Day one at school is great, no kidding

NEW DELHI: The day began early today. Parents have taken the day off, aunts and uncles keep phoning, and the house is topsy-turvy.
Excitement runs high as the daughter is readied. It’s a big day for her. Have you checked the cameras? Is your daughter getting married? No, it’s her first day at school. This has been school-opening week. Nisha’s grandmother has moved to Delhi from their hometown in Bihar.
With both parents working, the three-year-old needs someone to accompany her to school every day.‘‘Of course, Nisha feels something really important is happening,’’ says mother Aditi Kumar, a resident of Patparjang in east Delhi. ‘‘Everyone’s fussing over her.’’ On her way to school, Nisha is taken to the local Shiva temple. You can’t embark on such an important journey without His blessings, can you? On reaching their school in Noida, the Kumars find they aren’t the only couple all worked up about their child’s first day in school. ‘‘The campus was full of parents, many clicking photographs,’’ recalls Aditi. ‘‘Some even carried handycams and shot their children walking up to their classes.’’ ‘‘In fact, I was more excited than my four-year-old daughter,’’ says Deepika Gupta, a resident of Siddharth Enclave in south Delhi. ‘‘I was busy buying her new bag, water bottle, pencil box, crayons for weeks.’’
Deepika’s daughter, Muskaan, who stepped into Delhi Public School, East of Kailash, on Monday, was more than eager for the experience. ‘‘Several children were upset and crying, but Muskaan wanted her teacher to give her work right away,’’ says a proud Deepika. Equally relaxed was four-year-old Riya on her first day at Modern School. ‘‘Her only disappointment was that she could not travel on a bus,’’ says Nandita Bhuyan, Riya’s mother. ‘‘She had great hopes that she’d now ‘graduate’ from a car, in which she travelled to play school, to a big bus.’’
Nandita works with a buying agency, so, like Nisha, her grandmother will take over the monitoring of the great school expedition. But the Sehgals of Rohini are not so lucky. They had to depend on their older son, all of eight years, to escort the young one to Ramjas Public School, Anand Parbat, on the first day. ‘‘Rituraj offered to take full guardianship of Tusshar,’’ says Ramesh Sehgal. ‘‘Although we let him take the responsibility, my mind was with both my children.’’ Luckily for the Sehgals, Tusshar was just as excited to join his brother to school. ‘‘All he asked for was bread pakora for lunch,’’ Sehgal said