44 Desperately Lusting in India

Desperately Lusting in India, Pt. 1
a short story written by Sabina England


Rekha in Utsav (1984)

I want to have sex everyday all the time. I don’t ever want to stop for an hour. I want to keep going and going. Everytime I see an attractive man passing by me on the street, I think about what his sexual performance must be like in bed, and then I fantasize how he looks when he’s naked. I then debate silently in my mind if he’s blessed with a naturally big dick or if he’s got a tiny dick that grows large when he’s excited.

I wish I’m not an animal, but I am. If I could be asexual for just a few days, I’d cut off my right arm just to experience that period of serenity and calm. I’m tired of having to feel so turned on by every good-looking man I see outside.

When I arrived in India for the first time this week, it’s been hell and torment. The heat is so unbelievably hot, it makes my sexual drive even worse. In fact, I have discovered why Indians wrote the Kama Sutra. It’s so damn hot here everyday, that they just wanted to have sex with each other and write about it. I want to rip my clothes off and lie on Juhu Beach, naked and letting the sunlight blast on my brown skin, turning it even darker.

I can’t stop feeling horny. Here I am, sitting in the back of a taxi cab and I can’t stop staring at the cab driver. He’s just too beautiful, too exotic that I can’t help myself but stare at him with so much intensity on my face. He caught the way I gazed at him and we both quickly looked away.

“Kusuma, give me that bottle of water.”

My aunt, sweaty in her glittery sari, wiped her forehead with a face towel as I reached over to the floor of the moving vehicle to pick up a bottled water and I tossed it over to Auntie Lakshmi. She took a long gulp of water and then sighed contently. I gazed at her briefly, studying her sweaty face and graying black hair wrapped in a tight bun. She’s a nice auntie and I like her so far. I’ve only just met her for the first time barely two days ago, when she and her husband, Uncle Amit picked me up from the airport. She’s been kind enough to let me stay with her and him at their flat near Worli.

I can’t get enough of Mumbai. It’s been my dream to come here for a long time and finally, here I am. Actually, it’s my first time visiting India. At long last, I get to experience my motherland, while canoodling with good-looking dark Indian gentlemen in the filmi capital all the same while I take photos of historical monuments and fantasize about having sex with a random stranger on Juhu Beach late at night.

India is so beautiful and the men even more so.

“You’re going to love Elephant Island, I know you will,” my aunt said joyfully, wagging her finger as we both looked out the window, absorbing in the sights of tall, glistening towers and skyscrapers of Mumbai, “it’s full of old marvelous statues, you see? We get to ride a ship out in the sea for half hour, then we see the statues.”

Great. I smiled and nodded at Auntie Lakshmi. I was very much excited to see Elephant Island, but at this moment, all I could think about was fucking the cab driver, a Muslim, who’s currently under employment of Auntie Lakshmi and Uncle Amit. When I asked my aunt how long he’s worked for them, she replied, “two years. He’s a good Muslim and a good driver. You know good Muslims never drink. He’s very loyal. We might keep him forever.”

When I first set my eyes on the cab driver as my aunt and uncle escorted me out of Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport and they brought me into the car, I immediately assumed that the good-looking man was my cousin or a family friend. I could feel my vagina flaring up. I knew I wanted to have sex with this man. For a moment, I felt excited… maybe I’d have someone to flirt with during my stay in Mumbai. After asking Uncle Amit who that man was, I was crestfallen when my uncle told me that this man was merely a cab driver. Middle class Indians and rich Indians, my uncle told me, do not mix with the working class or the poor. So that meant I wouldn’t be allowed to speak to him.

But I wanted to know more about this beautiful man, so after we reached Auntie Lakshmi and Uncle Amit’s residence near Worli Beach, I demanded for more information. Was he their regular driver? What was his background? Why do they have a driver when they could drive themselves around?

“In India, everything goes around on wheels,” Uncle Amit explained, “that driver works for me and I work for someone else. That person works for someone else, too. Everyone works for each other. It all goes round.”

My first night in Mumbai, I furiously masturbated and thought of the cab driver fucking me. The next day, my aunt and uncle decided that I was still tired from the jet lag, so they suggested I stayed in for the whole day. From my guest bedroom window, around in the late afternoon or so, I caught a brief glimpse of the cab driver who was strolling through the courtyard. I wanted to yell, “hey!” and show him my breasts.

Upon my 2nd day in Mumbai, Auntie Lakshmi immediately made plans for us to visit Elephant Island, so that meant getting into the car with the beautiful cab driver at the wheel. I made sure to put on some make-up and I wore a tight-hugging shalwar kameez, so that my chest would look enticing under my green cotton dupatta. He would be turned on, or at least I hoped so.

