Lokmanya Tilak & New English School, Bandra
From the class third till the eleventh, I studied at the New English School, Bandra. The name English remained only for the namesake, everything else in the School was Marathi, including the teaching of English language. In those eight years, this school underwent a physical transformation from tin roof to asbestos one with a another roof top structure came next to the first one. What remained unchanged was a brass bell whose frequency of tolls would announce different events and the calender day of August 1st - birthday of Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak. This day was commemorated, year after year , with only one agenda - that of public speaking competition. Every year, select students would participate in classroom speaking competition on Lokmanya Tilak and they covered four aspects of his life. ' Swarajya maza janmasiddha hakka ahe'(freedom is my birthright) , I won't take a beating for a crime that I didn't do (incident of groundnut eating and making classroom a mess) ...