Daily Prompts: My favorite

What’s the most time you’ve ever spent apart from your favorite person? Tell us about it.

My favorite person in my childhood was my Dad, the times I spent apart from him was when I went to school and my Dad went to work. Besides when he came home, he had to rest and I’d wait for him to relax in our front garden where I’d sit on the grass and talked to him about many things, most of the time it used to be questions, which he’d answer sometimes, other times, he’d read his newspaper, which meant, “Ma I’m busy.”

When he passed away, I had more than one person to spend my time with, they were my siblings.

When I moved to another city to pursue my education, and I was living in a residence, I spent time with my classmates. On weekends I visited my uncle in the city, he was a very nice man, he’d ask me about my classmates, who they were, what did their father do for a living. This question confused me, I told him I didn’t know  anything about their father.

He cautioned me about these mysterious friends, who he thought might not be good for me to hang out with. I found the girls friendly, I was happy I got to spend time with them, it helped me to recover from homesickness which troubled me a lot in the beginning.

Now a days my favorite companion is my book, I spend hours reading it. I only stop when it’s time for my prayer, or to feed the felines or eat when it’s lunch time. Sometimes I spend time away from my book when my eyes start to be painful or when I suddenly feel the need to take a nap.

I was relieved when I finished reading, “Atlas Shrugged,” it was a wrong companion I chose. I’ve learned my lesson, now my book companion will be chosen very carefully.

I’m reading one now, Paulo Coelho is the author. I’ve completed reading more than half of the book. I’ll be ready for the next one hopefully tomorrow.

A book I feel is the type of companion I like, I put it aside when I’m tired, I don’t have to do anything to please it, unlike a real person who can be demanding, who expects me to be pleasant all the time, which is not possible for a human being like me.

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Daily Prompt: Fifteen Credits

If you’re in school,are you enjoying your classes? If you’re out of school what do you miss about it–or are you glad those days are over?

I am doing online courses, it’s not the kind of school where we sit in a classroom or see who are other participants in the course we interact with each other by writing on the course blog.

At the end of each course we get a certificate, which states the course we’ve finished. It is enjoyable, we are gaining knowledge, but it’s not a real school, there is no attendance record. As long as we do the lessons and type our answers on the blog we qualify for a certificate.

I am out of the school where we are required to be present week days, do homework and study for exams. Frankly speaking this school I am glad is over.

What I miss about regular school,is the interaction with other students, where we see our friends, talk about different things and in class watch the students sneaking out of the classroom after roll call. Studying hard for final exams, competing with each other. It has its own kind of pleasure.

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Daily Prompts: Move to Tears

Describe the last time you were moved to tears by something beautiful.

I  was moved  to tears,by the  the children I taught. They unconditionally supported me, prejudice was a word never found in their dictionary. They knew they never saw someone like me.

I wore a sari, I had black hair and I spoke another language besides English. My  long black hair,  fascinated them. They’d come to my desk not for help but to know if my hair was real. On several occasions they touched my hair and let their classmates know it felt  real.

It was my first year teaching in that school, there were only two weeks left for Christmas, the kids got busy buying gifts for me. I wasn’t aware that the kids give Christmas presents to their teacher.

Recess time I went to the staff room to spend a few minutes away from my classroom. When the bell rang announcing recess was over, I went back to my classroom, there on my desk were neatly packaged gifts. I went to the staff room to ask one of the teachers,if I was allowed to accept the gifts. “You must” she said, “or else you’d break their heart.”

I went back to my classroom found the kids very quiet, I instantly said, “Thank you children, it is so nice of you to bring gifts for me.”

One of them stood up and asked, “Do you like our gifts, I went with my mom to pick yours?”

The sweetness of his tender voice made me emotional, I was moved to tears. I looked at him and could only say, “so nice of you Jamie, I love all your gifts!”

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Daily Prompt: The Early Years

Write page three of your autobiography.

Six months after my father passed away, we packed our bags and left Rawalpindi and arrived in Dhaka city, capital of Bangladesh. We stayed with my Dad’s youngest brother for a few days.

My eldest brother made arrangements to go by train to my maternal grandpa’s village home. We stayed in grandpa’s home for almost a year.

My brother took several trips to the little town named Comilla in Bangladesh. After months of looking around he found a home which in his estimation, was perfect for us. He bought the house and came back to the village to take us, my mom and the siblings to live in our new home.

It was nothing extraordinary it was a relatively smaller house than the one we lived in Rawalpindi. My mom was happy, we the siblings felt all right, it was a home we had to get used to , that we did in a very short time.

