Writers Jam

I first learned what love was when I was three. Of course, I had no idea what it was at the time, and it was the simplest form love can take, but it was then that I saw love in someone’s soul for the first time.

We had just moved to Chandigarh from Chennai, and it would be my first time at school. The private school in our neighbourhood had prohibitively high fees, but my mother wanted my sister and me to have the best education possible, and so the best it was for us.

The first day of school I don’t remember that well. There was a vague feeling of warmth and happiness. I was a few days late to join, and I didn’t quite understand what was going on, but I was doing some version of thriving. A little lost, but I had the spirit.

Now, my mother was not above a little thriftiness. Skipping pre-kindergarten would save us a year of fees – but I was three and could barely speak Tamil, let alone English or Hindi, and so the school naturally wanted to put me in pre-kindergarten (or play-way, as it was called). But my mother fought it out with the school, insisting I was smart enough to be in kindergarten, and that she would coach me. The school made her sign a document stating that I would be provisionally placed in lower kindergarten, with the condition that if I failed to perform, I would be demoted.

Five hours into my first and only pre-KG class, the little sense of security I had made for myself was about to be ripped away. I saw my mother, which filled me with joy, followed by a strange lady—who was neither my mother nor the lady already in the room—which did not fill me with joy. I did not realise what was happening until it was already in progress. These people had come to take me away!

I kicked and screamed and cried the entire time. I thought I would remember the way and run back when this strange lady was gone. Two turns later I was hopelessly lost, my only hope being to cling to my mother.

I was suddenly in an entirely foreign place, more alien than even the last classroom had felt at first. It smelled weird and different. I was surrounded by giants. They were dressed like me but they were all bigger than I was. They stared at me, regarding me with some mixture of pity and disgust and suspicion. And my mother was gone. All I could do was sob and sob and sob.

A boy walked over and made strange noises at me, grinning cruelly. I couldn’t understand his words, but I understood their leering tone. I cried even harder.

I sat there for what felt like hours, his laughter intermingled with my crying. Suddenly I heard a different voice. I looked up and saw the form of what seemed to me then to be an angel. She made some harsh noises back at the boy, then turned to me with a kind expression.

She tried speaking to me in Hindi at first, then in English. When she realised I could speak neither, she mimed “mother” and then a cell phone to me. She pretended to push buttons into her palm. I knew she couldn’t really call my mother. The boy seemed to be saying as much to her. But I began to feel better.

She was trying to be there for me. It saved me.

Alveena and I were very close friends throughout kindergarten and first grade. I say friends because although in hindsight I loved her to pieces, my emotions then weren’t very well-formed. All I knew was that I wanted her to be happy and near me all the time. I’d like to believe she felt the same way. She taught me to speak and to love and to play and to work.

In the middle of first grade, she transferred to another school. I never saw her again. I’ve tried finding her many times since then. But I suppose my Alveena only lives in my memories now.