The sin read ‘Ganga Jamuna’. This building was going to be my new home. I looked up, it wasn’t exactly new but compared to the building next door, I couldn’t complain. There were five floors, six including ground floor. The building was split into two wings, Ganga and Jamuna thus the name. These two names are actually holy rivers in India. Each floor had four flats, two were two bedroom flats and the other two were a single bedroom. Our flat was in Ganga, floor four, number 408. We had a two bed flat. It contained two bedrooms (duh), two bathrooms, a kitchen, store room and a living room. The views were fantastic, especially my rooms. It was like someone took a beautiful landscape and pasted it onto my window. I had a river, hills and clouds. I could have spent the rest of my day just sitting there and staring out.
Around the back of my house was a swamp/bog like thing. It came of the river I talked about earlier and stayed there. It smelt like other peoples cooking put together at an estate. The water was as black as the moonless night. It separated us from Lokhandwala, another popular place in Bombay. To cross, we had to go a few miles down the swamp till the land met. The road we lived on looked like a circle with a little tail. The tail joined us to everywhere else. The buildings were at the back of the road towards the swamp and the shops at the front next to the coast. That’s right, on the other side of the road was the coast, it was called Versova. This road is called Yari road. My brother was very happy by the looks of things, to be back here. I had seen this house before on holidays. It looked completely different now, maybe because it wasn’t my home for a few days but the rest of my life. No matter what I tried to tell myself, I still had a feeling inside me that as if I was drowning.
I had a month and half before I was going to start my new school. After begging, my dad had promised to take me sightseeing to a few places to pass time. I couldn’t wait for this as frankly, I was getting bored. It wasn’t very exciting seeing people pop in to welcome and greet us back, especially if I didn’t know them. This kept up for the first few days then even this died away. My brother and sister would go of everyday to meet their old friends and I would be left alone. The only thing that gave me company was our games console. It was a Media Littlemaster. I would wake up late everyday and play, eat then play, eat again and play again, take a shower and then sleep. I had no one, no one till I met Adnan that was. Adnan was roughly my age and we got on very well. He lived in the flat just opposite ours. Our brothers were already friends so we had a connection set out. Adu, as he was known to his friends and family, had a disability. When he was young, he was struck by a car which badly damaged his back. He couldn’t stand up straight like us and had to limp when he walked. I wasn’t bothered about this as it’s what’s on the inside that counts. We soon became best friends. He would show me new places in the neighbouring areas everyday. This kept me pre-occupied and helped me fit in.
Adu was known all over the building, maybe because of his pranks or smart comments. He was a good hearted person. He never cared if someone cursed him about his limp, he would jus mind his own business. I think he is one of the bravest and courageous persons I have ever met. In my second week, my dad bought something I reassured for my whole time there. He got me a bike. I was overwhelmed. I can remember it as clear as water. A yellow and black BMX Mongoose with knuckle protectors and foam around the frame. It also had a bell, which would make me hyper when I kept on pressing it. I could now go anywhere; doors had opened up to me. The world was at my fingers, I could do anything I liked. Everyday I would knock for Adu, get on our bikes and ride away. From the whole year that I stayed, I was never mugged, beaten up etc. even once. This goes to show how safe the area was.
One of the first places I saw on my new bike was the village nearby. Life was laid back there, really laid back. I had never seen anything like this except for the Flintstones that is. The houses were made out of clay, rags, palm leaves, nothing in the place used electricity and I couldn’t find anything sophisticated. But this I meant cars, toys, basic appliances. Everything was so simple and straight forward. Meals were being cooked outside over fires. Kids played with the traditional Indian toy, a tyre and stick. You had to place the tyre as if it were part of a car and then push it along with the stick. You could race your friends or see how far you could get without it falling sideways. I still don’t understand what’s so good about it, but then again I had better, more complex toys and I would need something that could challenge me.
I soon learned that I should appreciate what I have, as some kids would dream of having what I didn’t want. One of my favourite places to be was Versova beach. Down the coast near my house. It was around ten to fifteen minutes away form our flat. The actual beach was very dirty but what made the place fun were the rocks piled against the side of the cliff. The beach was lower than the road and buildings, as if it were down a cliff. There were some stairs you could use to climb down but adventurous people would climb down the rocks. They had been piled all along the cliff to protect the buildings, road and cliff from huge waves or a high tide as this could cause erosion and wear away the whole place making buildings collapse and killing many people. It did these by absorbing the power of the waves crashing down onto the side of the cliff and not harming the edge at all. There were many small gaps between the rocks, similar to mini caves. You could hang out at one of these and have small picnics comprised of food and activities with your friends. You had to make sure you got a good foothold and sturdy place to sit and watch out for these small crabs as they were very dangerous for their size. One of my friends made the mistake of sitting on one; he was pinched in the buttocks. He bled a bit but had seemed to be in a lot of pain. Even after this, it was a cool place to be.
Down the coast, lay a more popular beach named Juhu. It was sort of a tourist attraction. I used to see many people their, from different countries. You could tell by language, clothes or even their accents. The beach had rides, stalls, toys, food, horse and camel rides and of course my favourite Kala Khata. Kala Khata is like a sweet dish, something like slush puppies. The workers their smash big blocks of ice into little particles like salt crystals. They then put these into glasses and place a wooden stick through it. You are then asked what colours you would like to use and pour them in. You would then dip the ice in the liquid and then suck it. You didn’t necessarily have to eat the ice. My favourite colours were blue, red and green mixed. This was cool place to be to, especially at night when the crowds were present and the night life was going.
