One of my earliest memories was struggling with algebra in sixth grade. In elementary school, Illinois state test results always put me in the highest percentile and I had always performed pretty well in school without much effort. I was surprised that I was going to have to start exerting myself and wasn't really sure what to do. I asked my dad for some help with my math homework but he didn't really know what to say. Having grown up idolizing my father as one of the the strongest and most successful people I knew, I was blown away by that. I started to wonder how someone like my dad could be so good at everything he did without knowing algebra.
For whatever reason, after this, my behavior in school had started to worsen and I started to care more about how my peers saw me than anything else relating to my academic or extra-curricular performance. I was really starting to annoy my family and my teachers and I began to get a string of in school suspensions and a variety of other punishments for inappropriate behavior. My parents took me to see a therapist who diagnosed me with ADD/ADHD but I stopped taking the Ritalin because I didn't think it did anything and he proceeded to diagnose and re-diagnose me with a couple other disorders that I don't really remember right now. My parents noticed that I was starting to hang out with people they weren't really keen on and I was getting to be a handful so they decided to send me to a military school in southeastern Wisconsin. I really disliked the rigid atmosphere and, though I was successfully placed into classes far above what I was used to, I decided to just try my best to get out of there. At that point, the easiest way I saw was to tell the warden that I wanted to kill myself. They immediately took me to a local mental hospital and made me stay there until my parents came up to discuss my future with them. My parents came up a couple days later and gave me an ultimatum without even considering what could have been a devastating mental situation. I was either going to stay in Military School or go to school in India. I told them I'd go to school in India just to get out of there but I thought I'd come up with something before school in India started...
Fast-forward a few months, my parents made me miss one of my favorite cousin's wedding and brought me to Bangalore under the guise of going to school there. Unbeknownst to me, they had set me up for inpatient treatment to deal with anger management and whatever else was wrong with me at the prestigious St. John's hospital. Soon after, I was transferred to NIMHANS (the National Institute for Mental Health and Neuroscience) and my dad took a few months off from work and stayed at their inpatient ward with me. After about half a year and realizing that significant changes were not being made regarding their diagnosis or treatment, he started taking me to visit some of the 'best International Schools in the city'. These schools were ridiculously luxurious, with golf courses and servants being standard. But I was being stubborn about not wanting to go to school in India and I threatened to not physically wake up or not actually learn even if they did force me to be in the classroom. Never one for excessive pressure, my dad said okay, went back to America, and left me with my grandfather in Kerala. I started learning to read and write malayalam there much better than I ever had before merely because I was forced to go to mass everyday and used the malayalam liturgies to stay on track. I went on to read the bibles and all the other books they had at home and in the local library but ended up getting bored and annoying my grandpa and my other cousin who had come to stay at his place and study. So I went to Bangalore and stayed with one of my aunts for a few months. During that time I also read a lot of books and watched a bunch of movies but I guess I was growing tired of not being in school. I had a great-uncle from Manimala whose son went to a boarding school in Kerala, he told me that it was a really good school and that he'd bring me there to check it out.
My dad thought this would be the breaking point and flew back over to get me enrolled in that school. Towards the end of the interview, I asked the director of the school and tour guide if they had a swimming pool and he said no - but they were planning on building one in the next couple years. I ended up telling my dad that I didn't wanna go to school there because they didn't have a swimming pool and he ended up going back to America. I'm not sure if it's my inner kuttanadan or what, but for some reason, access to a swimming people was a huge concern of mine and I feel justified in my decision because I noticed that a few years later that school did not end up having a pool constructed and was widely considered to be a money laundering scheme where a lot of the Kerala bourgeoisie sent their children. A few weeks later, one of my dad's relatives who is known for being an authoritarian came over to my mom's family house and said that I am going to school whether I like it or not. He had it with the coddling my dad had allowed me to enjoy and that I will go to the school that his son attended - even though it didn't have a swimming pool. After a great deal of reluctance and even a minor fight, I succumbed to his insistence.
