Environment and company is a huge factor for personal development!

I am at this moment not concerned to prove any thesis, but merely to recall the memories of my childhood friend who once as a small girl I knew, was bursting with happiness, how changed into such a miserable and sad girl.

Long time back when I was in standard three, I had a very close friend .Her name was Sumona. She was very witty, jolly and talkative kind of person. How was I back then, I actually don’t remember now. She was from a good family. Our school was a convent school and was only till standard fourth. We were together till the middle of standard three. Then suddenly I do not know what happened, every one started changing their school. Boys went to St.Xaviers and Girls went to Loreto convent, the two famous convent schools of our city. Sumona could not make it to any convent school, instead she went to a government school which was Hindi medium and also she had to skip 3 classes. Therefore she was admitted to class six.

After that sudden transition started to appear in her personality. Since I was very close to her, we kept in touch with a deep affection for each other. I have never seen any one in life going through so much change in his/her life. She was completely different. She would open her heart to me, and listening to her story was heart breaking. From a witty, jolly girl she changed into a serious, quite and so discontent person. Although the change didn’t happen overnight, I also got used to her change in nature.

The first day when she came back from her school, she was very depressed and befuddled. I can not fathom a small girl so much depressed and sad and miserable as I saw her on that day. Later that became her normal routine and look. I remember one day, she came crying from her school. By then she had become so introvert and quite that she would not tell her problem to any one. We were talking to each other and she said that she saw “laxmi” in the school studying in standard six. I was shocked to hear this. Do you know why?

Because “laxmi” was a tribal girl living in our neighborhood that used to work as a maid in peoples houses. I saw my friend so hopeless, after that she never recovered again As if seeing “Laxmi” in her school was the death of her self confidence. At that very moment she became sure that in a school where “Laxmi” studies, how she can become some thing great. She took it as a figurative assessment, but was never able to come out of that shock. Even though Sumona was able to speak fluent English, but according to the school syllabus she was taught “Ram goes, he is his father, and this is an apple” like common English sentences. Being a Hindi medium school the standards were very poor. Kids at that age learn and forget things very easily. Sumona’s standard started deteriorating, and her self confidence got even worse as years passed by. She had to study a new subject like Sanskrit .All the subjects was taught in Hindi like math, science, history, geography.

Because of the change in the environment and course pattern, she knew that she won’t be able to cope up if she doesn’t work hard. Sumona was very competitive. And few days after joining that school she started studying like a pig. A girl who was so lively, phenomenally full of life and energy became a pillar of shock.

Both of us were of the same age, so I could understand and feel that she is no more that old cheerful Sumona, I knew that she was very sad for some thing, but I had no insight of what was going on in her heart. She gradually became mature and aloof from every one. I am glad that we never lost touch from each other, and are still very good friends.

Circumstances and surrounding can bring so much change in people’s life. My friend’s story has always been very intriguing fact for me.