Mom and I reached the hostel at 10 AM. There were few small kids (this will happen since I’m big now!!) like me with their parents. I still couldn’t grasp that she is going to let me there all alone.
We were let into a huge hall. It was named as Vivekananda hall. There was an imposing 10 feet by 10 feet painting of Vivekananda on the wall. On right side of Vivekananda there were several cupboards on one side of the hall. The wooden cupboards were numbered and all had latches to lock. As the array of cupboards ended, there started the line of rack. The rack line ran from one end of the hall to another end. The racks were used to keep the trunks. Mom kept the trunk on the rack. Pillow and bed sheet underneath the rack.
There were steel\iron beros on the other end of the hall, where the long rack ended. They were similar to the wooden cupboards, but with single door. 3/4th of the hall was empty, 1/4th of the hall was covered with 2-tier steel cots.
Me, being a short and small kid, they allotted the ground level cupboard. The steel cots were already occupied. It was lunch time. Mom took me to Salem Café, which was a famous hotel at Salem.
I asked her what is this all about and I don’t understand.
She finally revealed the truth.
I started to sob. She tried to console me and said “It’s a good school. You’ll learn many thing.. “blah..blah.. blah..
Nothing went into to my mind.
Afternoon, we did some shopping. She bought a plastic bucket and mug. Evening, we had dinner in some hotel and went back to hostel.
It was like the initial scenes of the film Shutter Island were Daniels and Chuck entering the hospital.
She was about to leave the hostel at 9 PM. I cried and shouted like a mad dog. The entire hostel turned up to see my theatrics on the floor. She left. Radha Krishnan sir, who is in charge of the hall asked me to sleep and said tomorrow morning she’ll be with me.
This was my first night at the Shutter Island.
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