While Auntie Lakshmi slurped ice cold water from the bottle and then looked out the window, I brought my eyes back on the Muslim cab driver. I didn’t know his name, but since he’s a Muslim, I’ll nickname him Saleem or “peace.” He looks like he’s at peace, while keeping his eyes steady on the road and bringing us to the Mumbai harbor.

I stared at the gleaming silver Allah pendant hanging off his black chain, worn around his dark neck. He’s dressed like a typically lower caste Indian man—cotton collared shirt with cotton pants. His face was oval, his nose long and aquiline, his eyes dark and seductive, his long, flowing black hair hanging around his head. He was very beautiful. Why was he working as a cab driver? He should be a model, walking the runways of Mumbai and Hong Kong, dressed in fashionable Asian-designed clothes. With his good looks, he must get hit on a lot by ladies. I bet he must be so good at fucking a woman, kissing her breasts and sucking her tits.

I don’t ever want to get out of the car. I wanted Auntie Lakshmi to get out so I could be alone in this car with Saleem and fuck his brains out. I felt sort of sad when we arrived at the Mumbai harbor, for it meant getting out of the car and being away from this beautiful Muslim man. We saw a lot of people milling around the Gateway of India monument and there were many tiny, colorful, brightly painted boats dotting the blue Arabian sea. It was so hot outside. The sun burned my skin and I felt something turning around in my panties… sexual desire. I so badly wanted to rip my clothes off and jump at Saleem and shove my tongue down his throat.

And I think he knows it. As he stopped the car and opened the door for Auntie Lakshmi, I saw the way he looked at me. That hunger in his eyes. I want you too, he silently told me with his eyes, let’s meet somewhere alone so we can have sex. As Auntie Lakshmi pushed her heavy body out of the car, the handsome cab driver quickly looked away as I gazed at him lustfully.

“Let’s go, Kusuma, let’s go!” Auntie Lakshmi cried, pushing me toward the harbor, “let’s get a boat before we wait too long!” All the boats were manned and operated by Muslims. Each boat had a home-made flag with the Islamic crescent painted on them. We got on a bright blue boat which was christened Raheel Ismail in red paint in English, along with its name painted in both Marathi and Urdu. As I looked behind me, my eyes scanning the car park a few feet away from the Gateway of India, I spotted the cab driver, who was leaning against the car, smoking a cigarette. He was deliberately watching us. I felt turned on, thinking about how he must have been eyeballing me up and down. Did he like my ass? I hope so.

*

I was on top of him, fucking him with all the might and energy I had. He grabbed my round breasts as I moaned and writhed, his erect dick penetrating me. It felt so good. He then bent his face forward and began sucking on my nipples as I ran my fingers through his wild, ruly black hair. “Ohh,” I moaned, “I think I’m about to come…”

And then I woke up. It was just a wet dream, a fantasy. My panties were soaked and my body drenched in sweat. Mumbai just keeps getting hotter as each day passes by. I threw my head back on the pillow and stared at the ceiling fan, which whirled around frantically, pushing little ounce of chilly air toward my face.

Elephant Island was wonderful and I took plenty of photos of the Gateway of India, but I kept thinking of the handsome Muslim cab driver. I’m going to have to figure out a way to corner him and speak with him. I want to fuck him before I leave India for America.

Part Two (the Conclusion) coming soon.

43 Dog's Ass Parfume! Smell like Paris Hilton!

click on the picture to see the whole image. Here's the following text:

"Now you can smell like your dog's ass... just like me!" -Paris Hilton, Socialite, Heiress, and Whore



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My Life as a Deaf Child, Final Chapter

My Life as a Deaf Child
The Final Chapter

St. Louis: No Sign Language Allowed!

We moved to St. Louis and I was enrolled at this private Deaf school. At first, I hated my new school. I was shy around Americans. Everyone knew me as the “Indian girl from England.” Slowly, I began making friends and I started learning a lot of new subjects. We were constantly drilled on English and grammar all the time. We were given speech lessons everyday. We also had lip-reading training sessions. We were not allowed to use sign language. We were only supposed to communicate by speaking, listening, and reading lips. If we were caught using sign language, we were punished by getting detention. The principal, along with the teachers, were insistent that we should only SPEAK and READ LIPS, not sign-- so that we would develop a greater personal growth.

