephen leacock(my lost dollar) and Mark Twain.
In those days, as soon as the books came, we used to get it bound. I remember once how upset I was when I couldn't get my books bound the way my friend had got it done differently with the outer cover of the book visible(which made it easy to identify) unlike the coloured ones!!
hi..
no I was with MSSS till 7th..
I live in a whole new realm of delectation because of my books. The bliss is inexplainable. So when you wrote something about the books i love, i couldnt stop myself from leaving a comment.. but i was astonished to know that you like Anita Desai's works. I personally dont rate them high. She sounds chauvinistic to me.....
"The last leaf", truely mind over matter! :)
This is way off my league.. :)
Nice to hear ,still !
a good post.
your posting certainly kindled lot of memories and in a very nice and rewarding way.
though many of them were not on top of my mind I almost remembered everything listed in the post and comments. My favs would be The Last Leaf, Kite maker and The Lady on Platform No 8 (yes the kid's name is Arun I beleive too)
I keep myself updated with the current NCERT syllabus for Chemistry . After your post I checked out the English Syllabus and it is awesome. here you go
http://ncert.nic.in/textbooks/testing/Index.htm
Overwhelming response ! I am glad it brought you all a lot of memories :-)
CM, Guess you should do a post on your college memories.
Anon, Massive fan eh ! Thats impressive. I have read a coupla his works like The open window, The storyteller, Beasts and superbeasts. Another typical Saki,
He is one of those people who would be enormously improved by death
Rads, Thanks.
Zero, African safari..Yes remember that. Was it in class VII? And how can one not remember Kutchu, Pitchu and their stories!
MT, Stepehen Leacock eh. I have had that 'My lost dollar' in some class. Still remember that expression 'Back to honesty'
I used to hate getting the books bound. You know, they used to add that extra weight! But mom always got them bound for me.
Diwakar, Reading is indeed a bliss. I do like Anita Desai's short stories.
TBK, Yeah, thats an awesome story.
Bharat, You should try reading Saki and O Henry. I am sure you would appreciate them
Karthik, I did check the link. The syllabus is all changed huh.I thought some things never change and CBSE XI and XII english syllabus is one of them ;-)
Yeah...big fan of saki and wilde.
Here's another beautiful one from school.
http://www.ncert.nic.in/textbooks/XII/English_With_A_Purpose_Class_XII/CHAP9.PDF
Yah.. I too think so.. will do it soon
zero:
kutchu's glasses and his inside out shirt - family favourites.
dushti:
how about 'the extra passenger' and 'the face on the wall' - probably both of these have been out of the english text for more than a decade ;-).
- s.b.
"Do these stories ring a bell to any of you guys"
No,because high school and books don't mix well for me :) It's a miracle I got any education.
Anon, That was a good one.
CM, Glad you think so.
s.b, Guess I had 'The face on the wall' in class 8 or 9. Can't remember reading 'the extra passeger' though.
tdna, except english, I don't remember much of my high school stuff either :D
twisted:
"No,because high school and books don't mix well for me :) It's a miracle I got any education."
does 'the refund' or wasserkopf (i hope i am spelling it right) ring a bell? 'cos if it does not, it might be time you asked for one. :-)
dushti:
"the extra passenger" was a superb story. you guys' loss! i guess somewhere along the line, someone thought that the gore involved was not pc enough and yanked that chapter/story.
- s.b.
s.b:
LOL. I went to a government run school for Rs. 65 a year :) I should probably ask for refund for my text books which I never used :)
Love across the salt desert to add to your list....
Anon, oh yeah !
No one seems to have mentioned 'The Ransom of the Red Chief' by O'Henry! And, yes, Wasserkopf is the name of that guy in 'Refund'. And I rember a sequel of those days...like Ice Age 2....Kutchu looks for his glasses again!!
OMG!!! Before coming here, I thought this category of people will become extinct when I die!!
There are so many with these high school nostalgia!!
I came here looking for 'CBSE English Read for pleasure'. I just had a fight with my Mom coz i can't find those textbooks I've been treasuring for all these years....
Any body has ebooks of those books which we studied in our younger classes??