My dad thought this would be the breaking point and flew back over to get me enrolled in that school. Towards the end of the interview, I asked the director of the school and tour guide if they had a swimming pool and he said no - but they were planning on building one in the next couple years. I ended up telling my dad that I didn't wanna go to school there because they didn't have a swimming pool and he ended up going back to America. I'm not sure if it's my inner kuttanadan or what, but for some reason, access to a swimming people was a huge concern of mine and I feel justified in my decision because I noticed that a few years later that school did not end up having a pool constructed and was widely considered to be a money laundering scheme where a lot of the Kerala bourgeoisie sent their children. A few weeks later, one of my dad's relatives who is known for being an authoritarian came over to my mom's family house and said that I am going to school whether I like it or not. He had it with the coddling my dad had allowed me to enjoy and that I will go to the school that his son attended - even though it didn't have a swimming pool. After a great deal of reluctance and even a minor fight, I succumbed to his insistence.
I took the entrance exams and managed to do well in all the subjects except for Hindi and Math, both of which I had not studied for over a year and scored less than 10% in. One of my relatives was the vice principal of the school and on her recommendation, I was placed into 8th grade. Initially I tried my best to get out of school and told some family members and my dad that there were some pretty unethical things happening there and that they needed to get me out if they cared about my future but they didn't budge so I relented. However, I continued to be pretty apathetic about school and try to coast along focusing more on my social image and popularity, which was already enhanced since I was 'the American'. This went on until my aunt who was the Vice Principal pulled me aside one day and said that it was not just my reputation but hers that was on the line and that she didn't want to be seen as someone who lets her relatives get in to the school if they are actually unworthy of admission so I needed to shape up.
I was starting to make minor improvements to try and make it seem like I cared; it wasn't until I had a conversation with my dad that things really started to change for the better. To be honest, I'm not sure if he even remembers this anymore but I can never forget the day that I was on the phone with him in the side window behind the Vidya Jyoti Boarding House Rector's office. I was still on the: 'why do I have to work hard at school and do well in subjects like algebra if I can be successful without it' bandwagon and my dad finally told me something like 'You can't just wake up one day and decide to be successful. The only thing you have control over is the present and if you want to be successful in the future you have to start by changing today'. Those words of his stuck with me. I started to take an active interest in changing my situation. I began waking up eagerly and starting the day with the mass that they asked us to attend and incorporating more of my religious beliefs, which had been pretty latent if that, into my lifestyle. I signed up to get regular help from Hindi and Math tutors and worked really hard at it. I ended up doing so well that I didn't need any extra help with math after 1 year and I got the second best grade in our little state of Kerala (which also happens to be the most literate) for the SSLC (10th grade) Board exams.
I started with focusing on my academics but once I got in a good groove with things, they became a lot easier for me and I was able to start building my friendships and spend more time playing sports. My best friend in boarding school was Philistine Joseph. He was the other American guy and we initially weren't that close because he seemed to think I was lame or something. We never really talked until I started demonstrating myself as a good student and one of the first conversations I remember having with him is that I told him I wanted to be a librarian because I enjoy reading and I thought I'd like to work with books. He said that was the dumbest idea he had ever heard and that if his dad heard that he would lose a lot of respect for me and he'd say that it is a waste of talent.
In this I sometimes wish I'd been more headstrong, I caved on that dream pretty much right after that conversation and decided the best thing for me to do would be to become a doctor. I really started thinking this would be a good idea especially since my mom had always wanted to be a doctor but couldn't afford medical school so I began focusing all my energy in biology and related subjects but I still wanted to go to one of the other schools with swimming pools like those I was looking at right when I got to India.