The biggest shock I received was when my holidays finished and my schooling was about to start. I hadn’t noticed how fast these past six weeks had flown. I thought school was going to be like here, start at nine and finish at half past three, the school would provide you with text and exercise books but I was wrong, way wrong. You had to buy all your text and exercise books, all your own equipment and craft material. Craft was a compulsory subject there. School was broken down into kindergarten, primary and secondary school, collage and then university. Year three, my year, fitted into primary school. The building used for primary was the same for secondary and kindergarten. So to fit everyone in, secondary school would start at six in the morning and finish at twelve when primary would start and finish at six in the evening. This meant that I would miss cartoon network as there it finished at half five everyday.
My first day was a nightmare. My dad had come along on the school bus to drop me of and make sure I was ready. Even this didn’t comfort me. The bus forgot to pick us up and we had to run after it and make the driver stop. It was and old unused public bus painted blue, the schools logo’s colour. I had a bad feeling about this whole idea of me studying there. As soon as I got onto the bus, I could feel many pair of eyes peering down onto me. They looked at me as if I was different and this made me feel very uncomfortable. I mean the only difference between us was the skin colour as they were all very dark and I fair. What made me stand out so much I still don’t know? I just sat down next to a window seat and looked out for the rest of the trip. We made a few more stops to pick up kids before we arrived at school. Another four buses were parked outside a huge stone building. None of the buses were alike, some were old the others new, some old public buses converted and others coaches converted. Kids were lining up along side the building in their classes but I had to go inside. Then my eyes hit her, a fat lady standing at the door. I felt scared but not because of her, but the long wooden cane in her hand. I checked with my dad that she couldn’t hit me could she? He replied that this wasn’t England and the lady could do what ever she wanted as long as it was in reason. Immediately I started to cry. I didn’t want to go to this school. The lady, stick, kids looking at me was just too much for me to handle, I just wanted to go home. We never get what we want do we.
My dad calmed me down, and took me to see the principal. All kids had to see her before they started school. Her room was on the ground floor and was filled with many glamorous trophies. I couldn’t really read the writing as it was in Hindi but a few did have English words here and there such as sport, cup or final. My dad started to talk to her as if they were friends. I soon learned that she had become friends with my dad as she had met him many times when my brother and sister had come to this school to. After a few minutes, her eyes landed on me. I quickly turned to inspect the ceiling as if I hadn’t noticed. She called me over and explained to me the basic school rules and how different schooling was here compared to England. This was also the first time I found out that I had school on Saturdays. Although this was just a half day, my day would still be ruined because I started at twelve. My life just got better!
All new students had to sit an entry exam but as I was a special case, I could take it a few days later. If you failed, you couldn’t enter the school. Every year had six classes which comprised of fifty students, which is a lot more than here’s thirty. The classes were called A to F. A to E were taught in English and Hindi but F was in Marathi. The reason for one Marathi class was that as Bombay fell in Maharashtra, it was very common language and many kids could only talk and write in it. I was assigned into D. Life was hard for me as I didn’t know much Hindi and couldn’t talk to the other kids. Also, the standard of work they did in year three compared to year five here. My classroom was just a rectangle with twenty five desks. There were no decorations or anything on the walls, just the seven windows that lined the far side wall. This classroom also stunk of urine because the nearby toilet I heard was always flooding. Two students sat at a desk and these were lined up in rows of five and five desks in each row. I was seated at the back, next to a boy called Balaji. Balaji turned out to be my best friend at school. His family was from southern India and so he had a strong accent. His accent even rubbed of onto me. I spent most of my time with him. Over the course of the year, I made around a handful of friends as these were the only ones that knew any English.
I found the work very hard and the load a lot. I had to teach myself to cope with it. Every night we received between one to three pieces of homework, usually due in for the next day. Spread over the year were four key tests. They would go in the order of first unit, first semester, second unit and second semester/final exam. In your class you were ranked out of the fifty from these tests and I got five, nineteen, five and five. These determined if you would move up next year. If you were to fail these exams or not get over the pass mark, you would fail and therefore have to re-sit that whole year again. An excellent example was Shadab, who hadn’t been able to pass for the last seven years and was more than twice my age but still in the same class as me. My dad even hired a tutor for me so that she could help and teach me out of school. She was fired half way through the year as I had outsmarted her and she made me miss a few marks of a test by teaching me wrong things such as spellings and general facts about India.
I was usually a well behaved, good mannered boy except for one time. Not many people know about what I did that day. I made an honest mistake by tripping up a boy during lunchtime. He must have been a year senior to me so he thought he could push me around. He got up and started to swear at me. I told me to stop it but he persisted on swearing at me. To add more fuel to the fire, he even tore a strap of my bag. Not being able to bear it anymore, I launched myself at his chest. He fell backwards and that’s when I went on the attack. I thundered down my fists at his chest and face. It took many kids to pry me away from him. I felt like as if was going to kill him. One reason for my anger could be the whole trip and I just needed something to take it out on. The boy ran away and I didn’t see hi at school for the next few days. The funny thing was that I never got into any trouble as no teachers would be around at lunchtimes. I was very fortunate.
As you can see, my time in India proved to be a very adventurous year, although not all points were positive. It had its highs and lows. My trip did however, change me, it changed my perspective on life. I used to think that I had it hard when my parents didn’t buy me toys because we were short on cash or whatever, but after seeing kids in India, especially those in the villages, I felt wrong to feel angry or sad. If I wanted a new toy and didn’t want the old and I was going to toss it away, the poor kids would dream of having them. This made me think that I should be happier with what I got. I also got much smarter on my trip. Believe it or not but my grades boosted when I came back. Maybe it’s because I got used to hard work and this was easy compared to my work there. My confidence went high to as I wasn’t very dependent on my parents for many things after this. When I look back, I’m really proud of the way I changed and am glad that I spent a year in India. I think that everyone should get an opportunity like this over their lifetimes as this enlightens them in some sort of a way.
