Autumn Leaves

Memories are strange things, I don’t quite remember what I had for lunch yesterday, but I remember eighteen years ago as our bus climbed into Naini Tal and my father said, “Look, the lake!!” – I looked up at the mountains.

My uncle, my father’s younger brother was studying to be a doctor in England. His sons, my cousins, went to boarding school. My own brother went to school in Patna; I guess my father felt strange pressure to send me to a hostel, to give me the kind of education my cousins enjoyed, even though he would find it difficult to afford it.

I was five, we had moved in to a flat a year ago, living away from my grandparent’s home. Ma always said it was because her college was too far away from our ancestral house, but recently, I heard my father mention something about him preferring to sell rather than stay in a place he was asked to leave. Mama used to feed me lunch everyday, because my parents would be at college. I had khichdi most of the time, and she told me the same story each afternoon, about the wolf that threatened the old woman to give up her food or else he would wag his big tail.

Anyhow, when we moved in, I remember, my brother was writing a million entrance exams for engineering colleges. Ma would ask me to take life seriously and study like bhaiya, I was only five! I would ignore her, and run around the house like a mad child, hurt myself, play with the gods and goddesses from her tiny temple, throw my milk down the window, also the fruits, bug bhaiya, and so on. Bhaiya always sat in his room, facing the window, a girl sat in the balcony of the house opposite our apartment, facing my brother, I sat in front of the window in the adjacent room and made faces at the girl, Ma claimed and believed that only the girl would stare at bhaiya, and disturb her poor innocent child. Which is probably true; my brother was the purest variety of nerd I have ever seen, complete with a far from trendy (even for the early 90s) moustache and thick enormous spectacles that covered two thirds of his face. Of course now he is all fancy.

Eventually, my brother was going to leave for Surat for a course in computer engineering. I was fascinated by all the attention he was getting, all the clothes that were being bought for him, the bags, the visitors, the love – I couldn’t wait to be sent to boarding school.

It was to be nothing more than an experiment; my parents were convinced that I was an absolute bum - surely I wouldn’t make it through the entrance test. They decided to tie the exam with a holiday to Naini Tal. Plus I already had admission to the school bhaiya studied at, so it really was just a joy trip.

I was quite the sickly child, and even before we got to Barielly, my body lost out to the never-before-experienced levels of cold and I was down with fever. I slept through the remainder of the journey, wrapped in shawls and wearing a stupid monkey cap. So, in my defense, I was quite unwell and sleepy when I stumbled out of the bus into Naini Tal, and can’t be blamed for looking up at the mountains to search for the lake. Plus it was the first time I was seeing a lake. Anyway that evening I was bought a thick jacket to keep me from dying from the cold, allowed to eat as much cotton candy as I wanted and generally pampered and fussed over. My grand plan was already working.

I don’t think I gave the school much thought when I saw it; I was overwhelmed by the sight of so many new people and decided to hold on to Ma and not say a word. The test, hmm, it was in two parts, English and Mathematics. All I remember is that during the test a kid got up and started crying, “Mujeh mummy ki yaad aa rahi hai!” Stupid idiot, he made us all miss our mothers.

It was the 31st of Dec. 1990; I was excited about New Years Eve and everything, quite stupidly so, because I would certainly fall asleep before ten. Around noon, I was having lunch, or my mother was trying to get me to have it, the postman arrived with a brown envelope that contained in it eleven years of boarding school life. My father gave the postman ten rupees; and opened the letter. Ma was already crying; I was happy that she had forgotten about my lunch. Papa congratulated me, and then asked Ma not to cry, “Mere bhi pet main paani bhar gaya hai, but it’s for his future!” I was barely six, but I already had the gift for the inappropriate – “You don’t want to send me, to save your money??” My parents looked at me in disgust and I am sure were glad they were getting rid of me.

Anyway, I was immediately taken to my tutor’s house with a card and sweets to thank her. Now this Bengali lady lived in the block just opposite ours, and if I hadn’t been so young I would have protested against this visit. Her tuitions were absolutely useless; they consisted of her feeding me food, asking me to look at the milk and to yell when it began to boil, while she watered the plants, and converting the same five sentences from present to past to future back to past then to future tense till my head would spin. No, I don’t remember the five sentences. The mathematics was handled by her husband, he would sit and read the newspaper and ask me to write the tables, and then he would get up and ask random things like, “What is thirteen multiplied by six?” and if I took longer than three seconds to say something he would disappear into his room.

