This dusty, little, old bag that I have been preserving for the last 21 years. I opened it today after a very long time:

I know that I have preserved some letters. I was suffering from depression those days. I felt I was a victim and the life was unfair to me. I wrote stories based on real incidents in my school but I named the characters differently. I named myself Surya. I wanted to open the bag. I cleaned it first.

It had a whole bunch of papers from the years 1995 -1998. The first one that popped up was a letter written by Mr. Donald Bayliss and Mrs.Irish Bayliss from Loe, near Plymouth, England. They were very old, in their 90s. They stayed in our school during the late 1997 and 1998. They taught spoken English, pronunciation, English songs etc to us. I liked them very much and we three of us used to talk for hours at the guest house where there were staying. They were concerned about me and my depression. This letter was written after they left for England. I don’t think they would be alive now. They were too old.

My school principal’s name is Mrs. Usha Raman. His sister’s son was my classmate and is my close friend too. His name is Aditya Srivatsan. He also had another close friend called Sathish. Three of us roamed together for a few months in 7th standard. I and Aditya used to write letters for each other just for fun and exchange them. This letter was written by Aditya in 1995:

There was also an English teacher. Her name was Andal. She took English for our class during my 7th std (1995–1996). She also used to write poems and stories in Tamil and give speeches. She liked me very much. After that year, she left the school. When I was in my 8th standard, I used to write letters to her and she used to reply. She lived in Thenthiruperai, which is close to Thiruchendur, Tuticorin and Tirunelveli.

I used to make small notebooks by folding white sheets and inserting pin or something else to make them look like small booklets. I used to take notes of what I learnt outside school and I also used to write my own essays ad stories:

In ninth standard, we were 33 students. I loved all my classmates. So, I wanted to write a novel based on the thirty three students and teachers. I was always Surya in all such stories. No real names were used, including the name of the school. That was just for fun and also to express my feelings. I named it ‘Three Elevens and Tactful Teachers’. I wrote a short screenplay for it but I don’t think I continued after a few chapters.

Many foreigners from the US and the UK visited our school frequently and stayed for a few months. Interactions with them helped us to improve our communication. There was one such person and he was a criminologist. I used to talk to him and he left me his card. But I don’t remember much:

This all happened in a new school that I stepped in during my 7th standard. The first two years were fine and I was very happy. Only during 9th standard, I started getting depressed. I used to scribble in my notebooks like this:

But this was all 20 years before. I wanted to commit suicide those days. I felt that no one loved me. I went through a hard journey after that. But now I am an absolutely blissful, peaceful and content man.

Every human being is a lesson. You can learn many things from his life story. You can read about my present and my past in the following links:

Shanmugam P's answer to Who are you?

hanmugam P's answer to Can anyone tell about their experiences with Jaggi Vasudev aka Sadhguru?