Next thing was to find a school for us to get registered in, my brother located a school which was near our home.It was run by nuns, they offered both English and Bengali medium of instruction.

The school was divided into two sections, one was for students who registered for English medium, the other one was  for Bengali medium students.

My brother told me to take my siblings to school to get registered , the three older ones for English medium and the two younger ones in Bengali medium. Upon questioning my brother’s intentions for  registering the siblings in two different mediums, I was told it was cost effective. I was fourteen then and didn’t quite comprehend what he meant, but did as I was told.

I was yet to know what will happen to me, the school only had up to six grades, I could not register in a lower grade because I was in third standard when we left Rawalpindi, it was equivalent to grade eight. My brother hired a tutor to coach me at home to prepare me for high school exams privately.

The tutor’s whole appearance gave me a very negative attitude, his demeanor, the way he spoke, his English pronunciation, everything was distasteful to me.

After about three days I announced I did not want a tutor, I’ll study by myself. My brother was not convinced he arranged with one of the nuns in the school where my younger siblings were studying to give me private lessons once or twice a week.

The Principal agreed, my attitude towards homework annoyed them, they declared they didn’t have enough time to give me private lessons.

I was glad with my freedom from two tutors I knew were not capable of helping me, and the fees they charged was more than my mom could afford.

Thus began my journey of helping myself to get through the ordeal of preparation for high school exams or face the possibility of ending up married to someone who’d be close to my Dad’s age. It wasn’t a rosy picture for me.

I wrote page three of my autobiography. For now I’ll end here. If anyone is interested I’d be more than glad to continue!

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Writing 101, Day four : serially lost (2)

Six months after my marriage I joined my husband in Montreal. A year later we moved to Gander, Newfoundland.

I was able to get a job in the local school to teach  grade four. This was my first year teaching in a school in North America. I tried to get acquainted with the nine year old boys and girls, I did not have any problems.

The kids were friendly and were not critical of my dress, I was wearing a sari. Later I found out they loved my dress. I wore a different sari every day, one little boy asked: “Miss how many of these do you have?”

I smiled and said nothing. Things were going fine, the kids were co-operative I was having a great time teaching them.

It was on a Friday, one of my kids borrowed two books from the library, she came up to me and said, “Miss see what I have!”

“Why they are cookbooks, what will you do with these, I asked .”

“Tomorrow is Saturday, I will cook breakfast for my family.”

“Really I said you can cook?”

“Yes Miss I cook all the time, she replied .”

I was impressed, smiled and told her she was a  thoughtful girl, I was happy to have her in my class.

On Monday morning I heard two boys racing with each other to give me news of what happened in the week-end.They were breathless, one of them mentioned, “Miss,’D’ is dead!”

I could not believe it, I told them not to repeat it again, “but it’s true, it was on the radio all day, didn’t you hear it?”

Of course I hadn’t turned on the radio, Week-ends I was always busy cooking and baking for the following week.I went to the staff room and asked the other grade four teachers,they all said it was true.

Apparently D’s brother asked her to collect the newspaper money, he was unable to as he planned to watch a movie.

‘D’ was always ready to help out, that evening she collected the money and was on her way home through the woods,  with her dog.

She was stopped by one of her neighbor’s son, he knew she had money, he asked her to give it to him, she refused, he picked up a piece of driftwood and hit her on the head. ‘D’ lay dead for hours, her family was worried, their dog kept barking and running in and out of the house. One of the family members followed him, the dog led him to the forest to the exact spot where D’s body was.

She was laid to rest two days later, I kept thinking about the conversation I had with her.

Please dear bloggers, do you think it’s too long (my day 4,  serial 2)?

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https://sabethville.wordpress.com/2015/04/10/writing-101-da…erially-lost-2/

365 Writing Prompts:

When I think about childhood I must admit they were the best years of my life. I grew up in a large family, Mom was a fabulous cook,Dad was busy with his work. He had a very important 8 to 6 job.

We were very disciplined, school was from 6 to 4. I went to school on the  school bus. I was picked up at 6 in the morning and dropped off at 4 pm. Our teachers were strict there was no room to fool around, tasks had to be completed on time or there was tons of homework, unfinished school work and regular homework.

We had supper as soon as Dad was home. My Dad was a fussy eater, everything Mom cooked had to be perfect or he wouldn’t eat. If any of the ingredients in the food was slightly more he’d call me and tell me to give it my Mom to eat. I was very young ,I never understood the sarcasm, I’d happily take the food to Mom. One such day the meat Mom cooked was not according to my Dad Up to standard.

