This time, memories. How am I supposed to start? Whatever it is, my best part of life is always my schooling eras. This practically starts from my kindergarten until my High School. The fun we had, the enjoyment while mocking the teachers, the cunning ideas, the anger moment, the lost and a lots of other which taught us lots about life, friendship and relationship. It was not only the biological changes going on, but also physically and mentally.
Early stages of my schooling life was challenging as I was studying in a Chinese - based kindergarten in which they do not even speak English during English periods except for the teacher. The first a few months was like hell as my first language is Tamil, followed by English and of course Malay. Chinese was not even in my dictionary. I was so confused and do not know what the heck the teachers was mumbling, and I have no idea why my dad sent me to that particular kindergarten. The only reason he gave me was tat was the only kindergarten around the KAPAR area at that particular time, which now I find it quite amazing because there was more then. Let's leave that part which is not relevant. That is the place where I met my ultimate friend, SHAMALEE THINAKARAN. Initially, it was just exchange of a smile and looks. Both of us were practically the only two Indians in the whole class full of Chinese. It was a feeling of ugly ducklings in the class full of ducks. The story of ugly duckling best represent us on that a year of kindergarten year. The amount rejection we had to go through just because we were different was almost maximum. I used to her “Sham”.
Our first exploration was the toilet. As most of us know, wherever there is a toilet, there would always be haunted story behind it. For a small toilet, the story was huge saying that there was someone hanging in the toilet due to some husband wife affairs before even it was started as a kindergarten. The house was haunted and the house owner wanted to sell it off but, none bought it due to the story. Since it can’t be used as residential, it was then used as kindergarten. Even though now, thinking about it, I laugh but at that moment, when you are small, this kind of stories was always hype. There started our exploration to skip our classes especially our Chinese language class. We could not understand a single word uttered from the teacher and she does not even bother to give extra attention. We both are practically the black sheep of the class. That was the day where we skipped the class and hid in the haunted toilet. We knew none would be looking for us in the haunted toilet as it was closed for maintenance. Thus, we enjoyed ourselves talking stories about our mothers. What they wore, how to they look, why do we love them so much, what they do, why do we hate them so much, cooking and all kind of stuff. In adult term, it was actually a bonding time in the haunted toilet for us. We were so into the conversation where it was leading into cosmetics and there was a spark there. She was so boastful that none in the world could have a better cosmetic set than her mum. I knew the cosmetic that my mum had was very much alluring, seducing and astonishment for me as that day it was a trend to have cosmetics which has 3 storeys and 4 storeys. My mum practically had the 5 storeys ones where, bottom was all kind of brushes, followed by eye shadows and mascaras, then various colours of lipsticks, foundations and glitters and finally was the blushers. She practically challenged my guts to show her my mum’s set. deep down my heart I knew that something fishy is going on coz you are not suppose to bring it to kindergarten but then, it’s a challenge. Now, we are able to prioritise and differentiate matter, but at the age of 5 or 6, ask yourself this question, would you be able to differentiate?
The next day, was the day full of surprises. I smuggled mum’s cosmetic set into my bag n brought it to kindergarten. I was very worried as it was my very first time smuggling stuff. Once I reached the kindergarten, I was having mixed feelings of happiness and guilt. But, I was not going to harm the set; it was merely just showing to a friend. When I took it from my little bag, I realized that the most items in the set were broken due to the impact of travelling. It was all over my bag and my food tupperware and of course it would attract attention. There you go, the whole class watching me but my friend was the only one approached me and uttered in astonishment “You really brought it”.
