Journey from Achalpur to IIT

I can not forget about my small town called Achalpur in Maharashtra. I grew up as a child in this small town which once upon a time was a fort for King Eel. This place has nostlgic memories of my childhood. Anyone who would read this blog will agree with me.
My parents had settled way back in Achalpur in 1902 and earlier. My father being 10th std passed , used to run a stationary mart where students would buy books and other related stuff.
We have Shree Talkies, Naamdeo Rao's Bhajiye shop, his rose essence flavoured 'gulab' jamoons.
Swimming place in Mandal shaw, Shani temple, Sunday and Tuesday haat. Hot moongphalli toasted right in front of you on the 4 wheeled cart , Bajrang Chaatwaala and many more

When I studied in Achalpur, it was in way back in 1965-1976. It was a nice place where we had a govt school near Chaudhary Maidan. I happen to see helicopter landing of Indira Gandhi in 1971 elections on the ground. Shri Mandangopal Chaudhary was chairman of the Rashtriya High School . There was another school -City High school. Suranaji was Headmaster then.
I studied in Govt School upto 4th standard. This school had a tough teacher Ghulakshe sir,
He was instrumental in shaping up my character as a student. Shy and introvert by definition, unable to speak to girls in the class. We had 3-4 girls and daughter of my teacher was one among these. He made us learn about Scholarship examination in 4th standard. His teaching was so phenomenal that in year 1970 - 8 students passed in the school in that scholarship examination out of 10 total in overall district.
These 8 students had Pramod Kulwaal, Ganesh shinde, Anant Sarmukaddam, Sham Jugade and others. This is unbroken record for past 25 yrs.
I moved into Rashtriya High School later and my school was nearby. To my surprise , this time i had grand daughter of my chairman of school in the same class. I remember the admission year in 5th was filled with winter celebration of dance and music- One of the lady , i think it was 'Meena Patil' who danced for ' na na meri beri ke ber mat to.. do' .
We had couple of excellent teachers - sharma sir would take care of the labs. We had Deshpande Maam as my class teacher. Dhawale sir to teach Hindi , Mathane on Geography, Swami sometimes. Bhansali sir will teach Discipline as well as English.
RG Bhangale was our Maths and Chem teacher in 12th.
There can be better teacher than Munot sir, who would make fantastic drawings on board with all the colored chalks .
Bahekar sir, would write the best of his remarks in the mark sheets as his feedback. He would not only mark the notebooks red, but would also mark the corrections and write the sentences again.
Gotmare sir, would quiz all of us in the class with some fantastic maths puzzle to tease the brain and would also spin the ball in the cricket match equally well.
My class also had a bench drummer, whose name i forget now.
i still remember some of my classmates as Eshwar Karwa, Rajendra Tiwari, Rajesh, Ravi Mandlik -who has become a great artist and currently lives in Mumbai. There were Hema, Rekha, Alka and couple of others in the same class. We use to have a good fun in overall school.
I remember having topped my class all through and had my name displayed in Nehru Hall board for more than 6-7 years.
I learnt my bicycle riding by going down the slope at Gandhi pool. I remember my drawing classes due to Mandlik sir. I still remember the badminton matches between Bhansali sir and Mandlik sir. Mandlik Sir would play the touch and placement game.
After i did my schooling at Achalpur , I went to Amravati for my engineering. After finishing the 4 yrs , did goto IIT Kharagpur.

Once passed out from IIT KGP and becoming KGPian, was selected at Wipro. Did work at Wipro for more than a decade in R&D and played various roles.
While visiting other countries - was amazed to meet up some folks from Achalpur - by accident .
Whether it was a street of New York or London , found one or the other folk whom i knew belonged this place.
The place has not changed much. I keep visiting here once in a year. Has not known what happened to the school management for long time.

I will leave you guessing in this blog , as to who I am ..

Cheers