Basking Brooks

Preface

What does a twenty four years old (in 2018) boy know about life that he decided to share his wisdom to everyone around by writing a book?

Well, let me answer this foremost important question that arises inside the reader’s head. The answer lies in my life itself. Allow me take you through a short journey of what I had gone through all these years and what I had learned from life.

I would have to say that life had mistakenly compressed the experiences of a fifty-year-old man’s life to fit inside mine. I have lived in poverty – yes! I know the value of each morsel of food that I swallow today.

Childhood desires were stolen away from me and I had to make my mind matured enough not to ask for anything. Up until the time I went to pursue my bachelor’s degree away from home, I did not know that people ate different types of food for breakfast, lunch and dinner – I always had one for the whole day, which consisted mainly of rice and plain sambar and no side dishes. I was perplexed when my friends told that they have never eaten plain of anything. Snacks were a luxury and were only meant for festivities. Dresses were a struggle to be dealt with on birthdays. My mother borne all these difficulties for me and my sister to make sure she cushioned the effect with which life was stomping us down.

I have been through personal losses that would make a normal person melt away into oblivion, and not return. I lost my own brother at a tender age – a loss from which I’ve not yet recovered; my cousin, who was of the same age as me and was like my thickest friend then, and my uncle, whom everyone in my family cherished and loved because, there was no equivalent to the care that he showed.

Even though we had no money, my family found solace with my gifts and my sister’s talents. I performed extremely well in academics, sports, cultural, co-curricular and extra-curricular activities.

I was a star. But, when it was time to pay the school fees, I was thrown outside the class even when I was the topper. I was treated like an untouchable. I did not even have the money to buy books for the academic year, and so, until my mother paid the book fees, I used to borrow books from my friends after school, so that I could read few lessons ahead, and teach them too.

I have lived through insults that went overboard for someone’s childhood. I was loved by family, friends and teachers, but never by the management.

The first time I broke down completely was when I was plucked out of the exam hall, forced to kneel down in front of the school office along with my sister for the entire day, with all the other kids staring at and questioning us. We did not go to school for the rest of the year. I was hurt and the wound was burning. I self-taught all the lessons from my books. My childhood was lost. I was held closely by inferiority complex, self-doubt and depression when I was twelve. I’ve been through loneliness and have a fairly good experience in the feeling of being ‘left out’. Study was the only good thing happening in my life at one point of time. I learned like crazy. I was sincere, passionate and extremely dedicated to work or study.

I shifted school and I would call it paradise. I was the topper in academics from the term I joined my new school. I was sending shock waves across the corridors, I was famous. It was a top school in the city and everyone is the family strained themselves to come to my home and scold my mother that she was aiming for stars when all she could touch was a shrub’s tip. They underestimated my mother and me. The school management kindly waived off the fees and permitted me to continue there, when my parents went and told the Principal that they couldn’t afford such fee structure and requested to relieve me. They even asked my parents not to trouble me with money issues because they wanted me to concentrate on learning. It was a weird feeling of joy – the feeling of being wanted.

It can be called rich man’s school in my terms. I had many friends or so I had thought. Lunch breaks were brutal. Nobody would share my food, but why would they? I never touched other people’s stuff, so I don’t know the tastes of different food items.
There was a club called elite club, which consisted the student from 8th to 12th who were the creamy layer. Once every term, they used to organize an elite party for which the cream layer students shall come in color dress and shall be provided exquisite lunch. I had two troubles. I did not have worthy color dress to wear for the party and second thing, I always had no idea of whatever food they offered me. After one time, I just went ahead to wear uniform to the party, because that way at least I could save myself from the embarrassment of other elites looking at me like a weirdo. They were all from high class families, so I felt left out every time and all my efforts in striking up a conversation landed me in a self-inflicted embarrassment of being unheard. I was invisible to them. I virtually hated that party except for the lunch which was always served by the teachers. I loved my teachers. I had amazing friends and still have some of them around.