A representative image.
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With my admission to class one in the school where my elder sister was studying, my father would have heaved a sigh of relief at having discharged his primary parental duty. I was huddled into a classroom with some thirty-odd students and made to sit on the first bench, facing a petite young lady – my class teacher – who was frantically trying to bring the class to order. Some children were crying, some were refusing to accept the cookies the lady was offering, and I, of all of them, ran out of the classroom – in sheer desperation – towards freedom and in search of my sister for moral support and comfort. Having spotted her in a classroom on the same floor, I dashed inside and sat next to her on the bench, much to the bewilderment of all present, especially the ‘lady’ who had been chasing me all the way.
She quietly dragged me out, exchanging courtesies with her counterpart in my sister’s classroom, and physically lifted and carried me in her arms to a small room where an elderly person was seated – he was the principal of the school – who enquired of the lady carrying me what the problem was. All the while I felt suffocated and cried aloud, wondering what I was supposed to be doing there and when I could break free and go home.
In the resulting melee, my sister appeared on the scene with her class teacher and tried to pacify me, asking me to go back to my class and join the others like me – to learn and recite nursery rhymes, bring out my creative skills with the pencil in the drawing book, play games, have snacks and sleep before Father came to pick me up. Nothing of what she said went into my head. Some staff members brought toys to cheer me up. Even that did not work. Someone said my father had been contacted over the phone and that he would be there any moment.
During the hour-long period I was there, I felt as though I was being held hostage, and with my father's appearance on the scene, everything came to an end.
The principal categorically told my father that he had never seen such an adamant, stubborn child in his more than two decades of service in the educational institution. Pointing to the children in my class, he said some were docile, some naughty but obedient and that they all mixed freely with their newfound friends. They listened to and obeyed their teacher. I was an exception and, in all probability, could spoil the others in the class --this was his considered view. Summing up his sermon, he suggested that my father might try for my admission to some other school more amenable to my nature and behaviour.
With that, my stint at my first alma mater came to an end.