hehe rose sis... one more.. I did know that the school was a bit strict and vegetarian but later I discovered that there were some other things that I did not know. It was almost April and time for me to leave. My family was getting anxious as the time passed by. I was invited everywhere and guess what food they always made for me? CHICKEN? they were all worried that after some time I would not be able to eat meat at all. My shopping started too. There was a list of items that my school had asked to bring. It was pretty good to receive a lot of new things. And finally as days passed by it was April 20, 1997 and I was to leave for my school. Accompanied by my mom and dad, I left for Hisar. Once I reached there I shopped for other necessities such as Bucket, mug, rin soap, shoe polish, pillow and some other basic stuff. I was told that though we did have a ?dhobhi bhaiya? to wash our clothes, it would be better if we did it on our own. I was put in a room with 7 more people. As we got senior we had less room mates, and an eighth grader was expected to share rooms with 7 people. When my mom was about to leave me, she started crying. But I did not shed a tear, just waved goodbye and told her that I would be all right and see her in a month for summer vacations. For the first two days I DID NOT shed a tear. For the first two days? Slowly I started getting accustomed to the hot weather. But I missed my mom! I was 12 and had never washed my own clothes, polished my own shoes or even bought my own text books. And there I was on my own, it was do or die. The schedule was tight. I had to wake up at 5:30, change and go for morning PT and reach the grounds at 6. Come back take a shower, change, tie my hair (make two braids), take my books and go for breakfast at 7:30. Once done with the breakfast room where 1000 girls ate together in pin drop silence, I had to go to school, give attendance and then attend half an hour of assembly. After assembly we had 4 classes, then a 20 minutes break and after four more periods, lunch at 2:30. After lunch we would return to the hostels. We weren?t allowed to go to the hostels during school timing, it would be locked. We then had games period at 4:30 for which we had to change again and be out. At 5:30-7 we had study period for which we had to change again. After that we had to go to our hostels drop our book and report outside the hostels for prayers. After dinner at 7:45-8:30 we were expected to go back to the hostels. The gate would be locked at 9 and we weren?t allowed to leave t he hostel till next morning. So within a month of joining the place I lost 10 kg.. which is about 22 lbs. And within a month I discovered the other horrors of the place. As it was a girls school, guess what problem it had? In one word that describes it best ?lesbians?! Not that they were proper lesbos, but girls liking girls and giving them gifts. Sometime people were even caught kissing each other. No one was allowed to even hold hands or show any kind of physical togetherness. That totally shocked me because I was a very huggable person. We were not allowed to go inside any other hostels either. So people referred to it as jail at times. And each of us had admission numbers and were known by them rather than our names. Some times people joked that instead of admission no. 3541, I was ?kaidi no. 3541.? So when the day finally came for me to go home for summer, I could not wait. I called my mom and told her to make some chicken for me. I was finally realizing the value of home cooked food. So after an exhausting month, off I was for home.. to return to the same place after 50 days. 50 days of freedom. Freedom from the jail where we could not even see the road outside, we were even not allowed to go 10 feet around the main gate or the walls. So with a feeling of exhaustion I took the flight back to home and to freedom!!