I found some schools in some parts of India that had swimming pools as well as a ton of new age mantras aimed at recruiting emotionally vulnerable people like me and Jiddu Krishnamurthi who are both people who happen to believe that any kind of change can happen in an individual and then in society as long as they allow their psyche to change as well as some schools in Northern India that bragged about being the place where the Gandhi's were brought up but my local guardian had different plans and he said that if I want to change schools I should go to St. Anthony's Public School in Anakkal and live in a Benedictine Hostel which, at the time, had the highest percentage of students admitted into IIT's, IIM's and the best medical schools in the country and also happened to be in a diocese where his brother in law was the auditor....
My whole life has been an attempt to oppose a rigid structure that I disagree with or become too lazy to adhere to by showing myself and the world that there is another path. Laziness has insidiously crept into my life far too often in the past; I need to be more vigilant about opposing this. In the eyes of most people, my path has not been very strategic and it has seemed like I have been flying by the seat of my pants but only I know the method to my madness, whenever I have one, so I wonder - is it necessary to have a method for everything?
I was starting to make minor improvements to try and make it seem like I cared; it wasn't until I had a conversation with my dad that things really started to change for the better. To be honest, I'm not sure if he even remembers this anymore but I can never forget the day that I was on the phone with him in the side window behind the Vidya Jyoti Boarding House Rector's office. I was still on the: 'why do I have to work hard at school and do well in subjects like algebra if I can be successful without it' bandwagon and my dad finally told me something like 'You can't just wake up one day and decide to be successful. The only thing you have control over is the present and if you want to be successful in the future you have to start by changing today'. Those words of his stuck with me. I started to take an active interest in changing my situation. I began waking up eagerly and starting the day with the mass that they asked us to attend and incorporating more of my religious beliefs, which had been pretty latent if that, into my lifestyle. I signed up to get regular help from Hindi and Math tutors and worked really hard at it. I ended up doing so well that I didn't need any extra help with math after 1 year and I got the second best grade in our little state of Kerala (which also happens to be the most literate) for the SSLC (10th grade) Board exams.
I started with focusing on my academics but once I got in a good groove with things, they became a lot easier for me and I was able to start building my friendships and spend more time playing sports. My best friend in boarding school was Philistine Joseph. He was the other American guy and we initially weren't that close because he seemed to think I was lame or something. We never really talked until I started demonstrating myself as a good student and one of the first conversations I remember having with him is that I told him I wanted to be a librarian because I enjoy reading and I thought I'd like to work with books. He said that was the dumbest idea he had ever heard and that if his dad heard that he would lose a lot of respect for me and he'd say that it is a waste of talent.
In this I sometimes wish I'd been more headstrong, I caved on that dream pretty much right after that conversation and decided the best thing for me to do would be to become a doctor. I really started thinking this would be a good idea especially since my mom had always wanted to be a doctor but couldn't afford medical school so I began focusing all my energy in biology and related subjects but I still wanted to go to one of the other schools with swimming pools like those I was looking at right when I got to India.
I found some schools in some parts of India that had swimming pools as well as a ton of new age mantras aimed at recruiting emotionally vulnerable people like me and Jiddu Krishnamurthi who are both people who happen to believe that any kind of change can happen in an individual and then in society as long as they allow their psyche to change as well as some schools in Northern India that bragged about being the place where the Gandhi's were brought up but my local guardian had different plans and he said that if I want to change schools I should go to St. Anthony's Public School in Anakkal and live in a Benedictine Hostel which, at the time, had the highest percentage of students admitted into IIT's, IIM's and the best medical schools in the country and also happened to be in a diocese where his brother in law was the auditor....
My whole life has been an attempt to oppose a rigid structure that I disagree with or become too lazy to adhere to by showing myself and the world that there is another path. Laziness has insidiously crept into my life far too often in the past; I need to be more vigilant about opposing this. In the eyes of most people, my path has not been very strategic and it has seemed like I have been flying by the seat of my pants but only I know the method to my madness, whenever I have one, so I wonder - is it necessary to have a method for everything?
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