My memories of Tiruchi are a stream of pleasantly vague incidents interspersed with events of stark clarity.
I remember walking to Aruna Nagar to get the bus to school and stopping to catch butterflies on the way. My brother and I used to go to the same school for a very brief period. And I remember him walking too fast for me to keep up with him. But I was too proud to ask him to slow down and I would half run half walk behind him.
After a few years, I went back to studying at my old school – St Joseph's Anglo Indian Girls Higher Secondary school...or convent as it was called then. I loved being back there.
I got my first cycle when I was in the 6th standard and my mother was upset that Visu maama who had gone with me to help choose the cycle had allowed me to buy one that was much too high for me. She later took back her words as my height shot up to 5 ft 7 inches.
I would cycle to school from Kumaran Nagar, past Bishop Heber College and Hostel, studiously ignoring the jeering calls from the boys. The climb up the bridge over Uyyakondaan Vaaykaal would get me out of breath but I would die before I admitted any such thing.
And then we would cross court and then cycle past Campion – another attempt at studiously ignoring the boys who stood outside the school while being acutely conscious of the fact that the July wind could whip my uniform skirt embarrassingly high at any moment if I weren’t careful enough. Half the time I cycled with one hand holding my skirt in place. It’s a wonder I didn’t fall off!
My days were filled with basketball and dance classes and samosas and Maaza (mango drink).
I remember practising basketball in YMCA and my parents coming to watch me. I remember my mother's shock when some guy yelled out my name as we went past Bishop Heber. She looked at me in askance and I shrugged.
My school teachers who loved me and disciplined me and guided me and encouraged me ... what would I have become without them ... or should I say how much worse would I have been without their influence in my school life.
When I look back at those years gone by, I wish I could remember more but then I realise I remember that I was happy and that I had a great childhood...and after all that is all that matters isn’t it?
And now even though I live in the United Kingdom and have been to many parts of the world, in my heart, I am still the same small town girl.
I am from Tiruchi and a part of me will always belong there.
Tamil actress and TV anchor Anu Hasan (born Anuradha Chandrahasan) is currently based in the UK.