The emphasis on Oral Education at this school really did help me a lot with my personality and social skills, that later toward my tween years, I became more bold, assertive and bossy that eventually I became a bully at this school, pushing around other Deaf children. The teachers loved me and called me "sweet and smart," while behind their backs, I was secretly mean and bossy to other Deaf kids. I used to taunt kids in class if they got a wrong answer. I prided myself on good grades and intelligence. I would sneer and look down at other kids if they didn't know shit about history or if they had bad grammar. In total, intelligence and academics were very important to me. So I would say I was an "academic bully." I hated kids who were stupid and I admired kids who were smart.

Looks can be deceiving... I looked like a sweet angel, but I was a devil. Note the hearing aid in my left ear.
Photo taken in the 1991-92 academic year.

Because I had turned into a smug, assertive child at this Deaf school, I began forming career goals for my future. My dream was to become a cardiothoracic surgeon (someone who does surgery on people's hearts), astronomer/astronaut, and tennis player (don't ask about the last part). At this school, nobody looked down at me for being Deaf or for being smart. In fact, people would respect you if you were a smart Deaf kid. Being at this school, it was the life. I was so happy. I had friends. But I was really mean to a lot of people in my classes and pretty much everyone else in my life. I was always deeply offended if hearing people treated us Deaf kids like we were retarded or that we were the same as mentally retarded people. It really made me angry, because I considered myself to be much superior over those retarded kids. So I used to make a lot of jokes about retarded children and I would mock them, while other kids watched on and they loved it.

I had a few close friends. I became good friends with two white Deaf girls. One of them, Sarah, was Catholic, whose mother had Italian roots, so they had a large family. She wasn't really Deaf, though-- she was more hard of hearing. She was able to speak on phone and she could hear people's voices. She never used sign language, but sometimes she would sign with other kids who were profoundly or severely Deaf, like me. She was very nice, unlike me. We had another friend, Holly, who was considered "white trailer trash," because both her parents were white trash. I remember that even her parents and her younger brother all had mullets. I think Holly was the first "white trailer trash" person I met in the United States.

Sleep-over with Holly and Sarah, 1994. Everyone thought my home-made red nightgown was very strange. My mother had sewn it for me. Everyone else wore baggy shirts...

There was a Mormon girl who later arrived at the Deaf school. I never knew what "Mormons" were and I didn't know they exist. I learned a bit about Mormonism from her. It was when she opened my eyes that there were all kinds of white people with different backgrounds. I had thought that all white people were the same who spoke the same language and had the same culture. Her mother was Dutch from the Netherlands, so sometimes she would bring photos of the Netherlands to show us at school. We were friends, but I was often mean to her.

I used to make fun of her all the time because she was very skeletal skinny, and we all found her physique repulsive. Even though she was my friend, I was still a bully toward her. Many times, I'd tell her how her clothes were ugly and that nobody would want to be her friend. It got so bad to the point that one day, she approached me in the hallway and she said that she's not allowed to speak to me anymore.

"Why not?" I demanded to know, angry.

"My sister says you're a jerk," she replied, "and you always make me feel bad. I don't want to talk to you again if you're going to make fun of me." With that, she walked away, while I seethed, rage brewing inside me. Eventually, she caved in and became my friend again, so naturally, I bullied her some more.

I was also horribly mean toward another white girl named Amber who was, quite frankly, annoying. She would make lame jokes and she thought she was funny, while nobody else thought she was. I told her to shut up and stop bothering everyone with her stupid jokes. I did this to her many times. One day during lunch, I was laughing and walking with two other girls. We walked into an empty classroom and then we suddenly stopped-- there was Amber, her head laid down on the desk, her face streaked with tears. She had been crying.

Stunned, I asked her why she was crying.

"YOU!" she cried and signed to me, "you hurt my feelings. You're always so mean to me, but I never did anything to you."

I felt bad for a while, but then I really didn't care.

I always managed to put on a smile for the teachers and around older people. I knew how to charm them, while I was being the real ME around people my age. I was such a jerk most of the times. I supposed that I was aggressive toward other Deaf students because I was very angry, since I didn't feel belonged around other South Asians or Muslims, while I found my place amongst Deaf students at the Deaf school. Naturally, it made me feel a bit more aggressive and bold. I wanted to make myself loud and be heard. The Deaf school was my place of refuge-- it was where I could be myself and where I could boss around other people, in order to feel like a real person. Because in the real world, OTHER people made me feel inferior. I hated older people-- especially older hearing people--so much, because they always talked down to us Deaf children, like we were stupid and naive. We were NOT stupid or naive. We talked about sex and drugs all the time. Like I wrote earlier, we Deaf children felt angry if adults treated us like we were retards. So I, along with many Deaf kids, we resented retarded children, so we often made fun of them, to show everyone that we were not in the same league as these mentally stunted kids.

