My first day at school

It was my first day at school. It was my twin sister’s first day at school too. We had gone to the school once before when our father took us there for admission and I remember looking at the headmistress from behind the chair where my father was sitting. I remember both my father and the headmistress were trying to drag me out of my hiding but I was not giving in. Though I still remember the fragrance the headmistress was wearing that day, I don’t really remember what my twin sister was doing then.

At that time we were staying in a joint family with two of our uncle’s families. It was our ancestral house built by our grandfather. It was huge house with one huge pond, one cow shed, one mango garden, one vegetable garden and many flower gardens. My mother and her co-sisters used to be busy all day cooking and serving 20 average people on any average day while we kids were blissfully oblivious of their daily struggle and used to play all day in the long stretches of verandas or in the long front and back yards.

Anyway, the day came when we two had to go to school for the firm time. We both were ready in new dresses with new tin-suitcases, new slates, new books, new pencil boxes with new slate-pencils and new chalks. My father had arranged for our old and trusted rickshaw puller to take us to the school. My mother got us to sit in the rickshaw with our tin-suitcases placed in front of us in the rickshaw. Though we had gone to that lane where the school was situated many times with our parents and uncles and aunts, this was the first time we were going alone there (two of us were surely not alone but it was more like being alone :)). So we were excited, nervous, happy to go to school and also sad to be away from our mother for the whole day.

We reached the school. We were supposed to meet the headmistress and she was supposed to take us to our class. I took my tin-suitcase, got down and we two met the headmistress and she asked some teacher to take us to the class which was on the other side of the field. When we were going towards the class, then we realized that my sister had forgotten her tin-suitacse in the rickshaw and immediately she started crying, turned around and started running. I was surprized standing there not knowing what to do at that moment and out of reflex I also started to run after her the next moment with my suitacse in hand while screaming ‘stop stop’ to my sister....and she kept crying and saying ‘I have lost my suitcase and now my parents will scold me’.....and she kept running by the side of the main road and finally stopped after reaching our house.

My mother was surprised to find us at home and started consoling my sister. I don’t remember what happened after that. The next day my father must have gone to the school only to find that the rickshaw puller had deposited my sister’s suitcase with the headmistress and then left. Or might be the rickshaw puller himself told my father about that. Whatever it was, it was my first day at school.

Just like I can’t forget the image of my sister crying and running by the main road and me running behind her, I can’t also forget my amazement of her finding out the road to home from school. She is always good at finding roads. Even now she can find out roads better than me.