Friday, July 29, 2005

" Turning Point "

















And at last we were in Mangalore, Surathkal to be exact, 22kms from the coastal town of Mangalore, carrying a luggage that could support an army battalion(there were 21-25 bags in all i think :))..the railway porters shaking their heads in disbelief when achan tells them that it is all 'palahaaram'(sweets) and nothing more..and indeed they were..my word..I really dont know why ammomma chose such an embarassing way to show her love towards us.:)She had appointed people to cook up tons of 'achappam,murukku,pakkavada,munthirikothu and many others..the list is too long to remember :)Anybody would have thought our sole mission in life is to eat('theettipandarams')..

I am fond of travelling and being in new places..so i was kind of elated when we got to our quarters, the lighthouse nearby, thats where achan worked, and the beach and the sea.Me and brother playing our little games and i always had him enchanted with my 'pulu' stories which the poor child simply adored.It was the summer of 1989.

Then one day in late May amma got me ready for an interview at my new school,KREC Eng Med School adjacentto the Regional Engineering College, Surathkal which was just 15 min walk from our home.Achan warned me several times that I should appear smart and a 'midukki' when the teachers interviewed me and not be a 'mindapoocha'.I had my heart beating in my throat when we reached there.I made it a point not to give out a single word other than my name all through the interview and by the end, achan decided that they would advise him to admit me to a school for the deaf and dumb...such was my performance.

Enter one of the interview board members and I wait with bated breath for the inevitable to pass through her lips to me..and get me doomed.She said"she is admitted"..later i heard achan saying to amma that it was bcoz i had answered the arithmetic problems correctly,which had been assigned to me during the trial, that i got admission even though i was in 'mute' mode all the time :)...whatever it was..i was relieved that i escaped the scoldings..so much the better!!

Thats how i got into KREC school, that small,unassuming place which made me all that I now am..from the trembling , petrified creature..I had a long way to go..

1 comment:

neeth said...

well.... mine was a totally different experience..
it was an era of gangs...gang wars...infights...
sounds like a 1920's mobster movie na? but that was how my time at school from 5th std to 8th std was..
studied at a boyz school.. the only phase of my studies without gals..
those were the golden years for me and the dark ages for our teachers
there always used to be fights just about anywhere... be it in class or outside of it...
we used to get beat up like anything but one thing that nobody cud beat us was when it came to sports...
in those days football was the main sport and the sole reason i had 99% attendance throughout those 4 years was cus of it..
football...and we were the best...the unbeatables...that was one thing that no gang could beat us...
and the friends i had then...they wud readily spill blood to save mine....