Comments on: Halloween, 1984

By: Carlitos Gillette

Carlitos Gillette — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 20:38:23 +0000

Indra Ghandi’s assasination was in my first year in India. It was all so much to take in. On top of the intensity of being away from anything and anyone I knew having riots going on and having some of the heaviest shit go down outside the school walls. Plus we aeren’t allowed to dress up on holloween for the rest of my India years, and I love me some halloween.

By: indiakids blog

indiakids blog — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 01:59:14 +0000

Thanks for that! So we have a few accounts of police outside the school… I don’t remember that at all. I do remember keeping our shoes and sweaters by our beds. I don’t remember fires, or any of that. geez, that is a vivid memory you have! email me!

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 04:34:00 +0000

I was at the girls school in Missouri that night. The adults came into the dorms and got us all out of bed. We were instructed to sit on the benches in the cold hall and pray. I don’t recall being told what to pray *for* exactly, but it was apparent that the adults were scared which was not reassuring to a 7 year old. We could see fires in the hills below the school – more populated areas, I guess. We saw the tops of guns over the walls surrounding the school, but nobody told us whether they were there to kill us or protect us. (Turns out they were there to protect us, which would have been nice to know at the time, eh?) I learned later in a letter that my sister was born in the US that night. I would meet her when I returned home a year later.

By: indiakids blog

indiakids blog — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 20:15:15 +0000

Heavy stuff… but I can’t remember it at all. It was all so confusing. I’d like to know more details if anybody wants to share.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 20:13:04 +0000

Hey, it's M. I'm cracking up!! I totally remember thinking about it like the Sound of Music too. So funny! I had no idea anybody else thought of it that way too. You might recall that we saw that movie every weekend for at least 2 or 3 years, being one of about 5 other we could rent at that time (Mary Poppins, One Crazy Summer, Flash Dance and Footloose come to mind.

Do you guys remember the Indian Army being posted outside the school after the riots in town when the bank was torched?

Does anybody remember the parents of Indian Sikh students--who we were in school with--being murdered on buses and in riots during that time?

By the way, thanks for posting the pictures. I don't have a single photo of my life before the age of 18. I'd love to see more of us.

Also, I'm still haunted by the mass poisoning of our dogs that happened that year that the photo with YB was taken. And also the monkey that was haning by noose from a tree at some house we went to have a picnic at. It was all at that time.

By: indiakids blog

indiakids blog — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 18:26:37 +0000

That’s right – I remember actually hoping that we’d be evacuated so we could go home early. I imagined it would be just like “The Sound of Music”.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 18:21:10 +0000

I'd like to add to that, if you also recall in the years following Indira Gandhi's assassination, there was alot of talk of "Escape plans" at the schools (GNFC and GRD).
Plans on how to get us all out of the country as quickly and as quietly as possible if things became more volitile on the political front.
I remember joking about that and laughing saying how fun that would be. Of course not realizing the real danger that we were in.
It's far more scary to think about it now, because the truth is is that we did not have the real survival skills, nor did the adults in charge of us have the skills or the wherewhithal to have successfully gotten us to safety if something had actually happened to us.
We were little kids, not members of a trained militia for pete's sake. Thank god nothing ever did happen during that time of unrest in India, because it would have been disastorous.