While this is not a latest attempt at learning something that did not come easily and actually quite some years old, I thought this would be worth mentioning as it more ‘memorable’ of some sorts with mixed feelings and not exactly good or bad.

It is something back in the day during when I was in school, and perhaps the first time I realized how fucked up our education is (the realization which kept growing till date and continues to do so). There are several boards of school/high school education common in the country and worldwide, while every state had its own state board, in mine of which I was a part of. Here in Mumbai Bombay and in the whole state, we had 3 languages, the first language of course was English, the second language was Marathi being my state’s language while the third was optional to choose from for grades 8-10, where many schools offered different ones like Hindi (the national one), Sanskrit (India’s oldest language and one of the world’s oldest) and French being most popular choices while several other schools in the city/state and other parts of the county offering more like German, etc. I took Sanskrit, primarily because it fetched good marks, and something which I enjoyed as I was familiar with lot of Indian scriptures.

Now here is when the problem(s) started (in this context). I’m from a primarily English speaking family, somewhat manage to speak my mother tongue Tamil and Hindi, both being quite messed up, and there was this new language. I had nothing against (in the beginning atleast) as learning a new language is always fun, growing watching anime, reading manga and being familiar with Japanese culture, there was an interest in Japanese. My uncle is from Germany, so I had interest in German too. And who isn’t interested in (the) French and Spanish? 😉

I had to deal with Marathi, the beginning 2 years grades 5 & 6 I survived somehow but eventually failed in my finals of grade 6, I remember getting some 70% and my performance had dipped from a potential 90 straight just because of that. And when you are a person like me who doesn’t care about these petty things (seriously who cares about school?), and especially when you are from a typical Indian/Asian family (South Indian – Brahmin to make it more worse than it already is) it was seriously hell.

For the first time in my life I had ‘failed’ (again I school context) and it hurt the pride and soul of my civilization (or so it seemed) and for the first time in my life I went for one of the only tuition for Marathi near my home/school in the afternoons after school from grade 7-10.  To me it totally didn’t make sense, why Marathi is mandatory but the national language (still doubts in it) Hindi is an option? I’m not at all racist, but why is there a need for me to learn mug-the-shit-up of it? There was clearly no learning in it, which I soon realized prevail till perhaps I’ll graduate now. I can’t say for the rest of the world (completely) but anything attached to the word ‘system’ itself here is completely fucked up. Not even exaggerating slightly.

But coming back to the story here, there was a good side of it too. My tutor Mrs. Prathiba Aunty (as I said earlier in my other post, in school days, female teachers had no last name, either it was ‘mam’ or ‘aunty’ if bit informal as in this case) is a very sweet lady and I still see her once a while as I stay nearby, and almost every year pay a visit to her on her birthday in early February (which is now coming). I also made really good buddies, spent those days hooked on Nintendo, Pokémon, Sonic, Dragonball and countless others. Although seldom to none contact with any of them now, since all have their own lives and I keep forgetting the password of mine, it was not all bad.

And if you are curious, I managed to pass out with a decent 90% (I honestly don’t know how, my genius was never in the books) and leave that crap behind. Well thanks to that, I can understand Marathi, if not read or write properly, is useful as I live here, but not was not necessary at the same time. And my Hindi still sucks.

That was my not-so-really-learning story for this time.