To: the East Indian of my stomach.

I was 7 years old in a single-child kind of world. My aunt had left back a number of accumulated things in the house we were now living in, and I passed my time making use of them. Michael Jackson albums, Spanish vocabulary recordings, a thick book of poems called 'A light in the Attic', new sophisticated additions to my Lego set and a double-sided cassette player.

The player fascinated me. I could now record off the radio, off of another cassette and from my own voice. I developed a way of creating my own all-inclusive radio show that played all types of music and had callers with a number of personalities. I was creating these voices and characters and eventually ended up with a full 80min cassette worth of my imaginary radio announcing.

When I had not been occupied by creating my own worlds, I spent time at my neighbours' house, that towered over our flat as though u could see the rest of the world from there. And I did. I began making connections between personalities and musical preferences and how I would associate particular people with particular music. I eventually created a special cassette dedicated to all five members of the household that included classical music, traditional Indian music, modern american pop, dub reggae and alternative rock music.

I cannot imagine what the reaction would have been like when it was played in my absence upstairs in the presence of all. How do people feel to be categorized by a 7 year old. What I do remember is that they loved me as one of their own children and I thank God that they had the patience to answer every single question I had.

They were my introduction to an East Indian world. To eating with my hands, to heavy pepper in everything, to separate bedding for husband and wife, to the old honour of retired policemen, the value of garden herbs and kneading flour every evening for 5am bread. I then spent more of my time there than by any of my Grandparents. Mr. Singh and I spent hours talking.

He used to show me his backyard plants and what they could be used for. He would always ask me questions to make me think about things, I could hardly remember about what now though. I remember wanting to cut a "gate" into the fence so that I wouldn't have to walk all the way around to the track by the river to get to them.

I would always overhear him telling my father "she is a very, very intelligent girl", I never heard that comment from anyone before. Maybe my average performance at school at the time couldn't convince me of things to come. They were my first second family, and there are so many parts of myself that I can find that are attributable to their over-the-fence schooling.