‘Young Then, Young Still’

Sahyadri, to me, was defined by its constant sense of change. Nothing ever felt fixed. The mural outside the 12th cluster was refreshed each year. The senior-most batch always reinvented the student council - one year serious, another an experiment in democracy. If you knew which Akka to nudge, classes shifted too: sometimes indoors, at others, under the trees. Farewell could be in the auditorium one year, and on the football field the next. Even culture class was unpredictable, a debate on fear, a discussion on God, or a quiet walk on Python Hill. There were no rules set in stone, only space to question them.

Being the first twelfth batch meant unusual freedom. The school even consulted us on which board to follow and which subjects to offer. In a way, the school was learning alongside us. When Grade 12 began, I almost did not want to stay. Many classmates left for other schools, and I thought I should too. But those two years shaped me more than the five before. They were the years I began to think independently, to choose what mattered, and to fall in love with subjects deeply enough to discover what I wanted to pursue.

Each time I returned after graduating, I saw the campus grow: a grass turf on the hockey field, a second art room, exam halls above our cement cluster. I felt proud, sometimes a little envious, and I wondered as the school grew older if it would lose the youngness that made it different.

On a recent visit, I realised I need not have worried. I saw a fourthie squatting by the library pond, watching a snail in awe. A tenthie, hair still wet, buzzed with excitement for folk dance. In that moment, I understood: Sahyadri’s essence is the freedom to remain a child a little longer, to wonder, to dream, to question, and to be.

My wish is that Sahyadri always stays that way: a school that grows, but never grows old.