My mother suddenly notified me that, I was to be shipped away again to a boarding school, for my fifth grade, again to the mountains – but this time to Southern India.
Without warning, one beautiful morning after returning home from a delightful tennis lesson and swim at the Secunderabad Club, my mother suddenly notified me that, I was to be shipped away again to a boarding school, for my fifth grade, again to the mountains – but this time to Southern India.
I was distressed.
After leaving home following my graduation from kindergarten in Asansol, I had endured the torments and hazing of my first and second Grades at the British-run boarding school in Darjeeling, in the Himalayas. It had been a wretched, life-changing experience for me, but somehow I had managed to survive.
Now, all the angry feelings of family abandonment and loss flooded my mind again. I wondered how my parents could be so ruthless and mean to me as to kick me out of the safe comfort of a cozy life at home.
It would be decades later that I realized what motivated my parents. It was how they prized a “good education” for their children. A concept that is difficult for a fifth grader to appreciate…
