I come from a small village in Haryana, and I studied in a hindi medium school up until I was in third grade. In fourth standard my parents sent me to a boarding school, that too an English medium one. I was more than excited to go to hostel.
But the shock I got when I got there is something that I can’t forget, and believe me I’ve tried. Kids my age would speak fluent English, when I couldn’t even speak Hindi properly. I had trouble coping up, obviously. But since my elder sister was in the same school, it was a huge help, except we were in separate hostels and would barely see each other. She put in a lot of efforts to help me cope up, the teachers helped as well, and I would stay up late until midnight to try to read and understand it all with the help of Hindi-English dictionary. Major part of the session went like this only, I wouldn’t score very well, couldn’t understand what was going on in class, but slowly and gradually it came to me. I could read and understand some of the things without having to look into the dictionary, I could keep up with what was being taught in the class, and kept persevering.
I did well in my finals, stood third in my class and that was probably the biggest achievement I’ve ever had. It may not seem relevant because it happened a long time ago, but I still remember it like it was yesterday. I’ve struggled with a lot of things, but it was this experience that taught me the most in my life. My hero is the 10 year old me.
