Tongue twister

When I was a child growing up in an orphanage, my English was very very poor. I used to go to Government School, and you tell it and people here will figure it out how poor any ones English would be. Then was the time when we used to start learning English from fourth grade only.

We had one teacher, perhaps American because then we presumed that everybody who speaks English is American, who used to volunteer to teach us English. I could have been on sixth or seven grade then.

Some times he also took us in his rented apartment for refreshment. I think he used to stay near by where is Mikes’s Breakfast is today. But that again is my guess only. Though this area is very close to Bal Mandir, but we hardly used to go outside of the orphanage, so I do not have that good sense of road map.

During the same time one of the officer asked, Radha Pandey, to write on the black board; a task of a tongue twister, tell me a tale about a dog’s tail. He just wanted to see how much we have learned English, and how much of that class is helping us.

We were so thankful that he picked Radha Pandey, because she is the only one among our group, who used to go to St. Mary’s School. She did write all the spelling and words so correctly. I was so stunned how come she knew. For me then knowing all that was one of the biggest achievement of life.