Childhood - School means hell

When I was in my teens I always wondered how my life would turn in the later stages of my life and how many friends I would make, etc. Looking back at all these years, in fact I made few good friends and just like I thought life was a mix of ups and downs. For long time I had this desire to put it here in my own words to express what I've been feeling for quite a while. Most of the times when I talk to one of good friends, I always tell him that engineering days were the best part of my life. So, I'm going to write down about all the characters, including me, here.

Where did you spend most of your childhood? What kind of question is that? Yeah. Everyone spends their childhood days with their parents. Right? This guy didn't. He spent his childhood with lot of kids of his age. People always told him they thought that he would never leave his mother even to go to school. Even his mother thought that he would have tough time leaving her. In fact, when she tried to send him to school, he resisted so hard she decided not to send him until he was six years old. Not sure how it happened, but some how just like any other kid he had to go to school.

His house was little bit away from the village. Living next to rice mill was not a pleasant thing. But this kid never noticed it. For him the entire world was that rice mill. What else? There were two families living there. Both families owned the rice mill. Since one is not allowed to build rice mills close to villages, they had to live away from the village.

The house was built in late 1970's. It had two big rooms. First one was used as a place to sleep and keep clothes, etc. The second room was called God room. No one knows why God wanted one big room. Kid never understood the concept of giving that entire place to God since he always thought single person wouldn't need that big room. He never knew that it would puzzle him very much in the later stages of his life. He didn't know that it would take long time to understand the concept of God.
This house had veranda in front of these two rooms. The top of the house was covered with special thin bricks. The top of the veranda was covered with long wrinkly plates. The open place in front of the house was filled with blue stones which looked like big blue slates.

Finally, when he turned 7, he had to go to school along with his cousins. This kid never liked the idea of spending most of the day in the shabby school. He had to walk almost a mile to go to school. He always enjoyed looking at the small brook going through the village, when ever he walked to school. Sometimes, he even stood next to the brook to see the swirling flow of water. He was always amazed at the way this brook gets filled in no time during the rainy season. When ever his elders asked him not to look at the brook, he couldn't understand the logic behind it. The reason they gave never satisfied this kid. They told him that it would make him unconscious if he looked at it for long time. He proved it to himself that it was wrong as nothing happened to him after staring at the water for long time. In fact, he always thought that it was the beautiful thing to look at. It was full of water. It seemed aggressive trying to reach it'd final destiny. This small brook made him interested in knowing more about the oceans, when ever teachers talked about them. He was always curious to know how big they could be.

The other interesting thing he noticed while going to school was bus-stand. It was next to bridge on the brook. People always sit on the bridge and talk to each other. Most of the village people were farmers. Early in the morning, all these farmers or other people who want to go to towns go to this bus-stand and wait for the buses. In a way it was a nice place to go through. Being a kid, it always interested him to look at all those pepperments and some other eatables in those small shops. The most interesting thing at that point of time was an ice. When ever he had some money like 10 paise, he went for this ice, which is nothing but just plain ice put on some small stick. It was a favorite for kids. He was no different. Then the special thing to buy when he had 25 paise was milk ice. The name it self suggest what it was.

The other parts of the bus-stand were occupied by cool-drink shops, hotels, hair-saloon shops, etc. It had 3 main small time hotels. All these hotels served breakfast, lunch and dinner. The main business for these hotels was breakfast items. Being the center of many villages around it, it always had tonnes of people early in the mornings. People always wanted to go to the next town Atmakur, 15km away from it, as early in the morning as possible so that they could come back early in the evening after finishing their work. This town is the only place which had big hospitals, cinema theaters and other important stores for farmers. This kid was always excited to hear something about this small town.

The three hotels were run by three Muslim families. Most of the other shops also belonged Muslims. This kid always thought that the only thing Muslims could do was having small shops like the ones in the bus-stand. He was interested in only two stores. Being a kid from the family owing rice mill, every one in the bus-stand knew him. He always felt shy to go through the bus-stand for unknown reason. It was funny to see the owners of the hotels competing to get the people into hotels. Eventually, he understood that owners of those hotels hated each other.

Finally, after walking past the bus-stand, this kid had to walk for another five to ten minutes before he reached the school. He always liked the place where the school was built. It was surrounded by lot of trees. This school has lot of open space to play the games. It even had some place with full of sand. This school had one big room and the roof was covered with concrete which always looked like it was going to fall down any minute. This school was for 1st-5th grade students. 1st and 2nd grade students sit out side in the veranda and other grade students sit inside. It had two teachers. Head master used to take classes for higher grades. The other teacher used to attend lower grades.

This kid always waited for the evenings so that he could go back home. The other best part of the day for him was interval breaks. It used to be for 15 minutes. In those 15 minutes, all the kids used to run to the play ground and some of them used to go to trees next to the brook. One of those trees had very small sized fruits which kids called red-ink fruits. The reason they called them with that name is that these fruits made the mouths of kids very red after chewing them. Kids always loved the idea of chewing them and fight like actors in the movies and fall down to the ground with mouth bleeding.

After learning how to write and read in Telugu, the school was no more fun for this kid. He always thought that he could all that they teach in the school on his own. In fact, he never paid attention to those teachers. But one thing that made this kid extremely curious was reading all those books. Once he knew how to read them, he finished all those books with in no time and then the school was boring. But the best part that comes with knowing how to read was news papers. Waiting for the news paper to come was the most painful and at the same time most sweetest thing he could feel. At a age where he could understand the small things happening in the world, the news paper was the best thing that could happen to him.

Eventually, when ever he found some novels or some books, he got into them so much that he couldn't notice what was going around him. Soon, he was known as the bright kid to everyone. First time this kid understood that he would be treated well among the other kids as long as he did well in the school.

to be continued ...