The Early Years

I had a perfectly normal childhood. It had the good, the bad and the worst, probably very little of 'the worst'. Born into a very much normal middle class family in Sri Lanka, I didn't have a shitload of money. Both my parents had to work hard, earnings were less, and they couldn't buy me everything I wanted. But neither did they let me starve. We ate well, dressed okay, and though the toys I had were not the most impressive, they were okay. Simply put, I have nothing much to complain about my childhood.

Both the parents are university graduates and that's all they had. No inherited fortunes. Father was, and still is, a leftie which didn't go really well with the brothers and sisters. So they practically kicked him out of the family and the earliest days of my childhood were spent going from one place to another. One of the earliest recollections of my memories is inside a middle sized, dark, single room apartment (for the lack of a better word) where we lived. But with the little savings they had, my parents managed to build a house and after a few years we were settled.

I was lucky enough to be able to go to a very good college, and had a very good education. Even in school, I was pretty much the normal kid you all see day in and day out. I was good with the studies, was always in the top 10 of the class but not the brightest kid either. Unlike today the competition was very little. My parents were wise enough to not want me to get better grades than the neighbor's kid, so I had a fairly stress-free childhood. I progressed through the years pretty good. 

I made good friends, attended very little tuition classes and played a lot. I was small built, but I always good with any sport I tried my hands on. Cricket was the big thing, as is the case with any child growing up in Sri Lanka. Girls were always a species we tried to impress, and I had my fair share of crushes on a few of them. None of them were serious enough to develop into something that you could even call a relationship.

By the time I was in my Ordinary Level class, on par with the interest of girls was the interest of 'taboo' stuff. Alcohol, Cigarettes and Pot to be more precise. I tried them all. Smoking a cigarette was a risky affair, but it also was cool. Pot was dangerous, and should be handled with extreme care. We didn't have much money for regular booze though, so it was only for special occasions like the Big Match.

So, by all means, those early years of my life were absolutely normal. I was fun loving, outgoing, not-bad-at-studies typical guy you'd find everywhere. And I got through the O/L examination with very impressive grades and was qualified to the A/L class easily. I'll save that chapter of my life for the next post though.