Why Salim left School?
I am Salim and am 15 year old. I love playing with Prem, Somu, Kalia and Minu in the streets next to my hut near the slums in Patna. There is something about them that I really love. The games that we play interest me so much that I tend to forget all food and water for the whole day.The game that I play most is called "gulli-danda" and everybody tells me that this game is bad for the eyes
My father had got me admitted to one of the nearby Govt schools
I do not go to any of the schools.
Why?
You ask me why I left school. Do you really want to know what happened to me when I decided to attend school upon the insistence of the karyakarta didi.
I left school because of this man whom everybody calls masterjee. Till last year I had gone to the Rajkiya Vidyala in Mohalla Rajendra Nagar. I could not find any reason why I should be going to school. The school looked as bad and dirty as my own home. My school did not have any gates, nor were the windows or doors in its proper place. The wall paintings were done even before I was born to my parents. My school had a long verandah which had cement skirting with hardened clay all over. The hardened clay in the verandah was as tough as our school master. If while running you happen to fall down, it would make sure that a piece of your skin is bruised or ruptured. The dead body like verandah used to lie uselessly and giving him profound company were three if its old time friends- the three classrooms whom I had named kala kamra, bhut kamra and murda karma. Well yes these were the three rooms that used to be our classrooms. Dark, damp and dingy the floors of all the three classrooms were broken in several places. Out of the three rooms if I had to choose my worst, I would have chosen Murda karma. I always thought that the murda karma was a perfect match to the dead veranda and I always fantasized that the two were married to each other and kala kamra and bhut kamra were two unwanted offspring’s from the relationship between Murda kamra and the Verandah. Murda Kamra always looked depressing to me. I had named this room Murda Kamra on the 1st day I entered the class. The room has no ceiling. I looked up and I saw rusted tin roofs staring at me. I thought they were laughing at me for coming to learn how to read and write. Spiders, big and small had covered most of the tin areas and you could see some of the vacant patches in the ceiling. The front wall had the black board painted on it. All other walls in the room seemed jealous due to the black board being painted onto the wall. Somehow I thought that the wall looked uglier with the black paint in the form of a black board.
My father had got me admitted to one of the nearby Govt schools
I do not go to any of the schools.
Why?
You ask me why I left school. Do you really want to know what happened to me when I decided to attend school upon the insistence of the karyakarta didi.
I left school because of this man whom everybody calls masterjee. Till last year I had gone to the Rajkiya Vidyala in Mohalla Rajendra Nagar. I could not find any reason why I should be going to school. The school looked as bad and dirty as my own home. My school did not have any gates, nor were the windows or doors in its proper place. The wall paintings were done even before I was born to my parents. My school had a long verandah which had cement skirting with hardened clay all over. The hardened clay in the verandah was as tough as our school master. If while running you happen to fall down, it would make sure that a piece of your skin is bruised or ruptured. The dead body like verandah used to lie uselessly and giving him profound company were three if its old time friends- the three classrooms whom I had named kala kamra, bhut kamra and murda karma. Well yes these were the three rooms that used to be our classrooms. Dark, damp and dingy the floors of all the three classrooms were broken in several places. Out of the three rooms if I had to choose my worst, I would have chosen Murda karma. I always thought that the murda karma was a perfect match to the dead veranda and I always fantasized that the two were married to each other and kala kamra and bhut kamra were two unwanted offspring’s from the relationship between Murda kamra and the Verandah. Murda Kamra always looked depressing to me. I had named this room Murda Kamra on the 1st day I entered the class. The room has no ceiling. I looked up and I saw rusted tin roofs staring at me. I thought they were laughing at me for coming to learn how to read and write. Spiders, big and small had covered most of the tin areas and you could see some of the vacant patches in the ceiling. The front wall had the black board painted on it. All other walls in the room seemed jealous due to the black board being painted onto the wall. Somehow I thought that the wall looked uglier with the black paint in the form of a black board.
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