Everybody has their own journey through life - III

The Lakshmi English School taught me the fundamentals, but due to an unavoidable circumstance I was forced to leave the school over there and join another. If the previous school gave me the basics, the next taught me to use them well. Application is one of the most core part of the studies that you should never forget to learn. The school which adopted me for that is named Vallal Sabapathy School (so was it called then). Here I learnt how to apply myself into studies itself, because there was no more spoon feeding. I had to live in a different environment. Funny though still I can feel that environment which threw me out of no where. There I was in Lakshmi school where it was strict, disciplined and more and more academic oriented. Here I got a lot of freedom. Freedom of playfulness, naughtiness, craziness, funkiness, etc.

Freedom from all the academic clutches, our batch moved towards excellent schooling. Enjoyed many aspects of life. Like playing around in school hours, engaging in naughty and sometimes witty activities, social service (we cleaned up a pukka desertful ground to become a playground), mistakes (how can we otherwise call stealing question papers and also breaking one of my hands). Athu oru azhagiya nilakkalam, for somebody who doesn't understand Tamil, they were one of the most golden days in my history.

In school there were lot of activities, but before that the unavoidable incident which made me switch schools. You see I would have mentioned about my sister. My most loved sister. And I would have also mentioned how I was loved by her. As I was born very late after her, I was too small to be her friend, but I was like a first child to her. She would take care of me very well. She would be very possessive, bossing me around for all in the house. I would sacrifice even festive clothings for her to be happily clad. She would take charge of those who hurt me. She will take good care of me in the most beautiful manner I have ever seen. She will boss me around, beat me around, play with me and everything. But will be very much upset if someone hurt me. For instance, I was beaten up at the school for something and she took charge in the school asking the teacher "How could you beat my brother like this ?". She was the most lovable. Eventhough I was a dark boy (I was like my mother), she was the prettiest girl I have known. She would play with me (always against me). And sometimes we four (my parents and us) will pair around and play Carrom (one of our favourite passtimes in evenings) for hours. Always I would pair up with our mother and she with our father. Rarely we will beat them and mostly she will be the winner. Those were days I would like to relive. I am dreaded to say that she left us on a fateful day of June 19th 1987. She lived, lives and will live in our hearts for years to come. I really miss a sister, a second mother and most importantly the company I would have been in if she hadn't died. "I love you sister & I miss you a lot". If God comes before me and grants a wish I would ask God only this, I should be with my sister - either I should die and be with her or she should come back alive.

Being a lonely son is an easy job when compared to being a lonely son after the death of your sister/brother. I believe she is waiting for me in heaven and I am waiting for me to go there. But past is past and as I already said, we should live life, hence I am also living my life. I know I could be any year, any day, any moment, hence I should live to say, my journey through life either complete or incomplete was a good one.

Yeah, I was lonely. I didn't have a sister to cajole me. I didn't have a brother to guide me. I didn't have a yonger sister to be cajoled & guided. I was all alone. I would do stupid things around when I was alone. I would cry for hours thinking about the past/present/future uselessly. I would try to kill myself, but only try and not do anything more. I had wrote suicide notes atleast two times in this matter. Idle mind is always devil's play ground. Then there came a phase when I started believing in God more and everything else passed away. That was the phase when I started enjoying all my life present around me. One of my major companions through this tough period is the Television. Everyone says TV is bad, for then it has done numerous good things for me. Kept me off focus on useless things. Kept me interested in learning more - the UGC Classrooms, kept me interested by entertaining - the DD metro english serials of the earlier days (mainly Derrick - detective stories, and Non-stop Non-sense - a comedy serial). And otherwise when my friends are around, we enjoyed games either in playground or indoors. I remember playing Trade games, Cricket, Football, etc., Even watching movies and that too mainly English action movies. Normally I would see one movie per week, and that would be minimal. Sometimes I have seen three movies in a weekend.

For the list of movies I have seen, I should definitely write a book on how to watch movies. Where to pay attention and where not to pay attention. Which movie to chose from which movie. I would collect the movies from a local video library, bring them home and watch them. I would chose lots of action movies and will be careful not to take any adult-oriented action movies (as I was not an adult by then). Many action movies of those days will definitely contain a kissing scene and nothing more than that. I would spend sometimes around one to two hours to browse a movie from the list of crap the library has in store. I have seen most of the famous movies of our times even before they got released in Madras (Chennai) and some in India itself. Some of them to mention are, Terminator 1 & 2, Jurassic Park, Cliffhanger, Predator, Jackie Chan movies, etc., Other movies of older times include Bond Movies, Bible movies (Ten Commandments, Samson & Delilah, etc). I remember I would have gone to around one or two theatres before College. But I would have been spending more time than any of my friends watching movies. I still know the time when I saw Cliffhanger with my friends after cracking out a few crackers around three months before it officially released and ran like anything.

Everybody has their own journey through life - II

The education I had in Lakshmi English School was splendour, but for that to be applied, definitely the school should also be a nice place to study. Actually the school was the best place to start your studies. It had the right teacher at the right time for me. We had some limitations as a family and that too helped me in doing good in studies. The correspondent who was a pretty old guy at that moment was very strict on the teachers and that made the difference. He was not running a business rather he was concentrating on providing the very needed educational service to the needy and the elite.

