March 15, 1983 was a nice and pleasant day or was it ? somewhere in a remote village of Andra Pradesh my parents had their first baby and fortunately or unfortunately that was me, named Nagashankar, some call Nag(a), most of them call Shankar and a handful like to say Shan with Love.
It has been an amazing journey this 26 years, it is not the end or not even half of what it would end up, however I felt I should recap these years before all the memories are burried deep down which cannot be digged out later on.
Not much I can remember of the first 4-5 years but from all that my relatives and parents told me, being the first kid of my family I was always taken good care as a child having more than all the luxuries that a lower-middle class family child can have. Happenings from around the Age of 5 are the ones that I can remember nice and clear.
I loved to play cricket like most of the kids of India, I was around 5 when I had a fight with a group of kids may be 2 or 3 years elder to me because they would not include me in the team, so I went to the play area and told them nice and clear "If you are not going to let me play, I can do the same" and stood in the middle of the field stubborn and one of the kid from the group takes a stone and throws right on my face which just misses the head and hits just below the left eye as I fell unconscious there on the ground and was rushed to a hospital and had a few stiches on the face. My mother says I might have lost about a litre of blood that day. This is something I always want to forget but the Scar on my face that I see everyday in the mirror never lets me forget.
As a Kid I was never troublesome, I always used to do my homework on time and I always stood 1st in my class right from lower KG ( LKG) till I completed by Secondary School except in two instances after I moved to bangalore later on. I was was never demanding but the problem was I was never at home, running around the streets was one of my favourite hobbies, even as a Kid I used to get back home hours after the sun-set and get beaten up for that as I used to be on the play ground all the time be it a week-day, sunday or a public holiday.
I was 7 when I stood first in the entire school and my Head-master gave a double promotion and promoted me to 3rd Std from 1st as a recognition for my efforts. My teachers asked me to read 3rd Std syllabus but then I had this strange feeling that I have missed out on something by not reading 2nd Std syllabus, I used to borrow books from my previous friends in the leisure time of school to read and catch up just out of interest.
A year later upon my head-master's suggestion, my parents shifted me to a different school which was well known and even in the year 1992 the strength of the school was around few thousands and each class had like 6 sections ( 4th std sec A, B C and so on ). Going to this school was a life time experience for me. The school was not next door to my house as the previous one was, I had to change two buses to get to the school and it was around 10 kms, it was a serious challenge as there were now 100's of kid;s in each year competing. I became a bit more tough during the course of my studies in this school both mentally and physically. Days when school ends by afternoon I used to get lift from two-wheelers at times and walk some odd days, literally 10 kms walk just because I knew I could.
One of the best things to happen during this time was I met two kids Chalapathi and Sridhar who went on to become two of my best friends during school time. But sadly enough I dont know them anymore. I seriously wish I knew all this websites like orkut / facebook at that time so that I would never loose contact with them.
By 9 I was enjoying the time away from school and places away from home a bit more and knew that I need more money to buy things and to be able to roam around a bit more other than just the school and home, so along with my friends we used to bunk classes and submit fake leave letters to my teachers and spend time playing cricket and roaming around places in hyderabad. I used to ocassionaly steal some money from my dad's pockets and sometimes from my mom's purse. I know of one situation when I was caught and beaten up.
Back home I had a friend in Nandini, right from the time I return from school till the time I get to bed I used to play with her all the time, jumping hoping studying, eating, all in all everything with her and at times we used to do some really naughty things which we laugh at today.
There were some ongoing problems in my family and eventually in 1993, my dad had to shift to Bangalore for the purpose of work. It was february and a very odd time to move places as it would affect the schooling to a great extent but my parents could not help but move on.
Luckily for me I got admission to a school in bangalore in Feb, It was a small and normal convent school but the challenge was to complete the entire syllabus of Fifth Standard in 2 months time and to be ready for the exams in April. My parents and I knew I can somehow manage all the subjects expect for one "KANNADA". Until this point in time I never knew that there is one such language called kannada that even existed. Though the script used was not very different from Telugu, I hardly understood the language and more over time pressure. Then came an angel in disguse of a teacher, she was called Sumathi and my class teacher, she gave me all special attention that I needed to understand this new language. I used to go to classes in the morning, go the tutions in the evening and then most of the night taking notes of the past 8-9 months by borrowing books from kids who were kind enough to lend books to me, esp oen called Purushotham and the other Manjunath, luckily I still talk to them and meet up with them even today.
A Month and a bit more somewhere in April 1st week, I had enough confidence to go for the exams. All the efforts were now put to test and believe me I came out with flying colors and got 77% overall and some 60% in Kannada. For the first time I did not stand 1st in the class but it did not matter as that was one of the toughest two month I have had in life so far and I was so happy to get through. I cried in dis-belief, cried in happiness, cried for the relief that I got, my parents and teachers just didn;t know what to say, they were just happy and mom and dad cried and told proudly "I knew you could do it my boy and we are really sorry to put you through this". Those words are still in my ears and I think of it time and time and feel really happy about it.
After the results, the next year onwards I stood first in my class replacing my best enemy in my school - Manimekala, she was one popular girl known for her for walking style and beating up boys all the time. I had real pleasure in edging her out in the academics throughout until the Final exams in 10th. By now I was already very famous in school especially due to the strong academics.
Life was really really cool especially because of the attention I used to get in school and back home but among my friends at home, I was just antoher kid and I used to like that equally well.
That is the recap of the first 10-12 years.... watch this space for the next part of this series. ;-) Thanks for reading..