Besides being known for being a bully at school, there were many activities that I did with other Deaf students. The school would host "mixers" (parties with soda and refreshments, with chaperones around to supervise us) and we would dress up in nice clothes. There would be music playing, but none of us really cared about music. We just wanted to have fun, socialize, and be normal.

There was a Deaf Jewish boy, Yirmi, in my class-- an orthodox Hasidic Jew, in fact. He also opened my eyes to Judaism. Before him, I never knew that Jewish people existed. He wore a yarmulke and he was quite religious-- he refused to socialize with girls, because he claimed it was against his religion. He would read religious texts (maybe it was the Talmud?) and isolate himself away from us.

I had a crush on Yirmi. Unfortunately, he wasn't interested in me. There was another Deaf Muslim in my school-- an Egyptian with dark brown skin and black hair. His name was Boudi. All the teachers would make jokes that he and I would be a cute couple together because we were Deaf, Muslim, and brown skinned. But I didn't like him in THAT way. I saw Boudi as my brother, since our fathers became friends outside school. My father would invite their family over to our house, and sometimes we'd go over to their house.

I remember the first time my father met Boudi's father. It was this one time when my father came to the school to pick me up at 3:00pm sharp. While waiting in the lobby, my father was surprised to see the Egyptian man at the school.

"Haven't I seen you at the mosque?" my dad politely inquired to Boudi's father, who nodded and replied, "I have a son who goes here." And that was when they discovered that voila!-- they both had Deaf children.

I think my parents were overjoyed to finally meet another Muslim couple with a Deaf child. At last, they didn't feel alone anymore. Boudi and I were able to relate to each other because we did not celebrate Christmas, Easter, or any other "white holidays" that Deaf kids at the school would talk about. This was in the early 1990s-- when the United States was involved in the Persian Gulf War.

One day, Boudi warned me that I should never tell anyone that I'm a Muslim.

"Why?" I asked him. "Everyone is out to get Muslims," he replied, "my dad said so." He suddenly made me aware of who I was, that I was different from other white (deaf) kids at the school. I supposed that I slowly started to form some sort of a social consciousness about being Muslim, Indian, colored, and immigrant.

On September 1994, something phenomenal happened. Heather Whitestone became the first Deaf woman to win the coveted title of Miss America 1995 in the national beauty pageant. It was such an exciting time for everyone. Here, a Deaf woman actually became Miss America, something that we'd thought would never happen. And the best thing of all-- she actually graduated from my school. THIS school that I was currently attending at the time. She was orally trained and taught at my school, so naturally, the principal was rather pleased. She beamed with pride when local TV news came to our school and interviewed her about Heather Whitestone who graduated from this school in 1987.

Everyone marvelled at Ms. Whitestone. She could actually speak and read lips! She was beautiful and charismatic! She was a ballerina who could dance to the beats of music!

Heather Whitestone, crowned as Miss America 1995, on September 1994 in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

And most importantly of all-- she actually wore her hearing aids in public! I was always humiliated and self-conscious of wearing my hearing aids openly in public. My hearing aids were chunky, ugly and hideous. It made me feel like a freak when people, whether they were children or adults, would stare at my hearing aids instead of looking at my face. That was probably a huge factor in making me so angry and alienated from other people. I was stunned and surprised by how Heather Whitestone so carelessly flashed her hearing aids while wearing a beautiful dress with gleaming jewelry. She was confident; I liked that.

Anyway, Ms. Whitestone became an instant household name and an overnight celebrity. All of us Deaf kids, we swooned at Heather Whitestone for her good speaking skills and her manners. Finally, there was a Deaf public figure that we could look up to and admire. I wanted to meet her, hold her hand, talk to her, and ask her questions. I wished she was my sister. We would talk about her everday in class. My mother even bought me this paperback book from the drugstore, which was about 3 dollars.

an inspirational book for Deaf kids, about Miss America 1995, written by Heather Whitestone's mother

Now that I recall that cheap paperback book from many years ago, it was very cheesy and corny, but as a Deaf child in the mid 1990s, I was thrilled and inspired by Miss Whitestone's childhood stories as narrated in the book. There were stories about how Heather struggled with her failing grades at hearing school before her parents decided to put her at my Deaf school and how she overcame her difficulty in communicating with people. Reading her novel greatly encouraged me to dream big and work hard.

