On Facebook, everything can be found, every memory offered for re-tasting. So something that happened years back suddenly returns, ticked off or triggered by a stray remark by someone on some issues of the past or present and it's all over back again. To each his own and a return train to a barely remembered past that whooshes to the present from deep below and says, "Hello, Remember me?."

This is what happened when someone posted a meme on school tiffin and all that and suddenly so much came back from the days gone by. I began studying in Wills little Flower school in Dhaka in 1957 and went on till 1965-66 with a year's break in between -1963-64 - when we went to Karachi and studied at Society Public school in PECHS, our neighborhood there.

After a year's spell in 1965 in Willes, I moved to Shaheen school in 1966 from which I appeared in my SSC exams. Finally school days were over and I- never comfortable with school life- was finally free to lead a life not constrained by so many rules. But I remember two things fondly from those days, The Tiffin time and the friends I made in school (s).

I am still in touch with both.

Willes

It was my first school and I was in the Nursery class, pre-school of sorts. We used to live in Tikatuli and our driver would drop me at the school. I remember the Jeep we had, even its number KBM 462. Somehow I never did like schools and have no fond memories either though no one did anything to me. I was also a ninny and still recovering.

As was the practice, my mother would make us the tiffin and it was accompanied by a plastic flask of water. Almost every kid did the same but what we liked most was the food that was on the offer by different vendors allowed in.

Three vendors are still fresh in my memory. One was the "jhal muri wala" who was everyone's favourite and very very cheap to buy. A paper cone full of the muri, chanchur, mustard oil and chopped chilli was divine to look at let alone taste. Those who had it would jet off to a divine paradise of snacks land. The paper used to wrap the stuff ware the daily newspapers I remember. What do they use now.?

Another was the fruit vendor offering sliced, guava, raw unripe mangoes, olives, etc with a lot of hot spices which kids loved. Another was the "kothbel" with a stick stuck inside and kids ate that by picking the flesh out.

Finally, of course came the ice cream. The vendor was the Baby ice cream van and they had two versions. Two annas ones which came wrapped in foil and obviously milky white and very delicious while the one annas version was more like a brown ice lolly.

Sad to say, my very health conscious and strict mother told me never to have any of the snacks I have described above, I was only allowed the two annas type ice cream and that too once a week so in many ways my school hood was a denied and deprived one, at least of the common street snacks for school kids sort are concerned. Till date almost 70 years later, I wish I had tasted them.

Society Public school

The Karachi school didn't have a canteen or a bunch of people selling stuff outside the gate. So we all took our tiffin from home. I think the most memorable event was that I took my tiffin to school on the last day of classes before summer vacation and didn't have it. I put the bag with the tiffin inside for quite a while before a howling smell overran the house. We all looked for the dead animal or something horrific till the culprit, a totally rotten egg and bread was found followed by collective throw ups. Well, at least it was dramatic if not delicious.

Shaheen school

It was the first time I had tiffin provided by the school. The canteen was a bit away from the classes and the sky was full of hawks and kites, birds of prey. On most days, we had buns and bananas, not exactly the most imaginative tiffins for early teenagers but on the day we hat hot patties, it was terrific. They were delicious. The problem was that the flying birds also loved it.

It was the duty of the class monitor to get the tiffin piled up in a tray and bring it back to the class and the birds would inevitably swoop down and even the tiffin guard -assistant monitor - tried his best to ward them off, some would go missing. Scratches and bruises from bird's claws were not unknown. But the battle for the patties went on and in the end; the memory mixed with it all still remains even though the tiffin and the birds are long gone.