In late autumn in 1993, vandalism rocked a reputed boarding school situated on the outskirts of Kathmandu. Glass panes were shattered, furniture broken. The ones involved were mostly tenth grade students protesting the administration’s decision to expel some of their classmates. Since the academic year was coming to an end, they would not be able to take the imminent School Leaving Certificate (SLC) exams. The expelled students’ academic career and future would be jeopardised, their supporters claimed. But the administration did not budge. The protests lasted for a couple of days and then fizzled out. A leading newspaper carried a small report on the incident. I was a seventh-grade student in that school at the time.

On one of those days – perhaps a day before or after the vandalism – I remember sitting on the red brick steps that led to our dormitory. Tall trees hovered over and along it. The vegetation was lush for most of the year because the school lies in an area in Kathmandu Valley that receives a lot of rain. Thick carpets of grass covered rolling grounds and hillocks. The greenery complemented the red bricks of the stout two-storey dormitories and classroom buildings. The first time I had entered the school in the fourth-grade, I was enchanted by its vast grounds and its beauty. All kinds of adventures beckoned. But a lot had happened since.

That day, while I sat forlornly, groups of students chit-chatted in front of our dormitory, the way they did every day to kill the leisurely hour or two after the day’s classes ended and before the evening study hour began. But the atmosphere was different that evening. It was marked by an unmistakable tension. Tenth-grade seniors from other dormitories had also gathered in front of ours. They seemed to be strategising with each other; there was an air of belligerence. Nervous juniors – some of whom were my friends – were also hanging around. Perhaps they were talking about the whole incident, perhaps not. I wouldn’t know. I was by myself. I was afraid. It felt like everyone was talking about me, looking at me.

“These things happen,” he said. “You have to be bold, okay?” That was his life-lesson: being bold.

I was the reason for those boys’ expulsion. A week or so ago, the housemaster had pulled me out of the evening study hour, taken me to his flat, sat me down and asked questions. “Did so-and-so wake you up in the middle of the night? Did he take you to his cubicle?” Having been caught off guard, I could only nod. The questions kept coming. “Did he fondle your genitals? Did he insert his penis in your anus?”

Sweater season had already started and the temperature dipped dramatically in the mornings and evenings. Inside the housemaster’s flat, a space heater was propped under a table. Perhaps it was the sudden warmth that prompted the tears. I did not completely break down but the tears did interfere with my speech, and I could only nod or respond in monosyllables.

The reality of what had been happening to me for months was suddenly in front of me. I hadn’t mentioned it to anyone before. And now, I had to confront it. It was only after I left the flat as I walked up to the study room that I fully realised the weight of my revelation. The lurking fear of the past few months shaped into terror.

Things moved quickly after that evening – the expulsion was announced, the accused were asked to leave. The news spread throughout the school. On one of the following afternoons, our seventh grade dorm-room was seized with whispers and gossip mixed with questions and confusion. One of the accused who was allowed to stay in school for a few more days was there. His head was covered. Was it a hoody or a woolen cap, I can’t remember clearly, but I remember the fear in his eyes. When he spoke to me, his voice was heavy and slow – “Did you tell? Did you mention my name?”

I don’t remember my reply.

***

What I remember is the days and weeks that followed. I performed poorly in my final examinations. I had not been able to concentrate on my studies and my sleep had been regularly interrupted.

“I must change schools,” I remember thinking while sitting on that red-brick pathway. Only a few more weeks until winter vacation and this will be over. How could I face everyone after what had happened? My friends, seniors, teachers – everyone knew. But I did not know whether my parents knew, and if they did, how much?

One evening during the vacation, I sat huddled in front of a space heater with my brothers, watching TV. Our parents sat right behind us in a sofa. At the beginning of the vacation, I had mentioned something about changing schools to my mother. My father brought it up during the ad break. “These things happen,” he said. “You have to be bold, okay?” That was his life-lesson: being bold. He had been saying that regularly for years, especially on the days he dropped me off at school. “Be bold. Okay?” he would say and plant a kiss on my forehead. Because clearly, I was not. I was shy. I turned red-faced when the teacher called out my name in class. I was not good in sports. I was often teased for being effeminate, for dressing up in girls’ clothes during cultural shows in school. I was not bold.

I assumed that he was making a general reference to bullies in school. So I mumbled a response and the chapter was closed. I was going back to the same school. But I decided to bring about a change in my demeanour. So that winter, I started waking up at five in the morning. I jogged from my home in Purano Baneshwor to the Pashupati area. I bought dumbbells. I threw punches in the air, imagining the faces of bullies. I also started drinking lots of water because I needed to get taller. It was a trick I had heard somewhere. Probably a coincidence, but I did transform physically during the few weeks at home. I had shot up by a few inches, become slightly muscular. On the first day back to school, some friends noticed the change.

A few teachers and most of the students appeared to accuse me. It was my effeminate nature that made me a target, they implied.

I devoted that whole year to studies and excelled in the eighth-grade final examinations. It was an important year; the beginning of SLC exam preparation. After eighth grade, students were tracked more carefully and sectioned off based on their academic performance. I managed to get into Set A – reserved for the most academically inclined – in all three of the important subjects, English, Math and Science.

I started getting popular with girls as well. I also managed to maintain my friendship with a few friends with whom I had been close since joining school in fourth grade. Most of them happened to be voracious readers and we used to have a lot of discussions on books. We met during vacations, invited each other to birthday parties. None of them brought up what had happened at the end of seventh grade. In fact, for the next five years, no one brought it up. What that meant was that every day, I had to put up a facade of normalcy and camaraderie. The overwhelming silence and the accompanied sense of shame prompted me to suppress the memory. But there were reminders everywhere.

I had to think twice before joining a group of friends for a walk around the school or during regular hang-outs, lest anyone bring up the seventh grade incident. When somebody laughed at the other end of a classroom, I felt that they were laughing at me. I dreaded Biology classes because it dealt with living beings. Those chapters often had graphic images of human and animal bodies, with each part labelled. The digestive system starting from the mouth, then the oesophagus, which led to the anus. This was just one of the many things that paralysed me with shame.

***

Years later, in New York, when I serendipitously stumbled into American scholar Brene Brown’s works and lectures on vulnerability and shame I felt as if I had finally found an outlet for my thoughts and memories. I was able to view my past in a completely new light.

In the video titled “Listening to Shame”, Brown quotes Jungian analysts who view shame as the ‘swampland of the soul’: that mushy, dark and dangerous place where nothing grows; where even potent and life-affirming emotions, if planted, are in danger of wilting, of getting crushed. Brown also goes on to explain that shame may be a secret behind many forms of broken behaviour. It is, she explains, highly correlated with addiction, violent behaviour, depression, aggression and even eating disorders. Shame, she continues, grows like bacteria in an atmosphere of secrecy, silence and judgment. What shame needs is empathy.