This day, that year

24 years ago to the day, a bunch of school kids (including me), ran for our lives, for about 2kms from school. In hindsight, we could've just walked; but at the time, we did not know any better :-)

Back then, our classes would start at 12pm and go on till 5pm. The first period (or class or whatever) was on, when our matron-like Head Mistress walked in and announced, "Something bad has happened to Indira Gandhi. We are shutting the school down right away. All you kids head home pronto... no playing, no roaming around. And there may not be any buses either."

About 40% of all students in the school were from our area, about 2kms from the school. All of us just gathered in front of the school and started running home, taking the inner roads and not the bus route. That was the first time many of us ran 2kms at a stretch.

Midway through, we see our faithful, old, rickety and almost empty bus heading the same way, but at a distance.