By Anshay Saboo, Class VII A
[Part 1]
Letter from the Author –
Dear Reader
This is the recorded story of Anshay Saboo, transcribed onto paper for you to read. I, the agent, have included all of his recorded comments in this copy. I have used [ ] to mark these comments. But be careful, text in () parenthesis are actually part of the recording – they are not comments. I have also written ‘– reply – ‘to show the time when I am responding to him or pointing out mistakes. I have not included what I was saying to him, for my own sake. There may be many spelling and grammar errors as this is coming from a child. Please do not mind these. I have already corrected the major mistakes.
This is extremely classified and making this copy available to you has been an extreme risk. My client would go nuts if he found out that this was being sent to someone. Please go through it with care. He will surprise you.
Best,
Dan Real
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I don’t think it’s possible to be extremely depressed on the last day of school. Well, apparently I was wrong. As I sat in the backseat of a Super Shuttle, I tried to soak in the last sights of the place I had called home for ten years. I was depressed because we were moving halfway across the world for no apparent reason [Okay, Dan; Maybe it had something to do with business and family]. To make a long story short, we were moving from the US of A to the I-N-D-I-A – from Uncle Sam to Mahatma Gandhi – from America to India.
The news was a bolt from the blue. One day I was walking home from Alderwood Basics Plus School with my buddies, and when I got home, I found out about how we were supposedly moving to Indore, India from Irvine, California. I had the biggest shock a ten-year-old kid could ever have. I had a heart attack and had to be carried off to the hospital where I went into a coma for a week and when I awoke, I needed a brain transplant and had to be brainwashed of the memory of the news. [Be quiet, Dan! I want to make this thing more dramatic!].
Life was great in Irvine, California. I actually LIKED school there. We could wear anything we wanted there [Yes, Dan; That includes tuxedos, swimsuits, pajamas, body blankies, and baby slings; out here we can’t get away with a missing belt.] We had two twenty minute breaks and one forty – minute lunch period. I had plenty of friends and had a lot of fun classes to go to. Also, I’ve been studying American history for six academic years. What was I going to do when we started studying about Jawhairlal Naeru [Okay, Dan; Jawaharlal Nehru; Happy?] I didn’t even know how to speak, read, or write Indian![Fine, Dan; HIindi, not Indian]
Back to the present. On our way to the airport, I tried to absorb all of the last parts of the States. I was about to cry looking out at the skyline of Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). I looked out until it was time to board. Now it was time to go London-Bombay-Indore.
We landed in India around 30 hours after we left. The first thing that came to my mind when I landed in India was –What a place! Indore (the city I landed in) was a city filled with stray animals and dust. There were almost no roadside plants or greenery. Almost all of the roads here were made of dust or stone. Haven’t they heard of tar here?
Adapting to India was harder than expected [Stop snickering Dan; I have HIGH expectations]. The climate was the hardest. The nights are extremely hot in summer. I couldn’t sleep properly for the first month or so. But then I discovered air conditioners and the problem was solved [Shut up, Dan! Some agent you turned out to be! Do you know how much I’m paying you for this? – reply – So what if it’s only a dollar? I can take it away too!]
[Click here to read Part 2]