The principal even arranged for Heather to meet and greet at our school for one day. She agreed to come-- after all, she did graduate from my school. We were very excited to meet her in person. We all got to take personal photos with her, including me. I remembered how excited and nervous I was to meet her. I had a huge, stupid grin on my face as she put her arm around me and the camera flashbulb went off.

Life at this school was good. I had friends, I had good grades, I had a social life, and I had a place in society. Everything was pretty sweet, until one day, when I turned 13 years old, the principal and some teachers decided that I was "ready" for the real world. They wanted me to graduate from this Deaf school and be enrolled into a mainstream hearing school. They felt that I was DONE with Deaf education and that I should now start studying amongst hearing students. I was terrified yet excited. I was determined to prove myself as an equal amongst hearing people and perhaps make new friends along the way.

Little did I know what a nightmare my life would become after I was tragically torn away from the Deaf school and forced into the real world filled with hostile hearing people. To me, hearing people were foreigners and strangers. I did not understand them and they didn't understand me. I was alienated and outcasted. I was lonely.

I so badly wanted to crawl back into my little, safe, comfortable Deaf world, but it would never happen again.


***If any of you hearing parents have Deaf children and are interested in the school I mentioned on my post, send me a private message and I'll give you the name of the school address and the name of the highly esteemed principal. I strongly recommend this school for Deaf children if you wish to give your child a good education and a shining future.

My Life as a Deaf Child, part 2

MY LIFE AS A DEAF CHILD
Part Two: Shunned in Southport

Southport, Merseyside, England

I was shunned by other Deaf kids at first. In fact, Merseyside was a very all-white area. Everyone at Parkfield School were white-- except me. Nobody wanted to associate with this "filthy Indian." One day, someone told me that they're not allowed to talk to me because their parents didn't like Indians or Blacks. I only managed to make one friend-- an Irish girl named Claire, who had bright red hair and freckles. She was sympathetic to me, because she came from a single parent household. Her mother was single. Everyone else had two parents. So Claire was shunned by other students, too, for being "different."

Lord Street, Southport, England. (note: NOT my photo)

old postcard of Southport

English students would make disparaging, racist remarks about my skin colour and ethnicity. Once, someone was shown a book of photos taken in India. There were photos of mostly poor, lower caste Indian villagers who lived in shacks. The girl asked me if I was from there and I said, "yes." "Eww," she replied to me in sign language, "your country is so ugly, dirty and poor. You Indians are gross." It made me feel ashamed and self-conscious for many years, for being Indian and for being associated with poor, lower caste Indians.

One day, we had Show and Tell day at Parkfield School. Everyone were asked to bring photos of their relatives, so that we could all learn more about each other. My mother gave me two photos of my aunt's wedding in India, which I had attended. My aunt wore a very large nose ring, along with a tikka (head jewelry) and shiny Indian clothes. I thought she was beautiful and glamorous. All the English kids demanded to see my photos and when they saw her nose ring and her face, they made remarks about how ugly my aunt was (because she had very dark skin) and that she looked like a monkey. I almost burst into tears, I was so angry and humiliated. Later in that day, Mrs. Dainsthwaite (who I will discuss later in this post) was very kind to me about the photos and she told me, "your aunt is pretty and I find Indian weddings very interesting," so that made me feel better.

Sometimes white kids were confused that I had brown skin and black hair. One Deaf English boy asked me why didn't I have blonde/brown hair and white skin, like everyone else in school did. I couldn't think of a good answer, so I came up with a story. "We were all born with paintbrushes in our hands," I replied, "my parents decided to paint me brown so I would look like them. And your parents painted you white." Then I leaned in and whispered, "that girl, Christina, was born ugly because nobody wanted her." Christina was another new Deaf (white) student who was very unpopular like me, but she was skeletal skinny, pale, and socially awkward. I hated her and wanted nothing to do with her.

So for the first few months at Parkfield, I was shunned by everyone, until CHRISTINA (that unpopular girl) came along. Everyone gradually accepted ME and they shunned HER. I became friends with everyone in class and nobody made racist remarks to me about my skin color or ethnicity anymore. I was now one of them. Shamefully, I wanted to fit in with others, so I shunned Christina, making fun of her everyday in class.