Over that he had a great standard of subjects. Actually we were studying Gulmohar books for English and our Tamil books were one grade above the rest of the schools. Even the other subjects had their own weightage. My knowledge gained over in this school cannot be underrated as most of it got me through the toughest times ahead. Everybody knows studying a language other than the mother tongue is hard enough. In India, it is completely ridiculous to see people learning almost all the subjects (like science, maths, and even history) with English. Hence having a good fundamentals in the language is the foremost to grow in subsequent grades. And Lakshmi English School had the muscle to provide the same.

Talking about miracles, I will term this also one of the miracles I happened to have. I got good solid education from a school which was near, pretty cheap(such that our family can afford) and moreover I got to know and learn from one of the best teachers. This is surely the other miracle I want everybody to realize. My teacher is part of my history, just as my mother and father. In Tamil we have a saying, which goes like, "Mother Father Teacher God". The statement actually arranges the beings who are the most important to you in that order. The Mother who gives you life is the foremost, the Father (who your mother acknowledges) guides you through your life, the Teacher provides you with the knowledge to execute your life and the God is who acknowledges your life and rewards you. I believe I have got all the four with the best and pristine condition and I don't complain about anything.

Everybody has their own journey through life.

For life to be good, there should always be a destination to reach. Some think the destination to be successful in life, but my view is that it is our eternal sleep itself. Anyhow, as in all journeys, it is not the destination which is very attractive for the traveller, it is the journey itself which fascinates him. Hence everybody should traverse their life as a sizzling journey which has to be enjoyed. And the destination should be ultimately reached, if not you will not complete your ultimate journey.

For me my journey started in a small city Chennai in Tamil Nadu India. I was born in 7th of December in a Government Hospital(GH) nearby. Don't panic, in those days, for maternity cases, the GH is the best bet for good caring of the new mother. I was the son born after 10 years of the elder child in my family. My mother still says, that I was born because of a lot of prayers to God. That was a pleasant Friday morning when I was born at around 8:30 to 8:40 AM. My family was filled with joy with my venture into this world. My sister, who I love the most, was one of the happiest person of all. She was happy because at last she has a smaller brother to play with.

Then I grew up doing all the naughty things the child does until my age of 2.5 or 3 when I had this dreadful illness. I donot remember how I suffered, my parents still remember it and say, you were reborn at that time. I was ill for almost 1 to 1.5 years from then. Mostly because of bad diagnosis from the doctor's side which cured the illness temporarily or something. Then I was shown to one of the best Child Specialists in and around Chennai. He gave me the rebirth. I was diagnosed with Oesnophilia, and I had a bad immune system. Then I recovered to the best joy of my family. And what I think as a miracle had happened in my life.

Talking about miracles, everyone has miracles in their life. Some just ignore them, where some just make it as a reason to believe and to have faith. I am under the second category and I did not get to know it by this one miracle, but through other miracles that happened throughout my life.

Everybody has their own ups and downs through their life, and the main thing is that you should not lose faith. As I said, enjoying life is the most important thing. Don't postpone any of your joys to tomorrow and feel left out when you reach your destiny. Because, as in all travels, the journey through your life should be enjoyable. You don't know what will happen when you reach your destiny. So to sacrifice something dear to you or postponing something to tomorrow is never going to pay.

So what, I got out of the illness, and now I was facing another big challenge. As I was ill I didn't join the school at the expected age. Hence I would lose the crucial one year in everbody's life. But as the good teachers they were, my parents taught me to read, write and interpret the deals that I have to go through in the school. That was only Lower Kinder Garten(L.K.G) they taught me, but it was too much, as they had to compromise my health, their jobs, their other activities towards my sister, etc.

Finally I joined the Upper Kinder Garten(U.K.G) in a school then named Lakshmi English School. The school was pretty cool. I started off becoming the very favourite of the teachers around there. One of the teachers should definitely be mentioned. She (Malar) was the person who shaped up my education to the best possible way. As my parents where working as teachers themselves, I couldnot go home just after completion of school. Hence I used to join the tuition programme with the Malar teacher in the school. She taught me most of the things I know in English and made my fundamentals right. I used to complete all my homework during the tuition and used to play when I reach home. I completed all the work that needs to completed other than the three times, two times copying the answers from the book in the tuition time itself. I gained a lot from those times. And as it started I was the star student in my class.

Then time came when I had to scale higher to higher standards(grades - from II grade to III grade), hence I had to separate from my favourite teacher. I had a severe fallout in the studies. Previously I used to study a lot during the tuition hours, now, the tuition hours are no longer available for study. I continued my usual play in home tactics, but it didn't work. Then I thought, even this should be for my own good. Then I too started studying on my own, on my home, and definitely results were good.

When I was in the fourth grade, I had grown good in studying that I was contending for the star student category again. Then disaster struck, and I had to leave the school. I will tell about the disaster latter, beforehand I would like to summarise my school, its surroundings and everything I remember from the stellar experience of first education.

My journey through life

Everybody has their own journey through life.For life to be good, there should always be a destination to reach. Some think the destination to be successful in life, but my view is that it is our eternal sleep itself. Anyhow, as in all journeys, it is not the destination which is very attractive for the traveller, it is the journey itself which fascinates him. Hence everybody should traverse their life as a sizzling journey which has to be enjoyed. And the destination should be ultimately reached, if not you will not complete your ultimate journey.