The story of how i picked up english

One day, (I can’t remember how old I was) I was cruising around our tole on my bicycle. My bhai wasn’t with me, I can’t remember why either. And so I was biking alone and I wasn’t paying attention to the street so much because I was busy enjoying the sight of clouds slowly rising above the Shivapuri hills. It was then when my front tire struck on a big stone. I lost my balance and fell onto my right side.

I was angry at myself because I had just changed into a clean dress that morning and Renu didi was going to be pissed at me for ruining it so soon. We had (and still have) water scarcity in chandol. Let me remind you that this was a time when the roads in chandol weren’t paved and dust blew around abundantly.

So anyway, to continue with my story. I angrily reached out my hand to grab the stone in front of the tire and flung it off into the dusty bushes on the roadside. Lo and behold! As soon as I threw the stone, I noticed a shiny object it had been holding underneath itself. Intrigued and excited, I stood up, propped up my bicycle on its stand (nothing had broken, thankfully) and went to take a closer look at this shiny object.

It was a thin shiny strip that had these letters spelt out: E-N-G-L-I-S-H.

And so that’s the story of how I picked up English, once upon a time, in chandol, ward no. 4, kathmandu, nepal.

Author’s note: This story is based on a real incident. It is her response to the question ‘Where did you pick up your english from?’