Joined scouting in my 6th class. I was selected as a patrol laeder since I was an intelligent and well known student in my school. I liked that job and tried to get award for my patrol in each troop meeting. Our troop leader was Santhosh; my senior. He was selectd as troop leader since he has one year of scout experience in his previousschool. Personally, I wanted to be at that position. But being a junior, I need to give that position to him.
The actual scouting started in the next year, when I was in 7th. Our scout master; Gopalakrishna Bhat was so enthusiastic and we went with him and supported him a lot. He was the cuase to get Rashtrapathi Puraskara to me and my friends. There is no need to give prizes for the winners of troop meeting. But he used to give us chocklates and biscuits just to make us active. We also participated in all scout activities more than his expectation. Troop meeting was there on each friday afternoon. That one hour was like a war between 3 patrols. there will be 8 members in each patrol. Sir gave us names like Lion, Tiger and Bull. My patrol got the name bull. Not a joshful name at all. Still we were always in the frontline to do all the activities. Tiger patrol got the leader; Yashas. One of my best friend. We studied from Anganavaadi till II puc together. We always used to make fun of him. In all fields, he tries to be at top and we used to pointout his foolishness in every movement. Santhosh is the leader of Lion patrol.
The time went on as usual. Oneday, Scout master called us and told to attend a scout camp at Sheni. It was necessary to complete Dvithiya Sopana exam. 4 scouts were there to attend the camp from our school. Yashas, Ajith, Nishad and myself. These four guys were there together till the Rashtrapathi exam.
The camp was over and it was wonderful than our assumption. Now we were matured scout cadets [hey.......]. We attended Dvithiya Sopana exam and all of us (4 members) won in that. Fortunatley or unfortunately, the other guy; Santhosh failed in the exam and he left scouting. Sir told us to select a leader by discussing ourselves. We made a meeting of patrol leaders and second leaders. My opponent was yashas. As planned, i got all the votes except one AND I BECAME THE TROOP LEADER.
Next step is to attend a camp of troop leaders at Swarga. Since the students at the camp is much lower than expectd, all 4 members from our school went for that camp. It has night patroling i.e., wandering in a group at night times as shiftwise to protect our tents and others property. And many other new exciting games were introduced in this camp. We made a high level contact with all scout masters.
In the next year, we completed thrithiya sopana examination. Then it was our era in Kumbla subdistrict. Now it is our scout master’s turn to proud about the students. Though we completed the thrithiya sopana exam, we went to the same camp again. All the camp procedures were almost familiar to us and we were as BIG BROTHERS in the camp.
The next camp is the most memorable and excited one. It is known as Kyamboori; a state level scout meeting. Each district should send a troop i.e. a team of 32 members. From Kasaragod, there were only 9 boys and all are completed just dwithiya sopana. AND I WAS THE TROOP LEADER TO REPRESENT WHOLE KASARAGOD SCOUT UNIT. Kyamboori has many differences compared to local camps. It was full of adventures and it will teach us what is real scouting.
This was the camp which cannot be fade-out in my scouting experience. We have to make tents, have to cook by ourselves, bathing in river, conducting camp fires and cultural fests and all.....Its one of the best opportunity i got in my life to be a part of this kyamboori. But entertainment is not the only part. We have to participate in many adventurous activities including jumping through canals, walking over ropes using 2 long sticks, passing inside tyres for around 10 meters etc..I can’t expain all them in a nice way here due to my poor hold over the language.Pity on me for that..
Our next mission was to pass the rajya Puraskar test. We all completed all the required books and studied all knots and bandages, estimation methods, mapping, signalling from Gurumoorthy sir, Naikap. He taught us everything in afriendly manner although he was not our scout master.He knows me well and treated me well cos my father and Gurumoorthy sir worked together in a school for more than 10 years. And my elder brother was sir’s beloved student...Anyhow, we studied all the things and went for the exam at Payyannur. Exam was like a camp for 4-5 days..trouble started at the first day itself for me..I haven’t had patrol badge on my shirt. Me and yashas showed oversmartness by showing it to main examiner and he noted our mistakes at the first session itself. Others showed them to our local examiner who neglected the absence of badges. And our examiner ordered us to show it before leaving the camp.
Exam continued..all the parts of exams were covered and we had comparatively done well. And Yashas showed the badge somehow and I adjusted by inserting my friend’s badge for a while and showed to the examiner. AND that so called intelligent examiner caught me again and told that its difficult you to obtain awards by these type of attitudes..I know I have done only such acts which an ordinary man does.But i can’t explain all my thoughts to him and stayed as if I have done a great mistake. He told me to continue with other examination activities..Then they gave a location and told everyone to sketch the map of that location. We sketched the map and sat near a well. All other scouts went away and Nishad and Ajith stayed with me. I told them all the happenings and memorised all the scouting experiences from the first day itself..All the work ruined through this camp and reaching the goal is not easy as considered. Don’t know from where the tears came after controlling it strongly. Both Ajith and Nishad noticed it and they too started crying. Its the last time I cried in my life and it was in my 9th standard. And all went well and we cleared the exmas AND I PROMISED I WILL NOT CRY IN THE COMING DAYS HOWEVER HUGE BE THE PROBLEM AND I TOOK ALL THE HAPPENINGS IN A POSITIVE WAY AND TOOK THE LIFE AS COOL AS POSSIBLE.
But there is remaining one more step for us to achieve the top award in scouting, that is RASHTAPATHI PURASKAR TEST. As usual we prepared well for the exam. We all joined and made tents near a hill and studied all the things there itself. That was merely waste, but it was a nice time for enjoyment. Though we planned to stay there itself for the night, our papernts were not allowed to do so. So all slept in my house itself. Got up at morning and continued the procedures with scout exercises. We learned all the scout activities by grouping together in someone’s house for countless times. Such preparation is not at all needed, but we all are interestd in such kind of activities. And we went to Trivandrum for the exam after visiting Ganeshotsava at Perla. Journey was through train and we reached the spot(don’t remember the name, it’s the scout head quarters of Kerala). And test started from the morning itself. There were 14 members from Kasaragod, 7 kannadigas and 7 mallus. There was one studious kannada student named Aravinda. He always wnaders with Mallus and we got angry. Then its the time to enjoy all the day. We 6 members joined together and troubled him a lot. I used to be a nice guy by just intructing others what to do and i remained silent. So Aravinda had a good relationship with me and hated others to the maximum extent. Nishad treated him in a bad way thrughout the camp and i don’t want to explain how and all. And that Aravinda deserves it!!!!
Our exam sessions went well. But there too arised some problems. External exmainer told us to write all in English or Malayalam and NOT IN KANNADA. We people confused a lot. Wrote in English for the first day and then decided to write in Kannada itself. This time, I hadn’t have much tension cos all fails in the exam if I fail..(interesting naa??). We thought that it will become an issue but nothing happened at the end..(lost interest??). Another achievement of the camp is that i started to eat egg(I’m a brahmain, and now eating non-veg too).They provided egg for supper all the day. Finally camp was over and we wandered Trivandrum for the whole day and enjoyed well. Returned to our native place by catching the night train. Result annpunced after some months and all of us cleared the test and BECAME RASHTRAPATHI SCOUT.
Thus we achieved our goals in our scouting life. There is a lot of sweet memories more but I can’t tell all here since its vast in count..I just commented the main happenings here... I prefer Scouting, I promote Scouting and follow Scouting since Scouting changed my life a lot and gave me the courage to face any problem. Now anyone says KK is cool, KK is courageous or KK is leader, then its just because I am a scout........
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