Kindergarten...

The place where my parents settled down is called Tiruchirapalli - in short, Trichy. I did all my schooling there. I did kindergarten to grade 7 in one school, grade 8 in another, and grade 9 to grade 12 in one.

My kindergarten years were probably good. Me and a distant cousin of mine were in class together, and he happened to be staying (with his family) above us on the first floor. He was a constant source of news of what I do in school, to my parents. Mom used to tell me that he had news almost everyday, "Grace bit this boy", "Grace hit that boy", "She fought with a girl"...... I get the impression that I could have been a big bully at school. I was very good in studies it seems. I found a bit of paper that my grandfather had kept safe for some time. We were rumaging through his stuff after he died and Mom showed it to me. It was a P.S. column from one of my mom's letters to my grandfather and it was about me. She had written that I was first in class and that she had not taken any trouble to teach me or sit with me and make me study. She was amazed that I stood first without any help from her (or my Dad, for that matter). So.... me a good girl...