Growing up(part 1)

I grew up in various cities and towns across India. Jammu was my place of birth, after that we went to Deolali where i did my nursery schooling. As my mom tells me, I was very talkative as a small child. I learned to talk pretty fast, in fact it was almost wen i was one and a half year old that i could speak fluently. I also hear now that i used to chat wid all the people that came to the house, milkman, paperwala, sabziwala etc. They all used to ask me, which class are u in, and i used to reply wid innocence of a kid "abhi main chhota hoon na, jab main aur bada ho jaoonga tab school jaoonga" (lemme grow up first, then i'll go to school).

I was just shy of 3 years when i went to nursery. I joined the school in december, and the session was to be over by march. The principal told my parents to bring me next year, but my dad wont agree. And so i was admitted to class nursery of Army School Deolali, which i completed in 3 months. As a child i was normal and cried heavily on my first day at school, when my mom and dad left me there.

Mom was always nice to me and i wud always tell her everything. Dad was a bit stringent about manners and stuff, being in the army.

My first friend was a girl(quite ironical, coz i hav few female frnds now). Her name was Mridul and we were the best of frnds at the age of two. Later my dad got posted in Assam, someplace called Misambari(sounds horrible) and we had to part.

At army school misambari, i started going to the kindergarten. The place was a bit disturbed due to naxalite stuff, so dad was almost always away. Mom was a bit scared to live alone, so she wud often socialize wid the neighbors. There i made my second frnd(female again). Her name was Akila. We used to play and go to school together. Once she thought of a prank and roped me into it too. As it happened, her mom along wid my mom were sitting in the living room. We were playing in the bedroom. Suddenly she started applying my mom's lipstick. As a child, i had no idea what it was, so she encouraged me to put some on too. And by the end of it, i had ruined my mom's 'precious' lipstick and got a good scolding for that. I learned not to trust girls frm a very early age.

Assam was beautiful. The problem was, it rained too heavily there and there were lot of snakes. One could easily see a snake on the road while walking. I learned to ride the bicycle at that place. It was there that my little bro came into this world. I was delighted to have a little brother. He was so cute and i was determined to take good care of him. My dad named him Mayank after the Moon. I was finally relieved of having frnds to play coz i had got my own playmate!