Sticker collectors from Bhimavaram

I would like to write about a famous activity in St.Mary's High School, Bhimavaram in the year 1996. We were four young, enthusiastic people from VI A section of that school. We had one common goal. There were many groups similar to ours competing for the same damn thing. We all were a part of organized gambling. We don't gamble on movies, we don't gamble on cricket matches, but we gamble to become rich 'sticker collectors'. A group with highest collectors was often considered cool.

Subramanyam (subbu), Lingeshwara Rao (Lingesh), Boku Raju (boku) and I (Santosh) were in a group. Subramanyam was the smartest of all. He used to get us stickers from Suryam shop far off in 3-town, while our school was in 1-town. He used to buy them at 2/3rds the price that shops near the school used to offer. Lingeshwara Rao and Boku Raju were the investors. They almost invested Rs.13/- in the successful start up. Don't exactly remember how I could enter the group. But being a close friend of Boku Raju and being good at organizing things they wanted me to be a part of the group.

After we got the initial investment of Rs.7/- from Lingesh, we bought latest WWF stickers. But, boku got some stupid stickers of vegetables with different smilies over them, investing Rs.2/-. We were the first to reach the school and last to come out. We used to play sticker gambling all the time. On the very first day our 36 stickers produced 70 more to make the count to 106. On the second day the count reduced to 84. We were very worried. Lingesh invested Rs/-4 to buy 16 more stickers and made the count to 100. Gradually the sticker count went to 521. Once it reached a peak of 728. And till November 6th, 1996 there was no looking back. One day we were caught by out class teacher. She took us to the principal and told about our activities through out the day. The class teacher checked all our bags and collected the stickers and took home. She must have given them to her children who were of the same school.

But, we were not out completely. We lost just 106 stickers. I used to take 2 school bags. One for my books and the other one for our stickers. When the teacher came to check our bags, I passed on the bag to a neutral member who was not a sticker collector by bribing him 10 stickers. Hence, our treasure was saved.

By January, sticker collection became a serious activity in the school. Everyone from class III to class VI used to play sticker gambling. It was the same scenario in the every school. Parents went mad, teachers were getting furious. In one of the rival schools sticking labels to the books was banned. Principal used to have regular checks in the recess and lunch breaks.

Though we were caught several times, we never gave up. We collected 2049 stickers by march 12th. Wanted to collect some more to take the count to 2500, but we stopped the sticker gambling to start collecting stamps.

Finally we shared our collection. Lingesh took 700 and the rest of us shared them equally.

In that April, I left Bhimavaram to join St.Mary's school, Palakol. Heard that Boku left the place and was a topper in 10th state board and he's joining IISC banglore this summer. Lingesh left studies and managing family business in Bhimavaram. Subbu is doing MBBS from a reputed medical college in Kakinada.

Note: Sticker means book label. No one used to call it label in Bhimavaram. We call them stickers.