Geometry Box

Yeah, remember those bright orange and yellow colored Camlin heavy boxes which carried utilities that had special place in your school bag?

Every school kid's birthday gift wish. Neighbor's envy and owner's pride. Some kids were lucky enough to own them much earlier than others. And then what a show-off it was. Get the whole group's attention, get the box out of the special zone in the bag, take off the plastic cover that it came with; no not your dirty hands but your teeth that would open the box. Place it near your lips, feel it, caress it and then bite it open. Each of the instrument were neatly put pack in their plastic cover, tucked into the plastic molded holder and shut tight only to bring the box back to school the next time there was a geometry class.

The world inside was all like Calculus and Trigonometry for a high school kid. Compass, double compass(didn't know it was called a divider then), Protractor and what were those 2 other 'scales' doing in the box? For all I knew, the double compass was used to carve out names on the desk. Co-ed folks would have used it for carving out hearts also I believe.

I remember nagging my parents to get me once the moment I stepped into class 5. Some of my class mates already had them . It was also the battle of mass v/s class. Mass being the "ok-ok" Nataraj Geometry box. They had mini versions too. Class being the Camlin ones. The look and feel of the two would give you an idea why Camlin was expensive and tougher to possess than Nataraj.

Only when I shifted to a prestigious convent in high school that we were taught it was not Geometry Box but Geometrical Instruments Box. Aaah! see, sophistication. Rubber was to be addressed as Eraser, Mender was to be called as Sharpener and Scale as Ruler :-D

Of course, got to know that Double Compass was Divider and it did have a noble use than carving out names. For all I knew, Geometry box was an expensive object to possess. Only few kids were privileged to  get them. And once you own it, you need to preserve it so much that you ended up borrowing set squares and compass from friends in the class so that yours remain new. Such care :)

Miss those days? Aah certainly!