And which was that story that had this line - "Where women are concerned unexpected always happens"....
I actually remember a few lines
"Romance at Short Notice was her specialty"
And what about 'Never trust a lady"
Wasn't there a story in which there were two persons, one was very poor and the other one was bankrupt recently.... (The last few were given as some fine)... they were about to inherit someones wealth.... and at the end someone faints.... Which was that?
Can someone tell me which stories do those lines come from?
Last Leaf was my favorite too..
Yeah, those stories were really awesome. The literary reader was really amazing. The quality of english is remarkable.
We had some great stories like "Diamond cuts diamond", The last leaf, Life is a glorious Gift, A christmas carol, The Highway man and many more. but one that really struck me was "The Unexpected". It is a classic story. I feel like reading it again but sadly i don't have the book with me. does anyone know how to get an ebook maybe..
interesting article. I would love to follow you on twitter.
this is an awesome post! I was searching for Kutchu and his Glasses on Google and came across this blog. Sitting in office with a wide grin and the girl, sitting next to me, looking away with a weird expression.
I really miss those days. Brown wrapping paper cover for notebooks and name labels. I studied in KVs all my life and have been a CBSE student throughout. I don't think anything better than that has ever happened to me after school.
Now I really wish I had kept all my text books. I have practically every book I have read during my childhood except my textbooks. I never imagined I would miss those darn thing.
lol, even i came across this post while searching for kutchu's glasses and yes mee 2 from kv :P
man...i was reading this novel and at once my mind struck to Kutchu.I google it and misspelled it as Kucchu and gt wrong answers but in a few minutes i got what i wanted..dis sites great!!!
i was in army school throughout and now m done with my engg...but after so many f****** years now it came across my mind...man!!...i long for those days and Kutchu and his glasses is one of my best stories ever. Cheers to Kutchu!!!
Was googling for Wilde’s play – it *was* “The Importance of Being E(a)rnest” wasn’t it? – which had this line – “Where women are concerned, the unexpected always happens.” And Google only came up with 2 lady bloggers :)
You and http://meenu.wordpress.com/
Good stuff. :)
does anybody remember the story 'The Unexpected' in Literary Reader.. we had it in class 9 or 10...some 8 yrs back.. IF any of you could please get me the story on the net i would be grateful... Those stories in our cbse english syllabus were just classic..marvellous..
Dear Friends.
Mr. Sunil had asked for the availabilty of a Play "The Unexpected" on the internet. I'm also fond of two different Plays "The Phoenix" of Std. 10th and "The Other Side of the Hedge" of Std. 11/12th; other than "The Unexpected" of Std. 9th.
So, can anyone tell me whether now its available on the internet. Also, mention the names of the authors of these 3 plays, as unfortunately I've forgotten their names.
Mr. Jay Kumar.
Hey. I stumbled upon your blog while searching for "The Unexpected", and ended up reminiscing with an old friend. It is a play by Ella Adkins, and is available (at least partially) in google book results: http://books.google.co.in/books?id=STIF4HvTOBYC&pg=PT62&lpg=PT62&dq=where+women+are+concerned+the+unexpected+always+happens&source=bl&ots=LCI7pVbilN&sig=kt0jCprQZEltaDGKEGde9pHiWdM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=p6rwTpSeO4errAeC78n4Dw&sqi=2&ved=0CFEQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=where%20women%20are%20concerned%20the%20unexpected%20always%20happens&f=false
Hope this helps...
Just came across this blog while searching for a story that we read in our school days. I don't know the name of the story and its author. there are 2 actors in this story who tries to win a girl they love. Girl put a condition that she would marry the best actor. If anyone has any idea about the story. Plz tell me. Thanks
yes I remember ,the two actors are Nunez and Quinkart .Quinkart wins the girl.
yes I remember ,the two actors are Nunez and Quinkart .Quinkart wins the girl.
Thanks....but could you or anyone tell me the name of this story with Nunez and Quinkart characters in it?
No I don't remember the name of the story.But i remember the story
can ayone tell where i can get any one of those old texts...?
To my knowledge there were two publishers,namely frank brothers and pitambar who printing those text books.
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