It brings tears of joy when I think about the very first day at school. It was a total chaos sending me to school at such an early age. Well as far as I can remember, I was about 2 years and 6 or 5 months old when my mother first sent me to school. It was a sunny day (must be as I don't remember being cold) as sun was shining in my eyes as I drove off to school with my mother in the back seat and I on the front with the driver. Driver's name was Aziz Ur Rehman. He was a man of about 35+ years. He was kind hearted person. I didn't knew what was going on or where were we off to (can't believe children are so stupid).
When we reached the school, mother took me inside carrying me (really liked when some body carried me around). She talked to the teacher, while I was just doing my own stuff hanging around. When she was leaving I started to follow her towards the gate. Then the real surprise came when the teacher held my hand and tried to stop me from going out. "Aap kahan ja rahay ho", (Where are you going?) she said in Urdu. I only remember that because after that I started screaming and shouting. She got scared. I was screaming at the top of my voice for my mother (mother loves me a lot). She stopped and came back.
While the teacher was asking her to leave and assured that everything was under control. The teacher lifted me up and tried to go into the class while I caught hold of mother's hairs (pretty smart, huh?). The teacher tried to pull and mama was also trying to get free. At last, mother got free and left. I just cried for her. Teacher took me to the class and made me sit on the chair. Her name was Mehnaz (don't remember the full name).
The room was not very big. And there were about 4-5 small tables. Some were rounded while other square in shape. The chairs were really small like me. But were comfortable. They were of red, yellow, green and blue colours and matched with the colours of the table. I stopped crying. Tears in my eyes. I was thinking about the behaviour of mama (mama = mother, I will say this from now on), how could she possibly abandon. Such a behaviour was new to me. I never wanted to get alone. Everyone was completely stranger to me. That was when I looked around. Every single child was looking at me as if crying was a crime. I felt embarrassed and cleaned my eyes on my sleeve.
I was in play group or what ever you may called it. Mam Mehnaz brought me some toys to play with. I wasn't in the mood of playing with them. I just ignored them. Everyone was busy playing and teachers were gossiping. After sometime I became normal and started playing. I won't say that I did really enjoy there. It was the most weird day of my life. After 4-5 days of crying everything became normal. You won't complain playing a whole day long. I made some real good friends there.
The name of my school is Berkely Public School. In Toba Tek Singh, Punjab, Pakistan. I really like that place. I will post some picture when I get some. Now they are not available. But they are coming soon.
