Looking back.........

One of my very 1st memories is of my 1st day at school, rather going to school. I was not going to my sister's school, but I wasn't worried. I remained completely calm until I saw my school van; it stuck me only then that wherever I was going, I had to go alone, my mother wouldn't be coming.
That hit me very hard, to be sent somewhere, alone, how could my mother do this? It was grave injustice, I felt, and I decided to fight it using my only weapon, my tears. Well, I started screaming, but my heartless mother picked me up and put me in the van. I struggled as much as I could, I remember my chappal flying off from my foot. But nothing worked. The van started and I was taken away pinned to the floor by all the older students in it. But I didn't stop screaming, indeed I believe I would have cried all the way to school hadn't it been for that sweet chechi who offered me a chocolate. Well, I chose to eat the chocolate rather than make my throat hoarse by screaming. I must also mention that it was in that van I found my first friend,Krishnapriya. I haven't met her since my KG days and I don't remember her face, except her curly hair thet she used to tie into a 'coconut- tree like knot' right on top of her head.

Well the next day, I again tried screaming, for chocolate of course. But I didn't get any. Probably that chechi didn't have any. Anyway I stopped crying from then, indeed I started enjoying my school. I was really angry, when after two years I was shifted to my sister's school. I remember, I refused to stand straight at the tailors, to take measures for my new school uniform. So my uniform was switched for my chechi's fit and they were too big for me. Maybe that's why I looked much more smaller than I actually was.

So when Uma miss asked for new students to stand up in her first class, though I too stood up with Jayakrishnan and Nithin, she asked only them to the front. She ignored me. She talked to them both, asking which school they were from and stuff, but I never got any such consideration in her class. She taught Malayalam, I remember, we had a text with lots of pictures. And in the chapter of colours, one of the pictures was of a red lotus with 'chemappu' written underneath. I still remember that because my mother wondered why it was written 'chemappu' when we usually say'chuvappu' for 'red'. Anyway, I was really hurt that day, and I bore a grudge against Uma miss for years. But now thinking back, I think probably she hadn't noticed me, because whether I stood, or sat in the bench, it couldn't have made much difference those days, I was really very tiny. And in the middle of all those 40 students, it would have been very difficult to makeout my profile.