Muslim Higher Secondary School

Down here on Nethaji Road in Melapalayam, the Muslim Higher Secondary School stays pretty busy from Monday to Friday. It’s a big building at No 114 and you can’t really miss it if you’re walking through this part of Tirunelveli. We have students coming from all the nearby streets every morning. The halls are usually full of teenagers talking about their exams or whatever game they played over the weekend. It’s a loud place, especially during the lunch break when everyone is out in the yard. We’ve been part of this neighborhood for a long time now. Some of the teachers actually went to school here themselves back in the day. It’s not a fancy setup with new gadgets everywhere, but we have enough desks and blackboards to get the work done. The area around Melapalayam is always moving, so there is a lot of life right outside our gates. We just try to keep the kids focused on their books so they can figure out what they want to do later in life. Sometimes the ceiling fans squeak a bit but no one really minds. We just keep going. Usually, by four o'clock, the bags are packed and the street gets crowded with students heading home. It is just a standard local school doing what it has always done for the families around Nethaji Road. We're just here, working through the syllabus every year and watching the seasons change.