Metamorphosis

4th standard was a very special year. It was the year when I transformed from a boy to a man. Or atleast that was what I thought then. It was a year of changes. A year when I had to face many unpleasant challenges for the first time and also a year when many pleasant firsts occurred.

The new school in the new state did not provide with the luxury of skipping my second language classes. Instead, I was to face the most terrifying Tamil teacher I have ever had. She screamed at students, hit them with whatever she could get hold of and flung homework notebooks on to their faces.It did not help that I missed the previous two years of Tamil lessons. How I loved those Thursdays when I did not have Tamil lessons!

It was a year when I got my 'own' membership card at the local library. It saved me from the tyrannical Tamil teacher as I quickly learnt to read and write reading Siruvarmalar at the library. But more than anything, I loved the freedom of going to the library by myself and picking the book of my choice.

I wore my first analogue watch that year and the teachers asked us to bring fountain pens to school - the first thing that marked the men from the boys. A yellow belt at the Karate class also meant that I was the second strongest man in the world next to my black belt Karate master.

My freedom grew boundless when one afternoon my dad got me a top-of-the-line Hero Ranger bicycle after only 3 hours of pestering. At that time, owning a Hero Ranger was like owning a Ferrari now and owning a Street Cat was like owning a Lamborghini. Owning any other bicycle was just useless.

It was also the year when I swore at my science teacher on his face. A girl had sucked at him to give her mistake ridden test paper a 100 and my mistake less test paper a 99 so she could get the first rank. She got the first rank. Well, she was not a she actually. She was a he. But he deserves to be called a she, doesn't she?