Growing Up(part 3) Rajasthan Here I come!

My dad was transferred to a place called Nasirabad in Rajasthan. I was quite excited about it. I had read about rajasthan being a desert in my books, and i was just gonna be able to see what a real desert looks like. Another important development was that my little bro was gonna join the school for the first time.

Me and my bro were admitted to the Army School Nasirabad. The first day at school was really great. All teachers acknowledged my presence and thought that i was really intelligent. This was all courtesy my dad(who made me learn all those tables!). My dad is very good at maths, and hence he wanted me to be good at it too. I tried to live up to his expectations, but always failed. The one thing about myself i discovered then was i never left trying. The school was good, i made new frnds and impressed all teachers. The maths teacher was a bit strict and hard to please, however.

I had a frnd named Satinder. In the first few days of my stay, I had a fist fight with him, right in front of the class. He was to be my best frnd in the following days to come. Apart frm him, there were two groups of people. One with Angad as the leader, he was the spoilt son of one of our regiments senior officers. The other with a few of my neighbors in it. Angad always showed off a bit more than required. I also remember getting in duels with him on several occasions. I admit, he was stronger and used to take me down every single time. So i usually stayed with the other group.

At school we played 'maram piti' with the cosco ball. Another game which was favorite was leg cricket. We also used to have many races. The best part was plucking fruit frm the trees in the compound of the school. There i played my first football match. And it was there that my academics rose to a new level. I was at the top of the class nearly every time.

After school I used to play various games. All my neighbors' kids were almost my age, so it was fun. I remember i started watching a bit of television at that time. The first thing i watched was probably ODI cricket. My mother is huge fan of cricket and so am I. My first movie was Mithun Da's "disco dancer". I loved the movie to the core. It was really a sweet movie which i will cherish forever.

It was the movie which inspired me to take up dancing and singing. I didn't take any lessons for these. I was a natural dancer and a decent singer. My mom always encouraged my by saying that i was good at both, but who wouldn't do that? I think i still have the recording of my singing to this day.

In the few months that we stayed over there, we toured rajasthan. We went to various places of sightseeing, like Jaipur, Udaipur, Jaisalmer, Mount Abu. I loved udaipur for its lakes. I was thrilled at the thought of boating in a lake. Mount abu was awesome too. I saw my first movie in a movie hall there. The movie was "Dilwale dulhaniya le jayenge". Well the movie was really great, and the movie hall was a different experience.

In the last few days of our stay there, my mother fell seriously ill. I don't exactly remember what it was, obviously my dad wouldn't have told me. She was admitted to a hospital. But soon it was time to leave and she was fine by then. I learned that we were to go to shimla. I was thrilled beyond imagination. I had always heard about shimla, the queen of hills and now, i was going there to stay!