on my life...

Now, as I was slicing onions for mamma’s chilly chicken, I was thinking. If my life were a river, I was thinking how it had meandered through. Some day back in school, I used to be weak at studies. That was way back in forth standard. I remember, I was new to this city and this new school I had joined made life worse. The traffic, the pollution made me feel nauseous everyday in the school bus. How we used to be packed, like sardines…sweating and stinking.
I had no friends, and to worsen it a big communication problem with the kids in the class.

One such fateful day, my English teacher had announced to the class that she would be taking a test the next day. I don’t know how, I never slept off in the class like I do now, but somehow I didn’t get to know of it. The next day, I saw kids tearing off sheets from their class work copies, to write the test. I didn’t know what was happening around me. I felt like crying, a test in the next few minutes, and was unaware of the damned chapter’s name. she took the test and I scored a 9 on 25. My eyes went blank. Felt as if, that was THE END!

How would I reveal this to mamma? What face would I show her? As I got down from the (zoo-like) school bus of ours, the first thing I blurted out was my humbling 9 on 25. And I had my set of excuses ready, “I didn’t know of the test”, “I don’t like the teacher”, I wantta change the school”, “next test I would try and score passable marks”. And I was taken off my feet with the way she reacted. She said it was alright. Though I don’t remember clearly, may be she had kissed me also…I forgot the ordeal I had undergone at school. Even today, my parents surprise me by the way they react to certain things I do. The way they feel contradicts my expectations.

And from then on, seven years in that school, and things changed for me. I grew so attached to it, that I shed endless streams of tears in my farewell. I would be away from school, and besides everything else, I wouldn’t be able see my crush. I had one in 8th standard. (When did you have yours?)Ohhw! Painful! My first love would go down the drain, and he wouldn’t even know…

And I have changed leaps and bound after that. From being a silent nine year old girl, who sat pushed to the corner, to the nineteen year old one, who gets to hear the maximum number of comments in the class. And to not having crushes anymore, I am an old woman now. I have outgrown so many things, in life.

At the end of it all( lemme remind you that I was chopping onions at the beginning) , I find out that I am chopping capsicum now. And that the onions had given me a mild, cold