FROM BAGHPAT TO DELHI

It all begins from Baghpat, a small town near Meerut in Uttar Pradesh Where I was born.Our house was just next to a temple and on its front side was a neem tree on which resided a number of monkeys. From my chilhood i was quite a popular kid among my neighbourhood and relatives just because of the exceptional fairness i inherited from my father and he from his father and so on, and in the towns people are generally darker owing to the nature of their work( many are farmers and others were sons and grandsons of farmers if not farmers themselves ). There was always an interest in me about school and studies as my mother tells me that when i was 2.5 yrs old i went to the nearby school naked and she was searching for me everywhere, and she tells me that I always wanted to go to school from the day i could see other kids going there.

So finally the big day came and i was admitted to a nearby school(The same one to which i ran naked). The school's name was Kala Sangam Mantesary School, though the school's name may suggest it would have been an outstanding one but actually it wasn't , it was a small school with an old gate and there were cows and buffaloes of the owner that used to stay there. The school was till class 5 I guess but I am not sure but I know there used to be 2 rooms only and there were these "daris"(mats: red and blue coloured ones) on which we sat and on the chair sat one teacher, there were only a few teachers in the school, most were female teachers but there was one male teacher whom we knew by th name of Dabbu sir and i used to be really afraid of him as he was quite strict. I remember once i was playing on the street and i met him and he asked me whether i had done my homework, i was shaking and answered him "yes sir" though i never started doing it. As soon as he was gone i ran to my house and finished the work so that i wasnt going to get a beating with the long scale on my hands the next day.

Though the school was small but it had a lot to offer, specially friends. I had lots of friends of all types from intelligent ones to the naughtiest ones. But the ones whom i remember are

Rahul:He was my classmate. He was Dharamveer uncle's son whom my father knew and his house was just at a small distance from mine, many a times i used to play with him after school .

Komal:She was Rahul's elder sister and one year seniour to me. She had boy cut hair but slightly longer, She looked pretty and was intelligent too.

Ateek:He was a muslim guy and was failing in the same class for many years. He was very naughty and tough too as he used to go to Akhada( kind of gym normally Indian pahalwans go there) every evening. Though I was an intelligent kid and was not supposed to be friend of such a personality but I guess this was my nature from my childhood, that I was quite social and had friends of all types.

Ravi: He was also my class mate, he lived near school and was son of Harbans uncle they were punjabis as my mummy used to tell me and his father owned a shop that had basic things and his dad's shop was just next to our house.I always used to buy bread for breakfast from there only.

Tannu: She was ravi's sister and was seniour to me and i dont remenber much about her just that she failed once and wasnt good at studies.

School was always a fun place especially with Ateek who was an entertainer , he used to take all beating from the teachers like a cookie and kept laughing except when the class would be taken by Dabbu sir. Where on one side the school was fun because of Ateek it was a place to learn just becuase of Komal. Though she was one year seniour to me, we used to sit in the same classroom as there were only two rooms in the school, we both had a competitions as to who learns more tables( In towns and villages teachers judge students by the number of tables they have learned). I remember i had learned tables upto 15 and then she had learned till 20, after a few days i learned till 20. It was after that the competition became tougher she had got a new table book which had tables till 40 and after few days she came with tables learned upto 25. I went home and asked dad to get me the same table book that had tables till 40.The book wasnt available in the town's stationary and dad has to make some special efforts, but finally he got it from somewhere and it was then that I went to school with a proud face having learned the tables till 30. She was amazed as I was one year juniour to her and was leading him now. But she wasnt an easy girl to beat, after a few days she surpassed my level and had come up learning the tables upto 35 but i wasnt to be left behind too ,I came back the next day learning the whole book that is learning the tables till 40 and soon she too did that but she had brought out the best of me as i had learned tables till 40, when i was just in class 1 of a small town school and it was this special effort that probably changed my destiny.

Dad was also very strict about studies and he used to teach me english as the level of english education in schools in towns is not satisfactory and so i was able to understand the use of these/those/they /we /I/us etc at an early age. That was about school, at home i was very close to my grandparents. I called my grandfather "babaji" and my grandmother "maaji" and they were always very sweet to me ( In towns and villages sons are treated with utmost care and loved more than daughters but they loved my sisters too).My grandfather was a strong man, I could see him in the evening doing lots of exercises and yoga and he was a fit man, he used to take me on a long walk towards the jungle area where i had lot of fun and i had a habit of taking the internal machinary of my toys with me and play with them along the way (i used to break my toys and take the machinary out of them) and then i used to hide them near some tree and the next day I searched for that tree to recollect my machinery. Some days i could found it and returned happily and but most of the times I couldnt, I used to a bit sad but I never stopped doing the same the other day.

My father was a teacher in a school in a nearby town but earned just a small amount of money but we could manage at that point, as the standard of living in towns is low. My buaji( there were two, the younger one and the elder one ) lived in Delhi and always wanted my father to come and stay in Delhi as he could earn more and we could have spended a better life there, but my grandfather was adamant and wanted everyone to stay there only so we continued living there. He didnt liked the city of Delhi and had some predefined notions about it. Dad used to follow grandpa's instructions and so we continued staying there.

