The PUC Tragedy

 According to my Dad’s wishes I was finally in PUC college called Govt. Junior College, Byndoor, because it was in our village itself and my dad wanted me to make some friends in our native village. I have seldom been in Byndoor in my childhood, as I stayed in Bangalore and when I shifted there, I was in school which was located in another village called Gangolli. Most of my friends were from outside Byndoor. Therefore I did not have many friends in our village and my dad wanted me to make more friends in Byndoor. I did not have much option. I thought of joining the college for all the wrong reasons like it was nearby to our home and thought I could study in the time I saved by travelling,  but I was wrong. I couldn’t study well there as the school I studied earlier was quite different and we used to speak in English or Urdu. But here everyone used to speak in Kannada which I could not understand properly, especially the local dialect which was different from the Kannada in Bangalore. There was no proper place to sit the class room as it was over crowded, and most the good place was occupied by kids who could flex their muscles. I felt like being in some complete different world and couldn’t make many friends because of the language barrier. They used to joke which I never understood and that was another joke for them. Sometimes they made fun of me and I dint understand, so I used to laugh with them, which in a way I was laughing at myself. Sigh!

As for the lessons and classes, I didn’t understand what the teacher was teaching because they used to teach in Kannada as many students didn’t understand English. I did not like going there and every day I spent there was kind of torture for me. I would reach there just on time for the class to start and leave as soon as the class was over. I did not want to spend a minute more there then it was required, with that attitude I did not do well in my studies either. As for the languages, I didn’t have an option for Urdu, so I had to choose between Kannada and Hindi. As for Kannada, It was already proven that I was not good at it and it was very difficult in PUC. So I had to opt for Hindi. When all my classmates were studying and writing the notes, the teacher gave me all the basic alphabets to learn like A,B,C,D... . I used to sit in the first bench, right in front of the Hindi ma’am learning basics. It was very awkward feeling I felt back then, but I got used to it as I had in my school. Whatever effort I put, it was of no use and I couldn’t learn Hindi well. Mom gave me tuitions at home lecturer tried her best to help me out, yet I couldn’t not cope with the new language in my life. As for other subjects most of the things were taught in Kannada, as a result I didn’t understand anything. Sometimes I used to get lost in my own imagination of being a superhero, swimming in a flooded streets, a monster destroying the college etc but later on I used to study the subjects from my textbook in home but not much as I was not interested in the college or its studies anymore. The biggest problem was Hindi. I couldn’t even study that subject in home and clearing PUC looked hopeless to me no matter how hard I tried. I decided I couldn’t pass and I didn’t want to go through all the tension I had been through for SSLC. Somewhere down the year I gave up, and did not put much effort for the exams. I somehow wrote the exams and as soon as I finished my final exam, we left to USA.  There I could meet Paula aunty and Jay uncle, with whom I spent very nice time for four months. As for the result, it didn’t turn out good as expected and I had to choose for some other career.