As usual he instructed me to take it for my Mom , I thought Dad was generous, as soon as I said, “Mom Dad wants you to eat this.”

I felt all hell would break loose, Mom was unimpressed, she yelled something which I did not understand. Once my Mom put too much onion in one of the dishes, Dad called me and said in his sweetest voice, “Ranu ask your Mom if the onion is cheaper these days.”

I knew why he said it, I wasn’t going to ask Mom about the price of onion.

One might wonder why Ranu was doing all this chore, what about the older siblings and the servants. Well none of the siblings or the servants wanted to face Dad when he was in a devilish mood. So Ranu was the one everyone depended on, I wasn’t fond of this duty but like Shakespeare’s character Andrew Aguecheek , it was thrust upon me, I could not complain, I stayed away from Mom’s anger.

As far as music goes we were prohibited from listening to any kind of music, because my Dad thought it would distract us from our studies. He never bought a radio,for this reason.

Once my sister told Dad Ranu can sing quite well, I was summoned by my Dad, when Dad called you had to be there, so I went with a heart beating out of my chest,thinking what was I guilty of.

It turned out he heard I can sing, he was all smiles, “Ranu can you sing a song for me, I will give you money?”

I was very shy singing in front of Dad was unthinkable, besides money was not an attraction, the moment my two older brothers found out I had money, they would make me give it to them. I declined to sing.

I’ve probably presented a very gloomy picture of my childhood, it wasn’t,  nothing could match the wonderful time I had in my early childhood.

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k: https://sabethville.wordpress.com/2015/04/04/365-writing-prompts-2/

365 Writing Prompt: All About You

Explain why you chose your blog’s title and what it means to you.

When I decided to start blogging , I thought the best way to remember my father is to name it, “Sabethville.” My Dad’s name was “Abdus Sabeth.”

He  worked hard to raise us, he loved us and was always interested to give us a  good education.

He once told my mother, the best way to educate a child is  by registering them in a school which gives quality education to the kids. It’s like a building he said the better the foundation, the better it will be for it to withstand the test of time.

We were given the opportunity to study in a school where they had dedicated teachers who cared about our education, even though my father had to pay ten times more in tuition fees compared to the other schools, it did not bother him. I think we the siblings did okay.

https://sabethville.wordpress.com/2015/02/12/365-writing-pr…-all-about-you

 

 

Words of Wisdom–Posted by Ranu

This morning we lost power, I was bored I spent some time reading”The time travelers wife”, I changed the book and took out ‘Atlas Shrugged’ I wasn’t feeling comfortable the house was getting cold. I took out my album and looked at some of our photographs, I quickly got tired of it too.

Then I got hold of a book where I found some words of wisdom, I knew this will keep my mind busy, I read some of them, found them interesting.  I copied them in my book and thought I’ll post them on my blog.

Here they are:

1.People with clenched fist cannot shake hands.  UNKNOWN

2. The scientific theory I like best is that Saturn’s rings are composed of of lost airline luggage. MARK RUSSELL

3. If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.  DEREK BOK

4. Poetry is a way of taking life by the throat.  ROBERT FROST

5. We treat this world of ours as if we had a spare in the trunk.  AL BERNSTEIN

6. It may be that those who do most, dream most.  STEPHEN LEACOCK

7. There is nothing on earth intended for innocent people so horrible as school. G.B. SHAW

8. The trouble with morning is that they come when you’re not awake.  REX STOUT

More later!: https://sabethville.wordpress.com/2015/01/25/words-of-wisdom-posted-by-ranu/

 

Poetry by Edward Dyer Posted by Ranu

I’m posting a poem which was taught to us by my teacher when I  was in school. I thought it was a song because we learned to sing it, to this day it’s one of my favorite poem/song.

https://sabethville.wordpress.com/2015/01/20/poetry-by-edwa…posted-by-ranu/

 

365 Writing Prompts: Blogger with a cause

If your day to day responsibilities were taken care of and you could throw yourself completely behind a cause , what would it be?

If I had a lot of time and did not have any responsibilities, I’d like to devote my time teaching the kids who are generally overlooked in school.

The number of children in a class is getting larger, the kids who are helped at home do better than the ones whose parents work long hours outside home, hence they do not have much time to help their kids with homework.

Then there are kids with single parents, they are sometimes neglected not because the parent looking after does not care, but the said parent is busy working long shifts to provide for their family.

For those kids I’d volunteer my time to help them get ahead in their school work, kids are essentially very smart a little bit of guidance can help them a lot, they won’t think of doing things that are inappropriate.

https://sabethville.wordpress.com/2014/09/02/365-writing-pr…r-with-a-cause