The Atheist and the Flag Pole

There I was standing in the scorching sun with both my hands tied to the pole ,not any other pole it was the flag pole. I thought I am gonna be hoisted like a flag in the pole along with my friends whom I don’t remember by their name or their faces now! I still don’t remember what was my mistake ,but I was there waiting for the firing squad to bash me along with my co-conspirators. I can’t believe even now ,how I ended up with the pole. Maybe that made me patriotic towards my nation even more! Believe it or not this  happened to me some two decades back when I still don’t know how to talk or write any language in the lower kinder garden at school. I felt like a goat every time I when to school during that time of my life. My parents or my teachers were unable to teach me anything at all ,not their mistake my bad listening skills that I had at that time and my perception towards learning differed with others. I thought everything was drawing and sounds for me not as words or speech coz I valued them equally .no difference I thought. My mother couldn’t make me learn my mother tongue and beyond that I was a born natural leftie at that time, so my writing capacity was very slow ,actually I drew every letter day by day but still I never grasped the idea about speaking. I went to school when I was nearly three years old not a big deal in India. But it was my choice ,I wanted to go to school because every other kids near my home were going ,I had the urge to check what was school like. But soon after getting into the school there was no like or enthusiasm for me. After few months into school I was still at where I’ve started no change or any learning happened for me. Only change I was made to write my letters in the right hand while I stilled played cricket in left hand. Nothing turned out ,within months I was put in a different school. This time on I really hated going to school not cause I couldn’t learn anything or speak anything but because the way the school teachers reasoned out with my mistakes by canes and corporal punishments. Because I couldn’t find a difference between a mirror letters and proper words ,and the realization of "god”. No teacher or god saved me from this tyranny of getting beaten. I don’t even know who god was .or what he was like ,for me I believed what I saw and those who lived along with me nothing else mattered to me. Even now. Looking back there now I wonder is it right for the teachers to trash a kid like that because he couldn’t understand the art of writing in left hand or right hand, he couldn’t differentiate between mirror letter alphabets and proper alphabets and ultimately he didn’t respect god an entity he doesn’t know or identify in that open county where he lived. For me temples were buildings with some drawings and architectural advancements in that rude past and the ticking present now! Because I never prayed to anyone or anything in my life even in distress. I can laugh out loud now about that incident and what made the god believing teachers to tie me up with ropes to the flag pole that sunny afternoon after lunch hours. There I was shouting the famous Hindu chanting you can still hear it now "saamiye aiyappa" not in any temple nearby but in my school toilet along with my two partners in crime, chanting and rising my arm ,circumventing the toilet the way they do in the temple. That was enough for the orthodox school authorities to embrace me with flag pole. Arunprakash LKG anti religious little tyrant they would have thought.Because i dont speak anything,i just stood there  gazing the afternoon sky what was my mistake,why i am i given this flag pole privilage!Here i am after all that cursing the communal environment in this country.Happy that i dont take any decision or weigh people on the basis of their identity in the society.Please dont try to paint your hatred and religious sentiments on kids.With the little ingredient s of do s and donts in their life ,let them be what they are...JUST HUMANS