Madras Matriculation Higher Secondary School

Being on Arni Road means there is always traffic going by. Our school is at No 2/90K in Bagayam, and the sound of buses is just part of the background here. It’s a higher secondary school, so we have the older kids who are always worried about their exams. You see them huddled together near the entrance talking about math or science. The building is quite large because we have so many grades. It’s not one of those new glass buildings you see in Chennai. It’s solid concrete with wide hallways. Sometimes the paint peels a bit in the rainy season. We have a lot of benches and blackboards. The staff room is usually a mess of papers and notebooks. We don't use much technology compared to the big fancy schools, but we get the teaching done. In the afternoons, the sun hits the courtyard directly, so it gets quite warm. We have some trees that provide a bit of shade. The canteen usually smells like fried snacks around noon. Vellore is a busy place, and Bagayam feels like its own little world sometimes. We've had students go off to college and then come back to visit us years later. It’s nice to see that. We don't do much advertising. The local families just know where we are. It's a straightforward place with a lot of history on this road. We just keep doing what we've always done.