The year that was

Less than a week for the year to end and I cannot help reflecting on the year that had been.

2012 greeted me with the news of my husband’s transfer to the wilderness. It was just two years since we shifted to the place and we had not expected it too soon but it happened. We could not cancel the transfer, so I too had applied for transfer on marital ground which was accepted without much delay.

Making arrangements for my daughter to study in a boarding school was my first propriety before shifting to new place. I wanted my daughter to perform well in her studies and thus the idea of sending her to boarding school evolved in my mind because the school I was transferred to had just been upgraded. I knew the problems the learners would experience in such schools and I was not ready to make my daughter a guinea pig for experimentation.

I shifted to the new place in March, the time when the academic session would have been in full swing. However to my astonishment I came to know that it wasn’t the case with my new school. There had been transfer of principal and the new principal had taken over the administration about a week ahead of our arrival and everything was disorganized. The classes from PP to II were without a proper assigned teacher. It seemed as if everyone was waiting our arrival so that they could dump us to those classes and it happened exactly that way. Amongst twenty six teachers present there, the principal called only five of us and told us to take those classes. We agreed since we were trained to teach the small children and it’s our first responsibility (What we failed to question the administration at that time was why we had been handpicked…). It was only after working for some more months that we came to understand the true reasons. (The reasons I cannot mention here)

The first sight of my new classroom was something like a scene from a horror movie; walls smeared with dirt and the ceiling filled with cobwebs. But I was also greeted by a room filled with innocent souls that were eager to grasp everything that they saw and heard. Though disheartened as I was at the sight of the classroom, I could not ignore those innocent beings that sat looking at me. I was determined to make a few changes and I could gradually bring some visible changes to my classroom and the learners as days passed.

My daughter experienced boarding life for the first time. Staying away from parents was a bit too much for her that she ended up falling sick often and I had to shift her to my place in October which caused some difficulty to her academic performance. However, I am not disheartened because she could still rank in top 10 despite many classes she missed and the change in learning environment. (I am proud of you my Zamin J)

The year also saw one of our worst nightmares when my children lost their great-grand mother (my husband’s grandmother). She was 85. But we survived those nightmares as we did in the previous two years when I lost my father-in-law and brother-in-law (my husband’s youngest brother). We miss them all.

The year saw me experiencing the rural life once again. The power fluctuations in the area gave me the privilege of dining under candle light more often than I had earlier. I had the practice of driving on the bumpy muddy road during the monsoon and chasing monkeys who came to take my vegetables from my garden.

Now as the year is draws to an end, I pray that the coming year would be better than the year that has been and shower us with happiness and peace and many more new experiences…