These days the mornings begin with a very amusing feeling (No No…this isn’t another ‘way-to-office-rants, so don’t go yet!)..in fact, it is a mixed feeling of amusement + sadness + nostalgia + irritation (yes, I HAVE to be irritated by EVERYTHING).
The reason for the above stated mix of emotions is an inanimate object
a huge yellow colored school bus
and around it…. a caucus of people of ALL types…
women, men, children, fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, grandparents, maids, servants, teachers, students….(even unborn children…in their mother’s wombs, of course…!!)
AND…there are also almost all types of emotions..
happy, sleepy, excited, dazed, angry, flustered, anxious, scared, …and then there are some sad and howling ones, to whom my heart completely goes out!...its like a flash from the past…!
Yes, I was a VERY VERY difficult child to send to school till I was about 10. Errrr, I know….that’s a VERY long time for any kind of parents to deal with. But that’s what I realize NOW (20 years later!) when I see children howling their way to the bus, embarrassing their parents to death.
Hey, hey…just before you start to pity my folks…the whole ‘throw-a-fit-at–the-mention-of-school’ phase was not only because of the teacher/homework/school phobia…it was also because of such frequent changing of cities, cultures, schools, teachers and classmates. Not only it is difficult to adjust to frequent changes, it is also traumatizing to be bullied by children of all ages as I was a scrawny, short, and a meek little thing (none of which I am now…scrawny being the least!)
This brings me to an anecdote of a the times when I dreaded school and anything related to it. Like most children, it was never the trauma of leaving Mom which made me anxious, it mostly had to do with the psycho teachers, math’s classes, strange classmates every 2 years, and shit loads of unfinished homework which thereby caused humiliation that deterred me to get over the school phobia. So much that it was a new excuse everyday or at least a lame try…I would pray for it to work!
Lame tries were – ‘mujhey bukhaar hai’ (which is lame because 'bukhar' can be measured) and the better ones were the sicknesses which are almost impossible to detect such as ‘mummy, pet dukh raha hai’ clutching on to the stomach like it would fall.
I remember, once on the way to school, I howled so loud (of imaginary pain in the stomach) that I scared the poor rickshawalla and he had to pull us all back to my place! Mum gave a nice thrashing that day and I thought,
‘was is it better sitting terrorized in the classroom or being beaten black-and-blue at home?’
So, I changed my strategy from yelping at home to yelping in the school (before the math’s class mostly, as math’s homework was NEVER done ..or would be done in ‘calvin style’ which was when I was applied my 10-year-old brain logic and it was therefore according to me it was absolutely correct!) Sometimes, in school, I would bug the shit out of the school teachers with all the whimpering and they had to call Dad to pick me up from school. He would scold me all the way back to the house…and then mum would completely get on my case. But it dint matter as much as taking ‘ten scales on the hand by the monstrous monitor’. I always hated monitors and thought a devil possesses a child when they become ‘monitors’. hmph! ‘Monsiters’..whatever..! (It was more of a ‘sour grapes’ case if u ask me….quite the same as with MBAs in the present life…kind of!)
And then, one afternoon in one of the numerous torturous St. ‘something’ schools in a small town a small incident happened which changed me…and turned me into what i am now…
I was in class 4 so must have been 8 or 9. Just after the lunch break when the children are scurrying to the classrooms like rats, jumping, pushing…pulling each other… something from the right fell hard on my foot right where the strap of the shoe is (think of the Bata school shoes for girls!) It was a part of the grill that was left carelessly leaning on the side and came down with a jolt on my poor little foot. It was quite forceful and broke the strap of the shoe.
I was more shocked than hurt and stood there for a while to reconcile with what just happened.
Suddenly, from all directions children came running, then the brothers and nuns. Before I could say anything, the giant looking head boy scooped me up in his arms like he would take me to Emergency immediately. I wasn’t really hurt…but of course I wasn’t going to tell them THAT!! I was so enjoying this situation that I almost forgot about the foot. They were not taking me to Emergency but to the medical room in the school and were calling my Dad to pick me up, as it could have been a fracture.
I was told to rest on a hospital’ish bed while I waited for Dad. They applied some iodex’ish thing on the foot and let it be. I think there was a glass of ‘Rasna’ that I got too. And of course, all classes after the ‘recess’ were cancelled! School was never so sweet before and after that!
However, I waited and waited but Dad never came to pick me up. I dozed off after a while. A maid in the school woke me to tell me that my school bus was waiting. And I limped all the way to the bus stand.
Maybe I was too young to feel emotional about it…but I realized, my tantrums do not matter anymore and hold no place in the heart of my beloved parents.
And therefore began the first lesson on ‘survival of the fittest’. The mantra from them on became ‘Do not run away…become one of them.’ Has worked since then…perfectly well!
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