Grey Raincoat with Collars and Pockets

Grey raincoat with collars and pockets is not something to be ashamed of.

But this statement did not make any sense to me then – way back when I was a child of six years. That was my first year of going to school, probably first month. Everything was new experience for me. Back then in my town rare parents were coming to the school to drop their children and take them back home. Children generally used to walk to and from the school. My father had taken me to the school on the first day, dropped me at the school gate and I went in with the usual apprehension and fear a child would have in a new and unfamiliar environment. 

But I did find my class room and thus began my new journey.  I being the eldest child was the first entrant to my school from my nuclear family unlike some of my friends in the neighbourhood who had elder siblings to give them company and help them in the school to be familiar and feel comforted. in the new environment.   Added to this being an introvert in nature I was alone and friendless inside the class for quite some time.

Month of July is part of rainy season in India. Within a fortnight or so of my joining the school it started raining and for me to to cope with that my father bought a raincoat for me. This was for the first time I ever had been exposed to such an attire. It was a below knee length grain raincoat with collar and four pockets. My father helped me to learn how to wear it and I was happy next day carrying it in my school bag. 

And that was the day when it rained and when the school was over it was still raining. I was happy that I can wear my new raincoat and go back home. But I saw most of the students around me had umbrellas and very few had raincoats to wear. Even friends from my neighborhood and their elder siblings did not have raincoats. 

I wore my raincoat and started walking the steps down from the school veranda to the open field towards the school gate. I had walked around 6 to 10 steps and then found myself surrounded by a group of boys,
non from my class who started jeering me for wearing a grey raincoat with collars and pockets despite being a girl. I learnt for the first time in my life from them that girls wear pink raincoats with no collars and no pockets. 

I was surrounded by them and they were not letting me move forward, they were jeering me and the other children including my friends had moved away towards the gate. The crowded ground was gradually becoming empty. I was shocked with the sudden happening, paralysed with fear and felt numb and unable to run away and felt overwhelmed by shame for wearing a grey raincoat with collars and pockets freshly informed and laughed at that it was meant for boys and deeply anguished as to how my father bought that for me and gave me to wear. 

If I remember correctly and objectively now it probably would have lasted for five minutes or so. But it was an inordinately long time of torment for me then. I was rescued from that situation by a departing teacher who noticed it, came there, scolded the boys, dispersed them and guided me to the school gate. I walked back home alone, with a lot of confusion and anguish and pain.

Next day while going to the school it was raining and when my mother told me to wear the raincoat, I refused. I told my parents that I am not wearing the grey raincoat because I will be laughed at by the boys at school for wearing a raincoat meant for boys. My parents tried to reason me out that there is no such thing. The collars will protect my neck and pockets are in fact to keep things, which is added advantage. But recollection of the previous day’s incident sent panic waves in my body and I refused to buzz from my stand. I told my parents that I was indeed heckled the previous day and I want a new raincoat, a pink one meant for girls. 

Not being able to reason out with me, my parents then became stern and chided me for asking a new raincoat. The one I was refusing was brand new, only a day old! It did not make change my decision, I was more helpless, felt even more isolated and more firm on my stand. 

My uncle joined my parents and tried to reason me out. But they all failed and on hindsight now I see that we all failed in making the other side understand. As it was getting late for the school my mother did what generally an exasperated mother can do. She forcibly did put the raincoat on me and buttoned it up and told me to go to school. 

By that time my friends from neighbourhood had left for school. I was to walk alone wearing that grey raincoat with collar and pockets! Something went severely wrong in my head and I felt sick inside. The only thing I could remember was me surrounded by those boys, their jeer and laughter. I felt helpless and frustrated; tears welled up in my eyes. My only question was why my mother does not understand? 

Something again changed in me. Something dried up.  Instead of crying and begging my parents for respite I took up my cause. I had no one on my side and I wanted to feel safe. I stood with the support of the wall of our then dining space and firm on my resolve not to buzz from that spot. 

I opened a new negotiation channel. I told my parents that I will go to school without the raincoat or with an umbrella or even without any rain protection or else I won’t go. No, the negotiation failed. I could not succeed. And even my parents could not succeed. Gradually their voice of reasoning became threatening and they took out their last option – coercion. I was beaten up by my father to make me to go to school. ‘No way’ was my resolve. I could not let go of the paranoia and nobody in my family understood me!

Finally I was forcibly taken out from the house towards the gate and after leaving me outside the gate the gate was closed from inside. Either I was to go to school or as a punishment I was to stand outside the gate. 

By then my neighbours had come to the picture. The Uncles and Aunties tried their bit to convince me to go to school. By then something had become really tight at my gut. I was silent, my jaws tight and my decision firmly made. I was not going to school with the grey raincoat. I knew by now that I was not wearing that grey raincoat ever. 

All the adults were either smiling at my insistence or showing exasperation at my belligerence. But I was hard and concrete now. My feeling of shame and helplessness was getting denser and denser, I could sense it at a distance, but I was not feeling anything. I was no more thinking and feeling. 

Exasperated my parents went inside the house with my punishment declared and gradually all bystanders also dispersed.  

I stood there, infront of the gate of our house, looking down at the ground and feeling complicated emotions and wearing that grey raincoat with collars and pockets. This all started at 6 AM in the morning. My father left for office at 8 AM. I stood there. My uncle left for his college after some time. I stood there, silent and no tears. 

It was around 9.30 AM, another uncle of mine who visited us that day saw me standing me in front of the gate wearing my uniform, holding school bag at my back and the grey raincoat on my shoulder. He asked me why I am standing there. 

I told that Papa had asked me to. He went in, listened out the entire story and then came out, held my hand and told me to come in, assuring me that neither I will be scolded or beaten further. With that show of concern and assurance something again changed in me. Tears gushed out from my choked chest to eyes and wrenching sobbs towards mouth and standing there I begged again that I would not wear that grey raincoat again. My uncle assured me and promised me that nobody will force me to wear that again. 

That raincoat in fact remained packed till two years later when my brother started going to school, wore that and never complained.

P.S. Do you have a story similar to my grey raincoat in your life? What was your ‘grey raincoat with collars and pockets’? Have you come across as a parent any ‘grey raincoat’ in your child’s life? 

One grey raincoat’s blocked energy creates many grey raincoats in life. Much later in life I realised that grey raincoat with collars and pockets is NOT something to be ashamed of rather be proud of. Much later in life I learned to let the blocked energy of pain in me go and let the life flow. 

Share  your story of grey rain coat and let go of the blocked energy in you. Let the Life Flow.