Boy meets new language This is supposed to be a narrative about my literacy awareness and how it changed my life.

Im pretty sure you all want me to start talking about the moment when I realized how important literacy is. But before that it is important for everybody to know my background which a foundation for this narrative. I came to the US at the age of two with my parents from India. I could barely speak properly let alone speak English due to my age, but I did speak Gujarati (a regional language in India) since I grew up around people speaking that language. Gujarati is to me what English is to people born in America and so it took a few years to learn English and get the American Accent. Kindergarten helped me improve upon my English and soon I came to speak English like it was second nature. I also moved a lot during my school years and every school would require me to take an ESL session one time so they would know that knew how to speak English. This always frustrated me because the people who tested me knew that I was pretty good in my English classes. The reason I was tested is because I used put down Gujarati as my primary language spoken at home. I know you all must be wondering why I just skimmed through my experiences of learning English. Well, because English was learnt by me when I was a little kid. It is easy to learn a new language when you are little because your surroundings influence you and you grow up listening to the same words. This is the reason that learning English was not my literacy awareness moment because at that time I did not know what literacy was. The language that put me through misery and that took days an night to learn was Hindi. I did not know it then but 2007 was when my life was about to change. The year 2007 was when my path to literacy awareness had begun. It was one of those perfect summer days when the sky is clear and not a cloud could be seen in sight. I was just chilling with my brother playing video games. That is when my parents walked in and started to talk to us about moving to India for a few years. My father further explained that it was a good idea for me and my brother to get to know about our heritage and our cultural roots. I also thought that it would be fun to learn about the country I was born in and know about the different traditions and about the people that live there. So I agreed to it and little did I know how that decision would change my life forever. So we started planning for the journey and me, my brother and my mother started packing our stuff while my father stayed behind to care for his business. I have hundreds of relatives in India as my grandfather (my mothers father) is a very respected man in his village and the other coalition of villages. I vividly remember the day we left the US for India. It was June 16, 2007. By the time we landed after a 20 hour flight with 8 hours of layover we were very exhausted but also glad to be in India. My moms uncle, my uncle and my grandparents had come to receive us at the airport. As I the car headed down the busy streets of Ahmedabad (a city) it felt so surreal to be in the country I was born in. It was also crazy to see the amount of people walking on the streets and clustering the road. I was overwhelmed by how busy the streets were and how it would be possible for a foreigner to cross the road. At that moment I realized that if

people back in America thought that the streets of New York were busy, what would they think about India. We arrived at our house about an hour later and were greeted by a few people and my grandmother had had the house all cleaned the day before by a few workers. She had the fridge stocked with bottled water because apparently the tap water isnt all that pure. After unpacking at our house in the city we went to spend the night at our grandparents in the village. When we arrived at the village home, we treated to a grand welcome by all the neighbors mainly because I and my brother both grew up in that village. I was exposed to a huge cultural change in those two days and they became an important factor into my literacy path. After the shortest summer vacation of my life (10 days, because schools in India start in June), I was all but ready for school. The school that I spent three years, Zen School still to this day holds a really special place in my heart. It was a private school because in India most schools are private schools. 2007 was the first year of Zen School since it was built the year before. Zen had a common curriculum which had things like karate, yoga and swimming all include as your normal classes which was so different that what I was used to. They first day of school was pretty bitter sweet. On the one hand no one knew each other and so it was easy to make friends and there were only 10 students in my class. On the other hand I stuck out like a sore thumb because I was from America and dressed that way and my so called American accent did not help me with communication. By the end of the day I decided to dumb down my English and speak with Indian accent, which I got used to. As the syllabus started to roll out I figured out that I had to learn two languages which I only spoke well but could read or ride. As part of the central board learning system students have to have three languages as part of their course. You have to have English, Hindi (the national language of India) and a regional language (in my case it was Gujarat). I knew I could handle English and Gujarati because they were teaching that from the very beginning. Hindi was the issue as if you studied in India you knew Hindi so they would just continue upon that. I became very nervous. I struggled the first day of official classes. When it was the Hindi period I got so nervous because I thought I would fail this class with a letter F grade. When the teacher came in we all stood up and greeted her. Then we started on introductions in Hindi and the teacher got to know us. During my introduction she asked me how I knew how to speak Hindi so fluently while being raised in the US and why I couldnt read or write Hindi. I took a moment to ponder upon the question and after a self-analysis I realized that the only reason I could speak Hindi is because I watched tons of Hindi language Bollywood movies (and I mean a ton). I would literally watch all Bollywood movies that would release because I was and still am a huge movie buff. My Hindi teacher (Mrs. Hetal Parmar) was surprised to say the least as she probably never thought of meeting a kid from America who could speak Hindi just by watching movies and took pride in that moment.

My class was not a huge fan of our Hindi teacher and neither was I but that all changed in July. Our school policy was that teachers could not tutor the students after school. But my Hindi teacher decided to go against the policy and help me out by giving me and my brother private tutoring sessions after school. On the day of the first tutoring session my mom decided to come drop me off and personally thank the teacher for helping me out. When my mom decided to offer money Mrs.Parmar declined saying she only wants to help me learn and will not take money for sharing knowledge. It was that particular incident which changed my feeling towards this teacher who I did not like. But most importantly I learned about the passion she had for knowledge and literacy that she would give up her personal time just to help me. Till date I consider that day to be the day that I learned about the importance of literacy. After going through a series of mixed emotions I was finally ready to start my conquest against Hindi. The first lesson my teacher taught me was to set a goal which would motivate me to learn Hindi with full dedication. So my goal was to rank first / get the highest grade in my Hindi class. In the beginning, it was hard to get into the whole after school tutoring session vibe. I did not want to go those classes because I felt that I had no time left for fun after school and tutoring got over. Those tutoring session would last 2-3 hours before we could be allowed to go home. Many times I would have thoughts of giving up but my goal kept me going. I was also sure that one day my knowledge of Hindi would help me in the real world and that time did come. I clearly remember, it was in august where it was the end of the monsoon season (rainy season). My mom could not come to drop us off and I had to take the local transit bus to my teachers house. All odds were against me that day; it was raining and there was tons of traffic when I was trying to cross the road which was like playing Frogger (but it was real and you could get seriously injured). I was supposed to take the bus to Royal Plaza. I was thinking that the signs would be in English but I was wrong and all the signs were in Hindi. But thanks to all those tutoring lessons I was able to make out the word Royal and just left it on fate and sat on the bus. The word Plaza was too complex for my skill level. Soon my tutoring session was shortened to 2 days a week. And then one day my teacher came up to me in school and told me that I no longer needed her guidance and I was decent enough to make a good grade. Then came time for the final exam. All my friends helped me out during the days leading up to the exam and my teacher kept me motivated. On the day of the Hindi final exam I felt nervous and had that sinking gut feeling. When I received the exam question paper I felt pretty good. I thought I did really well on the exam and knew the answers to most of the questions. Two weeks later when the report cards went out I found out that I aced the Hindi exam and was number one in the class. I was in India another two years where I improved my Hindi skills and got better. 2010 was when I felt sad about moving back to the US. I had so many cultural experiences and tried to broaden my horizon and learning a new language helped my literacy career improve. My Hindi teacher was someone whom I bonded on a personal level and even today keep in touch with. I would have never known what literacy meant to people had I not

been to India. Mrs. Hetal Parmar was the reason I knew the power of knowledge and literacy. And the fact that someone like her actually worshipped knowledge by not take money to teach Hindi to me was an eye opener. There are still many experiences that I encountered through my literacy path but none like the one in India.