Parkfield School, Southport, England. 1990.
That was Claire, in the back row, middle, between the two teachers (Jean and Mrs. Dainsthwaite)

Parkfield was a strange, interesting school. It was an all-Deaf school that catered classes to Deaf children, from very small children up to the age of 13 years old (or somewhere along that age range). At this school, for some strange reason, the teachers felt that we Deaf children should be given music lessons. Yes, music lessons for Deaf children. We had a lovely old teacher, Mrs. Dainsthwaite, who would play various classical pieces on the piano. We all had to guess which classical piece she was playing. Everyone else almost always got their guesses right, while I failed miserably. Out of everyone in class, my Deafness was the most severe. I felt embarrassed, ashamed, and angry with myself for not being able to correctly guess which classical piece Mrs. Dainsthwaite was playing.

Sometimes Mrs. Dainsthwaite was such a harsh person. One time, we were having an English reading lesson in another classroom, and we all sat in a circle on the floor. Claire wanted to braid my long black hair, so she sat behind me and started playing with my hair. Mrs. Dainsthwaite became nasty and yelled at Claire to get out of the room. Claire, visibly upset, broke into tears, got up and dashed out of the room. She didn't come back for another hour. After the lesson was over, we all walked back to the classroom, but we saw vomit on the floor. Claire had been so upset, that she barfed. Although the teacher was nice most of the time, there were other moments when I hated her.

Parkfield School's "Field Day," 1989 at Southport's Birkdale School for Hearing Impaired Children in Southport (20 miles away from Liverpool), in Merseyside, England.

There was another incident when our classmate, Joanna, brought a new children's book that her father had brought for her. Joanna, by the way, had a younger sister, Julia, who also happened to be Deaf. I guess Deafness was hereditary in their family-- but their parents were hearing. They lived in a beautiful house by the Irish Sea, and their house happened to be in the shape of a light-house. So anyway, Joanna bought her new book to school to show off to everybody. There were lots of big words and fancy text in the book.

"How can you read this?" we cried at her, "this book is impossible to read!"

Mrs. Dainsthwaite saw that there was a crowd of us gathered around Joanna, so the teacher came through the crowd and snatched the book from Joanna. She flipped through the book, with a great cynical look on her face, and then after she was done browsing through the pages, she shot a nasty glare at Joanna.

"You are a young child," Mrs. Dainsthwaite quivered in a harsh voice, "this book is too hard for you to read. Tell your father next time not to waste his money on these books for you." To make matters even worse, since it was morning and we had to sit in the crowd in the gym to sing God Save the Queen and after our singing was over, Mrs. Dainsthwaite decided to go up on the stage and show off the book to the whole audience of about 130 students.

"This book belongs to Joanna Holmes," the teacher announced, "this book is rubbish, it's impossible to read. None of you are able to read this yet, so I want you all to know that you shouldn't waste your time reading these books. I will contact Joanna's father and tell him to return the book and get his money back. Don't think you're that smart because you're not."

It was such a traumatizing event for Joanna. She cried. I felt terrible for her, although I was glad it wasn't me.

There was one very old man who worked at Parkfield-- a WW1 veteran who had some of his fingers amputated. He was the school gardener, so he worked in the garden at Parkfield School. We all loved him, even though he knew very little sign language. He would take us into the garden and introduce us to slugs, snails, all sorts of flowers, and shrubs. To this day, I am convinced it was this old, kind Englishman who instilled a love of plants inside me.

Even though I was shunned and I suffered racist attacks at first, later to be accepted by everyone, even though Mrs. Dainsthwaite was a horrible woman sometimes, and even though I was accused by one student of stealing her headband, I still have many fond memories of Parkfield School. There was one lovely incident where I accidently bumped into Princess Diana, who looked down kindly at me and asked me what my name was. Nervous, I said nothing. My parents spoke to her. She stood there on the front porch of the school building with us for about five minutes, while everyone stood staring at us, awestruck. I felt important for the mere fact she took time out to talk to ME.

Later, we were transferred to a bigger school, Birkdale School for Hearing Impaired Children, which was a huge, great school with a modern, magnificent style. It was opened after World War Two and the school hosted many Deaf children from all over Great Britain and Ireland, whose parents wanted to give them a proper education. All my classmates from Parkfield and I, stuck together like a pack of small, scared mice, when we would walk in the mean hallways of the school. Older students, as old as 15 and 16, would leer at us like hungry tigers.

Birkdale School, the photo given to me as a farewell gift, in 1991. Here is the large, magnificent school, with a great, lush field sprawling beneath the school.


my school portrait, 1990-91, at Birkdale.

We had a new teacher, Ms. Martin, who was a young, pretty, single, working English woman in her late 20s or early 30s. Before Ms. Martin, I had never met any woman like her. All women I met were either old, married and dowdy, or they were young housewives, like my mother and other South Asian women. I never knew there were single, working women in their 30s who were young and pretty.

