On Being Lost

On being lost

I have been lost twice; the second time was in Bombay and on my first day at school.

My mother was to come to school at the lunch break and was probably a few minutes late, I decided that I would go home for lunch. I was quite confident of reaching home since school was not too far from home. Incidentally I had been allowed to choose my school and I choose this school l because of its façade being much more impressive than the other schools shown to me. I guess the fact of it being near home swayed my father into accepting my choice though I feel that he may have accepted my choice anyway having given me the choice in the first place. We were new in Bombay having moved there from Conoor near Ooty my father having changed jobs.

I lost my way after having left school, I remember slight details such as asking taxis to take me home, I finally managed to find myself back home late in the evening, much to the relief of my parents who had been franticly trying to locate me.

The only consequence of this misadventure was that I was watched very carefully by the teachers at school and by a peon called Lala. (All the peons were in fact called Lala, I realized that they resented it much later, but this was the original Lala) He was a Tamilian like me and after that day decided to be my special protector.

I have started with the second incident rather than the first because I am somewhat ashamed of the first.

I must have been three or four I am not sure. I was in Tuticorin where I had been born. I was with my grandfather or rather grandparents; my father was in the USA, my mother and I were with my grandparents. I had gone to play with my cousins at a sand pit near home. Busy building a sand castle I was some how left behind; I presume that they believed I could gat back home. However it turned dark and instead of heading home I followed some other children and I landed up in a slum.

I have a faint memory that the people there were not too pleased that I had landed up there, probably, I now believe, they were concerned about accusations of kidnapping etc. after quite some time a boy lame with polio who walked on his knees decided to take me home.

He led me from the slum to the street where we lived. Now this is what I feel uneasy about. He wished to see me home but I did not want him to come I have a vague recollection that I did not want to be seen with him. So I assured him that I could reach home from there and came home alone, I however did acknowledge his help at home and announced that a lame boy had led me home.

I am not clear as to the source of my prejudice, was it the fact of his lameness or the fact that belonged to an underclass, but I have always had this niggling feeling that I had been unjust.