My room was on the 2nd floor. I shared it with three other students. ( All from North India, they spoke in Hindi to each other and my spoken Hindi, let us just say was as good as my spoken English)
I only studied two years in english medium (predegree) prior to joining the medical college and I had only started reading english novels that time.
So technically I could write in English and I could read english, but speaking..that was a different kettle of fish altogether. I never had to speak a word of english when I was in Kerala.
So when all the students were talking to each other,I couldn’t utter a word..
My sister was supposed to stay with me and help me settle down!! and she vanished in the first day itself .
Imagine my state, 17 years old, can’t speak a word of english and living in a medical college hostel far away from home.
The mallu students already formed a gang in the first day. I didn’t belong, simply because I had a very colourful family history that I needed to cover up. I refused to be judged because of my family.
Not being able to speak English was not the only issue I had to face. There was also my uncle, my sword of Damocles.
Lonley and scared I spend most of my free time in my room. There were no desks, so I had to sit on my bed. In her unmitigated quest of saving money, Amma insisted that I take the form mattress Appa brought from Middle east, Only thing is the mattress was a few sizes too big for the bed frame. So sitting down on the bed was a bit tricky. ( I was so different from everyone..even my mattress was out of the norm!)
I sat on my bed, alone on the first weekend at the medical college, because most of the students still had their family with them and went out visiting Bangalore with them.
I had no books to read.
Reading medical text books that were so big compared to my predegree english Assissi guide was daunting.
I had no one to talk to.
I had no one to even phone me.
But I had my cassette collection and my sony walkman. My father had even bought me an external speaker that I could attach to the walkman instead using the headphone. ( headphones used to hurt my ears.)
I used to listen to I wanna dance with somebody from the Whitney album over and over. It was even more special because I had the lyrics. It came in a teen magazine ( can’t remember which mag) chechy had bought it from the railway station.
Because I am ( partially) deaf I can’t hear the lyrics. I was so happy to have the lyrics, so I could sing along.
Whitney Houston would never know how much she helped me cope..
RIP Whitney. You had the voice of an angel.