Whether you loved school or hated it, the farewell is an important rite of passage, eliciting mixed emotions. There’s the freedom of college life to look forward to, but you’re also leaving behind the life you knew for almost 14 years. As students from the batch of 2009-10 across schools in the country bid their alma mater goodbye, we check if the “farewell party” has changed over the decade.
2000 and Gladiator was all the rage. Fortunately, none of the girls at convent schools decided to follow Russel Crowe’s fashion statement. We had very civilised games in the school hall. Certainly no wrestling tigers. Photos were clicked. Incidentally, on cameras that used film. The song most played? Backstreet Boys, to our everlasting shame.A hotly debated contest between Capote, Brokeback Mountain and Crash went on at the 2005 Academy Awards. But at a high school in Goa, the contest was between a witch, Big Bird and a superhero. “Our Class 12 farewell had a masquerade theme, with prizes being awarded for the best costume. My friend Mehjabeen won for her superhero costume,” recounts 22-year-old Dylan Rebeiro. Trivia: 50 cent was popular, digital cameras still weren’t. In 2008, Slumdog Millionaire said Jai Ho in all the right places. The mood was upbeat at a convent school in Mumbai. “We wore saris, but most of us dressed them up with smart jackets and chandelier earrings-which had just become popular,” says Sukanya K.C. Other farewell type activities for Sukanya’s friends included: dancing and then heading out to restaurants in groups for a late lunch. Digital cameras at her farewell were as popular as Coldplay by then.2010. Will this be the Avatar batch? For the Class 10 students at Activity School, the real winner was their two-stage farewell. “First we had the farewell ceremony, where teachers made speeches, signed our uniforms. Two days later, we had a Bollywood themed party. We danced to Akon, had a fashion parade, enacted scenes from certain movies and then we headed out for our own celebrations later,” says Divesh Mirchandani. Digital got a whole other meaning this year as Twitter buzzed with comments from teens about how excited they were in the run up to the big day.With some things, the more they change, the more they remain the same.
Rohini Nair The Asian Age