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We had been sent to that school because 5 the question had never come up, and probably
5
my father, among his responsibilities as an never would have come up if Mother’s extraordi-
officer of the civil service, had a tour of duty to nary good health had not broken down. For the
perform in the villages around that steamy little first time in my life, she was not able to continue
provincial town, where he had his headquarters the lessons she had been giving us every morning.
Narrative
at that time. He used to make his shorter inspec- So our Hindi books were put away, the stories
tion tours on horseback, and a week before, in of the Lord Krishna as a little boy were left in
the stale heat of a typically post monsoon day, mid-air, and we were sent to the Anglo-Indian
we had waved goodbye to him and a little pro- school.
cession — an assistant, a secretary, two bearers, That first day at school is still, when I think
and the man to look after the bedding rolls and of it, a remarkable one. At that age, if one’s
luggage. They rode away through our large gar- name is changed, one develops a curious form
den, still bright green from the rains, and we of dual personality. I remember having a cer-
turned back into the twilight of the house and tain detached and disbelieving concern in the
the sound of fans whispering in every room. actions of “Cynthia,” but certainly no respon-
Up to then, my mother had refused to send sibility. Accordingly, I followed the thin, erect
Premila to school in the British-run establish- back of the headmistress down the veranda to
ments of that time, because, she used to say, my classroom feeling, at most, a passing inter-
“you can bury a dog’s tail for seven years and est in what was going to happen to me in this
it still comes out curly, and you can take a strange, new atmosphere of School.
Britisher away from his home for a lifetime and The building was Indian in design, with wide
he still remains insular.” The examinations and verandas opening onto a central courtyard, but
degrees from entirely Indian schools were not, Indian verandas are usually whitewashed, with
in those days, considered valid. In my case, stone floors. These, in the tradition of British

Ian Tyas/Getty Images

This picture was taken in 1969 in Staffordshire, England, many years after the
events that Rau describes in her narrative.
What are some similarities between this image and the narrative in the
ways they each depict the learning process?

142
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Copyright © Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers.
Distributed by Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers.
For review purposes only. Not for redistribution.

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