Journey from Malayalam to Mastery – Part 1
I was born in a middle class family, my father was running a furniture shop, the burden of debt has forced him to leave native and the soil he was born. I was Eight year Old boy then, just started my schooling in a Malayalam medium school. Within a year my mother and sister came with my father. I was then living with my maternal Grand-Parents continuing my school.
As my grandfather was no more and left us, my parents brought me with them, with hard work and struggle my parents cleared off all debts, I saw my parents work in extreme climates walking miles, but they never compromised our studies nor kept us away from education, my schooling was then started in an English medium school.
I completed fourth standard by then, being into Malayalam medium I was rejected admission directly into Fifth standard then and asked to start with downgraded to lower classes. As it was the loss of years my mother requested the principal to give me a chance to prove my competency, so based on this request the kind-hearted but yet very strict principal agreed to give me a chance. She gave me a task to read a chapter from a book. I remember my mother spent the whole day and night teaching me to read the text when I had never known about even English alphabet.
All efforts from my mother shown success, when next day I read the chapter in-front of Principal, I still remember it was a Panchatantra Story from Moral Science book. So the principal appreciating all efforts from my mother and me gave the admission in Fifth standard in school.
This change from Malayalam to English medium school was very challenging for me, when other mates started communicating in English, I was still struggling to learn the alphabet. I could not complete my notes as I did not know how to write English. My classmates, teachers, my sister, and mother helped me in a great way and they used to complete my notes. I remember my sister and mother remained awake at night to complete my notes, they used to forgo nights of sleep to complete my notes , so that I could prepare at least some of them during exams.
I had a Malayalee class mate, I remember my teachers (Non-Malayalee) use to ask her and write pronunciation in Malayalam in my notes so that I could read it, very kind of them.
I use to score low in class tests and unit tests initially, then as nearing towards finals I captured my Pace and was in full-form, I was able to score good and pass all subjects and promoted to next class.
Each day was a new experience, fear of school and phobia of English was now changing as an excitement to procure more. I was enjoying each day now in school. Now it was a turn to move to advanced school in the city, so by now I completed seventh standard with First rank in the class. Now I was moving to Eighth standard in new school.
To be continued……………..