Stories or Memories - Starter

It has been long I wanted to write about my childhood, youth and the struggle I had to undergo to make myself stand on my own foot in Mumbai. Not that they are of any educative value...may be they would prove to be more of a negative model for the present generation. I was not so disciplined nor am I now also. But I try to be one.

I will not be going in a chronological order. I wont be able to do that. I will keep writing whatever comes to my mind in the sequence it strikes me. May be after some days of this I will get some idea as to how to go about it..

To start with let me narrate my KG class days...I was brought up in a place called Feroke, near Calicut, Kerala. I am saying 'brought up' because I was born in another place close to Feroke, called Kallayi - a place very famous for timber business. Kallayi was considered to be biggest timber market in the world after Ottawa in Canada. I am not too sure if that is so even now. .

I am the last of we four brothers. I have no sisters - something I always used to feel bad about. I always used to and still envy those having sisters. My father was a college professor, teaching Physics. Mother though was only educated up to 8th std, always considered herself quite well educated may be due to her association with a college teacher - my dad. My eldest brother, Mani is 10 years elder to me. The next brother Ramanan is 3 years younger to Mani. The third one Moorthy is 5 years elder to me or 5 years younger to Mani.

I was a sick boy - used to fall sick with asthma very often right my early age itself. Was very thin too. As a result my parents were over protective about me. They did not want to put me in a school which is very far or where there is no one to look after me. All my brothers were in Kallayi during their primary classes. By the time we shifted to Feroke my brothers had finished their primary classes. So my dad was not too sure which are the good schools nearby. He decided to put me in a Muslim school - a school where only Muslim boys were admitted, mainly due to the fact that the Head master of that school was known to him. My admission there was done as a special case Headmaster agreed to take me daily with him in the morning and will leave me home while returning in the evening. I was there in that school just for a year.

I was admitted to nursery class. I still remember all the boys in the class had clean shaven head, as was the practice amongst Muslims... and all the girls had a thin veil sort of clothe on their head covering the hair...this cloth is called 'Thattam'. They , the Muslim kids were quite amused to have a Hindu boy amongst them. Though I don't remember what all I used to talk with them, I remember that they used to look at me as if looking at an animal in a zoo...with curious eyes and expressions.

Enough for today...Shall write more tomorrow.