Getting ready

I remember packing my bags to leave for the hostel....to embark on my further education. We were to bring our bedding and so my favourite pillow along with my mattress, blanket, bed sheets, pillowcases were all packed into a holdall. I also had an aluminium trunk and a suitcase packed with my shoes & clothes.

While preparations to leave were going on, any opportunity when Mom would find me all alone, she would impart her advises..... “Concentrate on your studies...don’t roam here & there....Boys! Don’t believe them....they would say “I love you” just to take advantage....you know what I mean” or “Be careful of your belongings in the hostel....some girls would live off other girls...always borrowing and never caring to return...” I know where she was coming from.........she too was once my age.........she too had gone to a College & lived in the Hostel.

The day arrived for me to finally leave Home....all these years I have never been away from my Parents & my two younger brothers & our dog....till now. My youngest brother bought me a gift on this occasion....a small carved rectangular shaped wooden box. Don’t know where he got the money or where he bought it. I was really touched by this gesture..........it was real sweet of him......I still have it.

With a mixed bag of feelings............scared at the thought of living without my family.......excited, at the adventure which lay ahead?! my family dropped me off to the Railway Station where I was catching a train to Delhi. It’s about 3 hours journey from Agra to Delhi. Of course my Parents did not send me all alone.........I was chaperoned by someone from my father’s office.