When the flood started:

I was at home, but it wasn’t raining that hard. The rain was all calm and drizzly, just the way I liked it. In my head I was thinking: It is just a simple storm. The rain slowed down, so I went to dance class. Forty minutes into my dance class my mom told my dance teacher her parking lot was flooding. It was normal, for her, since she had a creek nearby. My dance teacher let our class out early so we would all reach home safely. On the way home the streets were crowded. It took my mom and I, two hours to reach home. The scary part was we were about to cross a bridge when it suddenly flooded. There were people crossing the bridge when that happened.
When I got home, my dad was watching the news. There was chaos. A freeway was flooded. There were like ninety cars on that freeway. Luckily, everyone was safe. There was also the roof of a school’s trailer floating on that freeway. It said HOPE on the top.

Sunday:

Water started coming onto our road. All the kids on my street wanted to go play in the water. The water was ankle-height. At 12:00, the water started rising and some houses got flooded. All I knew was that we were trapped in our neighborhood. We couldn’t watch the news since we didn’t have power. At 3:00, my dad realized that we should move evrything upstairs. By 4:00, the water wrapped around my house. We had to evacuate OUR HOUSE. Never did I ever think in my life, that this would happen. I mean I saw this happen to people on the news, but now it struck me because this time it was my turn. Tears fell from my eyes.
We were in my backyard now, lightning and thunder over our heads. We didn’t know where to go. Then we met these two nice people, who let us stay at there house for a few days. They were complete strangers but they shared their food and house with us.

The next week:

We were fixing our house. We tore down our walls, floors, and insulation. Tons of people helped with the work. They brought food and HOPE.

My experience in learning my mother tongue Marathi started when my grandparents came to visit my family in the United States when I was 6 years old. They would speak in Marathi with me, but I would speak in English. I could understand Marathi but they couldn’t understand my “fluent” English. During this same period of time, my mom was trying to get me to speak in Marathi more. One day I woke up and the first thing she told me was “Shubham, if you don’t speak in Marathi with me, Pappa, Aaji, or Aba, then we’re not going to talk to you at all!” I didn’t think she meant it at first so I kept on talking in English. “Hey Pappa! Wanna go for a stroll in the park?” No reply. “Pappa! Did you hear me?” I made eye contact yet I had gotten no reply! Then I remembered what my mom told me that morning. So I asked my dad “Pappa, apan pheraila jai cha ka?” I had gotten the reply I wanted. “Chala! Apan jaoo.” I had gotten the message that day. So I started speaking in Marathi with my parents, my grandparents, aunties and uncles. One day I accidentally called my teacher aiee! Over the years I have learned Marathi more and more and my vocabulary has improved. I have also noticed some many Pros in learning Marathi.

The pros of Marathi are so many I have to break them down into 3 sections, Academic, Career wise, and Social. Lets start with the academic pros. Through learning Marathi I have learned a lot more about my culture and Indian history. How? When my grandparents came to visit they would always tell me stories about Shivaji Maharaj and my dad would tell me stories about how life was in India when he was a kid.  They all would teach me shloks, such as the Gayatri Mantram and Shubham Karoti. They would teach me the meanings of them and they would tell me why we celebrate Diwali, and Holi. All these things helped me a lot, even through my school career. How? In 7^th grade we learn about India’s history, and you guessed it, I passed that class with flying colors! Learning Marathi has also been proven by scientists to improve your IQ.

There are also social outcomes of learning Marathi. MMA (Maharashtra Mandal of Atlanta)  is a social group my parents have joined to bring together the community of Marathi speaking citizens of Atlanta. Through MMA I have met some of my good friends today such as Vikram, Soham, Neil, Tejus and Anay. Marathi also allows me to communicate more. Whenever I go to India, I make friends at the park from playing cricket. Communicating with them isn’t that hard because I know how to speak Marathi. They have told me, as an IBCD (Indian-born-confused-desi), my Marathi is pretty impressive. Career wise, I’m going to use my father as an example since I don’t have a job yet. He has his own company called Niche Consulting Inc. Since he can speak Marathi, some of his employees and clients are from India, and he communicates with them very well. Speaking Marathi can open you up to many new job opportunities and I aspire that someday it will open me up to a great career.

There is only one con of learning Marathi. That is that learning the letters and shapes of the Marathi alphabet is very difficult.  Memorizing all the ways to say the words and all the “swars” is very hard and it takes time to learn. But this is one of those cons that can be fixed, over time these things get easier and easier. With more practice you become a fluent Marathi speaker.

As of right now, I am learning Marathi at Balavihar every Sunday at 10 o’clock in the morning. It’s a great experience because the class is small and learning goes by very quickly. My teacher makes things easy to understand, I am still having some trouble with the letters but overall it helps me a lot. Learning Marathi is a fun experience through my life and as I get older and older I will progress in learning my mother tongue and hopefully be very fluent soon.

घर छोड के आया था, अमेरिका घुमने चाहा था
मुझे क्या पता था, यहा इतना काम पडा था

दोस्त बने है सारे, एक से बढकर एक प्यारे
साथ में बैठके देखते है "फूल बने अंगारे"
होते थे हम सब "एक दुजे के लिये"
सब के बच्चे पैदा हुये जैसे "घर घर फूल खिले"

दो से बन गये चार, सब ने लिया घर जिस में है बेडरूम चार
फिर भी याद आती है, घर का बना हुआ अचार
यहां हम लेते है रोज  बहुत सारे colorful picture
कभी कभी भूला न पाया इंडिया के काले बडे मच्छर
सब लोग पूछते है यहां है क्या कमी
बहुत बार miss करते है daddy और mummy

Ghar chod ke aaya tha, America ghoomne chaahaa tha
Mujhe kya patha tha, yahaa itna kaam pada tha

Dost bane hai saare, ek se badhkar ek pyaare
Saath mein baithke dekhthethe "Phool bane angaare"

Hote the hum sab "EK dooje ke liye"
Sab ke bachche paida hue jaise " Ghar Ghar Phool khile"

Do se ban gaye chaar, sab ne liya ghar jis mein hain bedroom chaar
Phir bhi yaad aati hain, ghar ka banaa hua aachaar

Yahaa hum lete hain roj bahu sare colorful picture
Kabhi kabhi bhulaa na paaye india ke kaale bade machchar

Sub log poochte hain yahaa hai kya kami
Bahut baar miss karte hain daddy aur mummy.

Hide Myself

By: Tanvi

Verse:      Don’t waste your time
                  Telling me I am wrong
                  I know I am right
                   And I can be strong.
                 For you can think
                 And go along with a lie
                  I will survive
Chorus:    Hide myself
                  Do u know how hard it is
                  To be someone else
                 And let everybody hide from it
                 Open your eyes
                 And see my disguise
                 Don’t want to hide myself
Verse:     I’m afraid of what
                You will think in the end
                 I just don’t want you
                To quit being my friend
                I want u there
                I want you to care
                About the real me
Chorus:    Hide myself
                  Do u know how hard it is
                  To be someone else
                 And let everybody hide from it
                 Open your eyes
                 And see my disguise
                 Don’t want to hide myself
Bridge:   I feel uneasy
                I can’t keep a secret
               From you
               You need to know the truth