We stayed there, time passed, but one day grandfather had some pain in his stomach, Dad took him to the hospital where it was reported that he had cancer and it would be only around a month that he would live, no one could belive that such a fit man could have cancer but it was true. Dad even brought him to Delhi for treatment but all doctors had raised there hands and he was then brought back to Baghpat the town where we lived but he was a brave man he had no fear of death and was always happy and the same as before. After 3 months he passed away though the doctor said he would live only around one month it was just his strength and fitness that made him live for 3 months. I saw everyone crying and ladies crying quite loudly as they do, I was too young to realise as to what had actually happened and I was constantly asking mom to cook some food as I was hungry and then I had to go to some neighbours house for lunch as food is not cooked for around 2 days in the house where a person dies in our community. I was a kid and wasnt perturbed about anythign at all but i could see my father in a room sitting alone and tears coming off his eyes, I guess I could understand that, he was missing his father, but a few days before grandpa died he granted dad the permission to leave the town and stay in Delhi as there would be my buaji to take care of all of us as grandpa was to leave in a few days.

But we didnt leave for Delhi instantaneously , as it required a lot of money and dad didnt even had some work there , neither would any school appoint dad as a teacher , it could have only been a school in a town that could have done so as my dad was never good at studies though he had a degree of masters, but he wasnt that good. So we stayed in Baghpat only. One day my elder Buaji and his son Ravinder whom i called bhaiya visited our house, Ravindra Bhiya was an art teacher in a school in Delhi (Delhi Police Public School), he was a very interactive person and asked me a few things as normally educated guests do, he asked me my name , class etc. then came the turn of tables which i had learned till forty from the time i was in class 1( now i was in class 2 but i remebered the tables). He was impressed by me and being a cousin and a teacher at the same time he couldnt have sen my life spoiled by the level of education I was going to get in the future. So he took permission from my father( his mamaji but there age gap was just around 4-5 yrs as my buaji was much elder than my father) to take me to Delhi along with him and appear for the entrance test of the school in which he used to teach. My father always wanted me to study in a big school and turn into a succesful person, once we( me and my father) had come to attend someone's wedding in Delhi, we had the dinner and then my dad took me for a stroll and there was a big school nearby, with the permission of the guard dad took me inside the school. It was a really big school, he showed me the entire school from classrooms to swimming pool and I said to him " papa mujhe bhi is school mein padhana" , he stayed quiet probably because he knew that he couldnt afford admission in such a big school but I was a kid and was just driven by emotions at that age, So when Ravinder bhaiya asked him to take me to Delhi with him to appear for the entrance test he allowed him to do so.

So my Bhaiya and buaji brought me to Delhi and I was asked to prepare for the exam , practice some maths and some english which i had learned in the earlier classes. One day bhaiya took me to his school to show it to me and it was the one i had always dreamt of. My eyes remained opened , it was a big school, had such a large building and so many classsrooms unlike my previous school and also there were no buffaloes. I wanted to get admission into this school , I was appearing for admission in class 2 though i had done class 2 in the school at the town i was still compelled for admission in class 2 as there were no vacant seats in class 3 . Also my cousin explained that i should redo class 2 as the education in cities is tougher and i won't be able to manage if i would be admitted to class 3. But even in class 2 there were only two seats and so it was tough , also the school was run by a board so my bhaiya's appraoch was also useless so it was only upto me now.

I didnt do much of a preparation but probably my mathematics. that i had practiced a lot while competing with Komal in the school in the town and the english that my Dad taught me personally helped me seek through the exam and i got an admission in the school. I started going to the school, I was quite popular there as i was the cousin of a teacher and all teachers knew me so it was fun there. I made new friends there and i was at my dream school now. But it was tough for dad to pay the heavy fees but he managed with a lot of toil.

From the initial stages only i was able to cop up the education system in delhi , I stood third in my class in class 2 ,that was good and my bhaiya , teachers and dad , all were pleased by my efforts. Soon dad came to Delhi as well, he started working on my buaji's shop of glass( my younger buaji had a glass buisness at that time and i was staying with my elder buaji but there houses were stuck as they both were married to two brothers i.e. there husbands were brothers). But later on, he shifted to some other work and started collecting some money and finally after 2 years we sold the house in baghpat and managed to buy a small plot in Delhi.

Now everyone was in Delhi i was happy, that after 2 years now i could stay with my family and play with my younger sisters again( i forgot to tell i had two younger sisters), initially we lived in a small room on rent till our house was being constructed on the plot of land we bought. And by Diwali in the year 1996 our house was ready and we shifted and now I stay in the same small house of mine.This was how my destiny brought me to Delhi and now everything has changed but even today i remember those old days of mine that Kala Sangam Mantesary School of mine from where everything started......