Unspoken

1994 was a hard year to forget. Yet I do not remember it vividly, as I do my later school life. 1994 to me was the Awakening, that moment in a young child's life in which he suddenly realises he's been alive for the past howeverlong without having an active thought in his head. The later years I remember with much clarity, since my mind had grown steadily since then and become far more efficient at journaling. But sometimes, when I find a quiet moment, 1994 has an endearing way of rushing back to my consciousness, like a retarded dog that's spent all night searching for a bone and is now banging on its master's doorstep at 2 O' clock. Ahh, irrepressible memories.

I was 8, an Indian boy born of two doctors in a small city on the outskirts of a small country. The Emirates was growing rapidly, oil was overpowering commodities all over the world to become the most influential resource in the history of mankind. The horizon, travelling on the deck of the oiltanker Future, was promising and bright and had the hydrocarbonated scent of affluence. Everyone was getting ready to get rich.

Ajman in those days was a quiet little place. It was barely the size of an oasis town, with two main roads and a beach on one end, the crossroads to the western cities. Its claim to fame was alcohol and girls, in that order; if the liquor was not plentiful, the girls weren't worth looking at. The `seven states of the Emirates' was a rather misleading term-they were all medium-sized towns, joined by a straightish narrow highway from Abu Dhabi to the far east upto Ras Al Khaimah at the border of Oman. Barely occupying one percent of the country's surface, and neighbored on all sides by an unending hostile desert. Not exactly my idea of Narnia. But everyone's attention was on the horizon, and it had lured thousands from their green south-eastern homelands to this sweltering Land of Oz. My sires included.

`Get ready, Hasan, it's time for your new school-oh Rani, where are his socks ?' My mother's echo trailed down her down the corridor. I would have covered my head with the pillow, but I knew it would do no good. I took control of my legs and mobilised. The quicker the better. It was a substancial gift, my mother posessed, her voice. She could make a dead ghost scared of crossing the road with four words or less. Her speech was never without that mortal undertone of dread, as if something unspeakable would happen to anyone she was talking to. My young mind reeled with the idea that my socks-my socks!-were missing. How could I ever go to school without them ?

Thankfully, there was nothing like a scalding shower to take bad thoughts away. I burned and I writhed for the customary few seconds, then as my body acclimatised, began to enjoy the boiling water. It was a gift and a curse to us that Rani, our Sri Lankan maid, woke up at the crack of dawn without any reason whatsoever and took two showers in a day. By my waking at 7:30, the heater had been running for a good few hours. In a country where camels need to wear sunscreen before their mothers let them out, that meant for some really hot bathing. Thankfully, I learned that I had the skin and metabolism of a lizard: there was no better way for me to start my day than soak in some scorching heat.

As I dried off with my towel, my maid came rushing through with a white sock in one hand and a green-colored one in the other. The rogue sock was still missing, and my mother poured out her woes in rapid stream. I closed the door to our room and began to dress slowly. My uniform looked quite disorienting, like I had put on someone else's skin. Since kindergarden I had been donning the traditional colors of white and green, used by only my old school and the Union City taxi drivers. The grey pants and checked shirt would take some getting used to. But no matter. I was going to Choiefat. Choiefat!

I stood at the doorsteps of the unimpressively small gates of my new school at 8:15. Ibn Seena had humongous steel doors at the entrance that served no purpose but looked mighty impressive. Choiefat, I had come to learn, was arranged not in high-storeyed buildings reaching to the sky (as I had hoped) but flat long corridors lying parallel to each other, each belonging to a certain form. This was not good news. In our mixed Asian community, Choiefat the Am-erican school was the motherlode of non-academic pursuit. We pictured girls sashaying about in catholic skirts and tied silk shirts, boys playing the latest video games in class all day long and a canteen that distributed chocolate gift baskets from Italy for free. What the heck was I going to tell my jealous friends ?