Twelve white shirts, vests, underpants and handkerchiefs; four towels, night suits, sheets, pillow cases, two each of black and sports shoes, a pair of slippers, two blazers in the school colors, four house ties, two college ties, four pullovers, three grey woolen trousers, two white and two olive green, six house shirts in yellow, six woolen shorts, six grey game shorts and two in white for special functions, two blankets and a quilt, a trunk with my name, house and Roll No. 35 (3+5 = 8, 2^3 = 8!! FUCK!!!!), keep all this, and a hold-all for the blankets and quilt, plus an air bag. Then there was the stationary and the toiletries. Ah, I was the king of the world – I could do no wrong, I was allowed to eat what I want, play for endless hours, engage Ma’s gods and goddesses in the fiercest of battles over my new trunk, watch TV, drink Pepsi till I was sick, every day someone would visit to say good bye and bring me some gift. I wondered why they would look at me with teary eyes, or why my parents seemed guilty about sending me there. On the final morning at home, I climbed onto my parent’s bed earlier than usual. All three of us spent inordinate time there, in silence. Till I pointed out that we might just miss the train. Great frenzy followed; for my father, catching trains is a huge deal. He plans out everything in immaculate detail, he was saying to Ma, “Remind me to tell the coolie to place the trunk with the latch facing inwards.” Oh yes, the size of the trunk was pre-decided by him so that we could slide it under the berth. In all this, I was walking around the house putting my toys in obscure locations, like I placed my GI Joe with the missing leg and arm on the fridge and told everyone that it must stay there till the next time I was home. And I remember the next time I was home, it was the first thing I looked for, but it wasn’t there. Hmpf…

In the train we met another kid going to join, Rishi – I had a friend even before I got there. There was this old retired Army officer that was travelling along side us, he was very impressed with me going to boarding school, as is the tendency for most army people. He asked me, “What do you play?” So I said I play with He-Man and the Masters of the Universe! I have the power!! The poor man’s disappointment was palpable; as for me, I didn’t know it yet, but this was an early sign of the illustrious sporting career that I was never going to have.

I knew where the lake was this time.

There is a photograph of me standing under the arch at the entrance of the school. I have the widest, wickedest smile, then there is another one – this time Ma is there too, except she doesn’t seem very cheerful. Walking to my dormitory, I saw that the entire school was full of crying children. I didn’t understand that, I asked my father and he said it was because they weren’t brave enough. Anyway, I couldn’t wait to get to my dormitory and select my bed and all the other things. It was only after I spent a semester there that I realized why everyone was crying; next time round I would join them with full fervor.

We met a few teachers; they all had fancy, foreign names. Hoffland, Neale, Lee, Samuel, Rozario. My parents asked them to take care of me, I thought their concern was a little fake, but that’s probably because all parents must be asking them to do the same thing. My father always said the worst part about dropping me to school was the walk from its gates down to the town. I guess this first time must have been the worst of all the walks he would take.

As for me, that first night was surprisingly silent, in the dormitory you could hear the tube-lights groan. I don’t know, I was too young to understand why my stomach felt strange, but it was probably because unconsciously I knew that new clothes, people, or a different way of life weren’t sufficient to compensate for what I left behind, plus the fact that it was going to be a long eleven years. I got into bed and noticed that the quilt had been pulled out from the side; I called out to the ‘dai’ asking her to tuck it for me. She said, sweetly enough “Do it yourself, aur mujeh dai nahin aaya didi bulate hain…” My heart sank a bit, I decided to let the quilt be, and fell asleep.

It’s tremendous, how, when you get down it, memories come back in a flood and with great detail. I don’t think I should get into what happened the next day. A blog needs to be fed regular normal sized posts, not one never ending saga of a meal. The following days, weeks, months and years made me the person I am. Life for me was a bit of everything, pain, glory, sadness, joy. Everyone tells you that people who go to boarding schools can manage on their own; I tell you it’s true. But the question to be asked is whether they’d want to or not.