Ms. Martin was a nice teacher. She wasn't as motherly or nurturing like Mrs. Dainsthwaite. On the contrary, she treated us formally like we were proper students at a real school. She demanded that we pay attention, fold our arms at our desks, and listen attentively while she spoke. Sometimes she would invite guests over to our classroom, where they'd speak about their jobs or about other countries they have travelled to. There were times it was hard for me to understand her, because she didn't speak as slowly or carefully like other teachers would.

Claire, with her arm around me, on our school field trip to a museum in Liverpool, 1990. Ms. Martin took us to this museum which was devoted to trains and automobiles.

At this school, it was when I began to have a glimpse of social prejudices. Some older Deaf children, who had noble English aristocratic blood in their lineage, were arrogant and smug about their backgrounds. They would brag about being related to a Duchess or Lord somewhere in England. When they'd ask ME about my background, I came up with nothing. We were not English nobles. I was from India, where all my grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles, and all my relatives were at. It made me feel ashamed for being Indian, because sometimes I wished I was white so I could fit in and impress those English students.

I was happy at the school, but my parents were not satisfied with my progress. They felt that the school in Southport did not offer adequate training for me to read, write, speak, and listen. So they decided that we had to go to St. Louis for this school called Central Institute for the Deaf. This school was apparently world-renowned for an excellent Oral Education program that emphasized teaching Deaf children how to speak and read lips. My parents were determined that I be enrolled in that school. I cried and begged my parents not to move us to America. I wanted to stay in England. Please! They wouldn’t listen. I ran toward the dining room and threw myself under the table and cried for hours.

FINAL CHAPTER COMING SOON!! ST. LOUIS: NO SIGN LANGUAGE ALLOWED!

My Life as a Deaf Child, part 1

My Life As a Deaf Child
Part One
written by Sabina England

A little background

I was born in a working class neighborhood called Beeston, in the gritty, industrial city of Leeds in West Yorkshire, England. Leeds was a predominately working class white area. The north of England was notorious for being white, racist and xenophobic. My mother told me that my parents had suffered many racist slurs while living in West Yorkshire. I have been Deaf for my whole life, since I was a little sweet wee lass. Nobody really knows if I was born Deaf or if I was born hearing and then lost my hearing. My mother told me that it was only when I was 2 years old, that they then discovered I was Deaf. Since my parents were from a very different India in the mid 20^th century (when India was still in its Third World mode before the nation became a global superpower), many Indians still held old-fashioned, bigoted discriminatory views toward Deaf people and other people with different disabilities.

Oxford, England. 1983

My parents were terrified and scared about me. They didn't understand why they got a Deaf child. Mum told me later on, that she thought I was a "cursed" child and that Allah punished my parents by bringing me into their lives. I understand-- they were from a very different society than British people. In India, there was barely any education or equality for Deaf people. Deaf people, along with other disabled people, were seen as "cursed" and "retarded." Naturally, my parents were upset, confused, and worried. Mum admitted to me that there were times when she wanted to abandon me, because she and Abu did not want to deal with a Deaf child.

As soon as they found out I was Deaf, they took me to a doctor for advice. The doctor discovered how severe my Deafness was and warned them that I would never be able to talk or have a normal life. Determined to give me a good life, my parents set out to put me in Deaf schools. They wanted me to learn how to read and write, as well holding out for the hope that someday I would be able to communicate with people. We moved around a lot—for my father’s various jobs and for providing ME with a good Deaf education. Because of this, I had grown up all over England and Texas, spending large chunks of my childhood in India as well. And finally, we moved to St. Louis, Missouri for a world renowned Deaf school that was notorious for its excellent oral education program.

The Happy Years

Life at various deaf schools were strange, confusing, exciting, mysterious and most importantly--- the happiest time of my childhood. At some schools, I was unpopular and targeted out by other Deaf children for my skin color. In Northern England, White Deaf kids would make fun of me for being a “dirty Indian.” In Texas, I thought I was Mexican because of other Deaf Mexican children in my school. In St. Louis, I was very popular and I received the best grades out of everyone. It was also that time when I was mean and nasty to everyone—I was a bully.

Fear of White People

In Leeds, there was no Deaf school at that time in the early 1980s, so my parents arranged for me to attend nursery at a hearing school, to be accompanied by two older Deaf White English kids, who were brother and sister (I think they might have been twins). They lavished me with attention, food, and gifts. They would fight each other over who get to eat lunch with me and who get to hold my hand. I felt very important, because they both adored me to bits. I learned sign language from them. At that time, I had a huge fear of White people because of racist incidents I’d experienced in Leeds. Everytime I went out in public with my parents, I would remember hostile white men talking down to my father like he was an invalid cripple, despite the fact my dad held a Ph.D in biochemistry. It made my father so angry, that many years later, he still hates Northern England to this day.

