The year that was

The year that was to be the end,

But, Thank God, December 22^nd came my friend,

The year that London hosted the games,

To many athletes, it brought them fame,

We watched Michael Phelps burn as bright as fire,

And watched his medal count keep getting higher,

As India, we achieved quite a feat,

They made us so proud, our athletes,

The year which was a repeat of before,

When Barack Obama won the elections once more,

The year in which I learnt to love,

 But hold steady in case I was given a shove,

When I realized not everyone was a God-sent,

Some people were enemies, others were friends,

The year I became strong, no longer that weak,

In the debate finals, I could easily speak,

The year after two which gave me a chance,

To open my heart and relearn how to dance,

The year that showed me I knew piano well,

As I slowly conquered Skyfall of Adele,

The year I finally became a teen,

And realized it wasn’t as easy as it seems,

The year I held myself when life would get me to shatter,

But I managed it all, and that’s all that matters,

The year I learnt to take it slow,

And learnt to never let loved ones go,

The year I became my father’s daughter,

In the sports world, I found myself in “water”,

The year I realized my father and mother,

Were the most important and no other,

Could’ve been loved more than my little brother,

The year that put me down but gave me some lifts,

Chances to display all my gifts,

I live, I love, I laugh, I write,

I act so stupid, but I can be bright,

But enough of me, I’ll go on no more,

I don’t want to prove myself a bore,

Just know it was an amazing year,

All great experiences brought me here,

I finally learnt to love myself,

What a year 2012!!!!

Akal Chakraane Laga

In my class, history is never boring. It very easily becomes intertwined with our opinions of how the British treated India. Let’s just say, that it is a good thing the colonial British and we live in different eras, and don’t have to meet each other.

Our first lesson of the second term dealt with English education. The chapter started with an introduction to William Jones, a talented linguist. I instantly felt a spark of familiarity with this man who knew English, French, Greek, Arabian, Persian, and Sanskrit. But the way, the anti-Orientalists criticized the culture and languages of India really angered me. It reminded me of my own tough history with Hindi, a language I’m leaving behind this year.

In 5^th grade, when we moved to India and I got to know that I had to learn Hindi, I didn’t know what to think. I literally only knew ‘doodh’ (milk) and ‘mera naam Priya hain’ (my name is Priya). We started that summer.

I learnt the alphabets within a week, which was good, as I had so much more to learn! I struggled at school. I would draw pictures of fruits next to the Hindi word of it (example – drawing an apple next to ‘seb’) while my classmates read ‘kavitayen’ (poems) which would give me headaches.

In terms of Hindi, my school-changing didn’t help much. The teacher wasn’t all that great in fifth grade. I still made mistakes – I would mess up the gender or the tense or the verb.

People would laugh. That was the worst bit of it all. They would roll their eyes – bringing tears to mine. They still do. They ridicule my language and my accent. But the fact I got this far is due to the tuitions I took in Delhi. Gosh, did that help! They transformed me from a pathetic weakling to a passably good Hindi speaker. I really started picking up and loving the language. Then, we moved to Bangalore. One more year of Hindi as second language, and I realized I couldn’t do it. I simply could not do Hindi as my second language in the 9^th or 10^th.  So I gave it up. It’s now my third language.

My mom still squirms and hisses when I make grammatical mistakes.

My friends still beg me to shut up.

My relatives still laugh.

But I? I’ll keep on learning, yaar! Agle saal se, main Hindi ki pariksha nahi doongi; par ab main Hindi ko behad pasand karti hoon. School me subject samaapth, magar meri zindagi mein uski shuruaath!!

[From next year, I will no longer give the Hindi exam. However, now I’ve really come to like the language. It has ended as a subject in school, but has just gotten started in my life.]