Early days in School (in the memory of Pooja di)

There I stood on the stairs of my hostel, not knowing what to do and where to go. So I turned towards the dormitory to unpack. As I entered, Ganga didi saw me and called me in her office to introduce me to another girl who had joined a day before and was from Bihar. Her name was Somya Singh and she was my 1st friend ( if you ever read this Somya then just want to say that thanks for being my support, and yes I will talk about Mehak in later posts :D ). I was relieved to meet her not because of finding a company but because I thought oh! here is another girl who most probably has a problem with English. But to confirm I remember asking her "kya sab yahan English main hi baat karte hain?" (does everyone around here talk in English) and at the same time praying that her answer is "no". And she very casually replied "haan", oh I was heartbroken. But then I went in for another dive and asked, "lekin mujhe tou English nahi ati" ( but I don't know English) and she just like before i.e. very casually replied, "koi bat nahi isme kya hai, seekh jaogi" and I thought to myself, "ya easy for you to say, I mean how in the world can anyone learn English just like that".

Inside the dorm I met Harmeen (my to be best friend), her two sisters and Pooja di (aspired to be a model) and Bhawan di, the two best friends who had joined hostel the same year and were to become the most sought after girls of school.

First day in class was pretty normal with I discovering a new word for addressing teacher's as "mam". We in Madhubani used to call them "sister" even though it wasn' a convent school.

First few days passed as pretty uneventful since everyone was just settling down. Then came my introduction to loads of new things such as horse riding, basketball, dancing etc. and slowly life started moving smoothly. First day at horse riding was something I will never forget. I was told to stand in line for a turn to ride and learn and then when my turn came, sir probably didn't notice that I was new and asked me to sit on horse and left it. For those of you who know horse riding, you might be aware that one is supposed to move up-down in rhythm with horse's steps and I was wasn't told that. So the next thing I know was that the horse started running (not as fast as you are imagining :) ) and I slowly started slipping down sideways. God! I held on to horse like never before and was screaming for life. Just imagine a 9 year old on verge of falling from horse, screaming for life holding on to horse badly with both the legs stuck in the saddle, hahahaha. Its hilarious to me now but back then it made me stay away from horses for months :D.

Slowly summer vacation's came when I went to Madhubani for my uncle's marriage. Came back and was struggling to keep up. Then next came winter break of one and half months by which time my passport was ready hence I could go home to my parent's who were in Bangkok, Thailand at that time. I was 9 years old and was to travel alone to Bangkok.......