Leeds, 1985.

So the two Deaf White kids were rather nice to me and I felt unafraid of them, despite them being White. Also, my mother would invite them over to our house on Colwyn Road, where we would play in the front yard. Little did we know that many, many years later, our little street, Colwyn Road, would become famous. There was one man who lived on that street, who went on to become one of the notorious London bombers on 7-7-2005, where about 50 people were killed in a terrorist attack.

Later, my father announced that we would be moving to America-- for the first time, because he managed to snag a decent job, which was at an university research lab in Texas.

Galveston, Texas/Houston, Texas

When we lived in Texas, I thought I was Mexican (or the other way around-- that those Mexicans were Indian just like me), because there were other Deaf Chicano students in my class who looked just like me. We had brown skin, black hair, and dark eyes. Their fathers wore cowboy hats, I always wondered why my father didn’t wear one, too. I remember how often I was puzzled as to why Mexican women would not wear sari's or bindi's like my mother used to. I was quite confused why they claimed to have a different culture from mine, when in fact, we looked the same. I saw white people as white. Black people were black. So it only made sense, at that time, I thought all brown people were brown and same as me. I attended two different schools in Galveston and Houston. The one in Galveston was not a Deaf school-- it was a hearing public school with "Special Ed classes" for Deaf children.

It didn't do much for my personal growth, so my parents decided to move us to Houston, where I would be attending Houston School for Deaf Children. There, I've had so many fond memories. I made a best friend named Catherine, who was sickly (I'm not sure why or how, but at that time, she was always ill and would stay home on some days, missing school. One time she was in the hospital), but she was Deaf, like me. There was also another Deaf kid, a boy named Dustin, who had wild blonde curls. Dustin, Catherine, and I had all our classes together. We often fought, played, and learned together. In this school, I became more bold and assertive. I became loud and noisy. I was a happy child, because I was absolutely thrilled to be around other Deaf children who were just like me.

Another Deaf student, Dustin McGee, upset after I made fun of him for giving a wrong answer to Miss Terry. Houston School for Deaf Children, in Houston, Texas, 1988.

Many memories at this school were wonderful. One of my most fondest memories was when the school decided to put on a school-wide performance involving all of us Deaf children, to the delight of surprised parents, the charity board, and trustees. There was music, singing, and dancing involved in the performances. I was selected to do a faux-ballet performance with three other girls. My mother put me in a little white wife-beater tank with a tutu that Mum borrowed from the school. When I went out on the stage to do a faux ballet with other Deaf girls, I was thrilled by the attention and applause. It was one of the best nights of my childhood years.

Night of the faux ballet performance.
Houston School for Deaf Children in Houston, Texas. 1988

We had a very interesting teacher, named Ms. Terry, who only had ONE LEG. We often asked her why she only had one leg. She would smile, throw her head back, laugh, and explain she had an accident, so she had to get an amputation. She always walked around with two crutches. Normally, a woman, with one leg, would have scared most children, but for us Deaf kids, it was normal. We were used to people with disabilities or physical deformities, that it didn't shock us or scare us. I knew how it felt to be stared at by other people (especially rude hearing children) when I would use sign language in public. Ms. Terry was a great teacher, out of all the teachers I had at HSDC for 3 years, Ms. Terry stood out the most for me in my memories.

a speech lesson with Ms. Terry. Houston, Texas, 1988.

Ms. Terry was determined to help us to read lips and to have better oral speech, so she would give us classroom activities that involved a lot of speaking and reading lips. One time, she told us we had to do a fake weather report and pretend to be on TV. So Dustin, Catherine and I made a fake TV camera out of cardboard boxes. We put up a map of Texas on the chalkboard, where we would put up large stickers of sunlight, clouds, raindrops, and lightings. Then each of us had to go in front of the cardboard camera and speak out loud from our fake weather reports. It was so much fun. It helped me learn how to socialize with children (whether Deaf or hearing). The school environment was spontaneous and conductive, instead of confining us to our desks and forcing us to stay quiet and be miserable.

Then my father decided to move us back to England-- this time, to Merseyside, a coastal region located by the Irish Sea. We would be living in a beautiful old English town called Southport, which was only 20 miles away from Liverpool.

MY LIFE AS A DEAF CHILD, PART 2 COMING SOON!
"Shunned in Southport."