Quips from the classroom

One of the most challenging things that I have done for myself is taking up a job in a school and re-entering classrooms (it lists among places I passionately hate, like changing rooms, aquariums, Uttam Nagar bus terminal etc etc). I learn, unlearn simultaneously in a world which is so far away from my comfort zone.

Mass Comm schools should make their students work with adolescent students. It just changes your perspective on communication. They will carry impressions for a lifetime, I promise you.

I haven't known if I am good/bad at what I do. All I know is, I am a very different person than what I was, say, a year ago. I work with teachers who are exhausted at the end of a teaching day, yet passionate about their job. I work with students, who nonchalantly possess sacred powers to either make me feel like tearing my hair apart/ feel warm and fuzzy inside everyday. Either way, it depends on their mood, really. 

And then there are those who drag me to the lighter side of life. I am listing a few here:

Miss, I am going to give you gift

Aww...that's sweet H. But no, you shouldn't. Just focus on your work.

No, I bring you gift. You open. It have snake. It bite you, you dead, I happy that no one scold me now. (He wasn't laughing, trust me)

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Two kids were fighting and one of them was crying

What happened, you two? What is this all about?

Miss, he said bad word to me. He called me a geeerrrlll..

A what?

Geerrl, Miss..You. He called me you.(And he cried more)

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The class was instructed to write a letter, imagining themselves to be a character from the play that they were reading. The character has met with an accident and he is writing a letter to his girlfriend, hoping nothing has changed between them because of the accident and resulting change in his appearance. While most of the students wrote emotional and moving letters, a reluctant writer composed something like this.

Dear love,

What kind of girlfriend are you? You can't even visit me in the hospital when I am sick? Get lost then. Go back to your f***tard life and dont come back

Always awesome,

Me.

(That, my friend, is called a closure)

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A group of students were discussing food habits and cuisines. They discovered, much to their shock, that I m a vegetarian. One of them looks at me sympathetically and says "Miss, life very hard for vegetarians. I am so sorry for your loss"

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On a day when I was almost tearing my hair apart, a student comes to me and imparts wisdom

"Miss, why you so angry? My mom says girls happy when they have babies. Have baby. It make you happy then you don't put on report"

(I didn't open my mouth the whole day)

Needless to say, I accept defeated.

Parents and a KG fancy dress competition

I have always been bad at noticing little mundane events that, I admit, supply amusing content for fresh posts here everyday. Let us just say I helplessly underestimate their entertainment value and quite take them for granted. However, this poor appreciation of humour and insanity around seems to be just one of those countless things that received a jolt when I left my city and relocated to a non-descript emirate in the U.A.E.

I have had my share of travelling but never really lived anywhere except the city that I call my home- Dilli. Pretty much took most activities around me as universal in nature. Now each day gives me something new to think about and if I am lucky, articulate too. While there are some things that I find amusing and even breath-taking here in Ras al Khaimah, the rest are not so different than what I saw back home.  

The other day, my 5-year-old neighbour asked quite shyly if I could come to see his performance at the school fancy dress competition. His mother P is probably the only friend I have here and though we have not decided upon a language that commands mutual fluency, we talk a lot. I haven't really got a chance to interact with anyone outside my building because I don't know anyone. So, I decide that it would be a good idea to go to his school, meet some people and get a feel of the place. Who knows, I may have to stay here for pretty long.

On the appointed day, I reached the school with P, A and his sister B well ahead of the scheduled time for performance. We found a nice seating space at the backstage and since A's costume did not require too much time or fuss, we decided to watch on till his turn came.

So here was a motley crowd of kids with their parents, grandparents, siblings, nannies and teachers at the back stage and I was reminded of my own disastrous acts in school competitions when I didn't even understand the concept of make-up. I can successfully apply Kajal and lipgloss now.

My parents, who had then concluded that they would be too embarrassed to watch me behave like those this-is-cute-take-it-or-leave-it kids in advertisements and still bag prizes from bored housewives-turned-teachers, excused themselves from such performances. However, they never made any efforts to discourage me from taking part in these competitions or dampen my enthusiasm before my performance. Can't judge them. They were just regular parents who were putting up with an hyper-active Aries daughter and believed that her academic scores were enough to vex them.

The conclusion being I was the only one who would be super-excited for events as trivial as fancy dress competitions. My parents had the capacity for thought and reason to a high degree and limited their involvement in such affairs, leaving the learning part to me.

Enough of flashback now, cut to 2011 and some role reversal providing cheap amusement to yours truly. What I see before me at the backstageis an assortment of well-dressed young parents who spare no efforts (physical and mental) to push their kids to heights unfathomable.

Sample this:

A 4-year-old dressed up like Swami Vivekananda is parroting something that goes "Human beings are the manifestation of the divinity etc etc etc" under the stern gaze of his over-anxious  parents. Later, he stood on a chair (Maybe you could tell me the reason for it) and mouthed these lines without caring for some punctuation or pause (I don't blame him) while his parents were instructing the support staff at the stage to not bring down the curtains till he made his epic speech at the peak of his voice.

Then there was this cheerful woman with a friendly smile seated next to me. She really seemed more relaxed than others till her son - an LKG student costumed as mobile phone (and quite an adorable one, if you ask me) - failed to narrate the essay on utility of mobile phone as she had taught him.

All hell seemed to have broke loose and she looked as if she was facing betrayal, dishonour, shame and failure (all together) due to that single speech-forgetting act of her son, who in all probabilities must have been searching for his mother's face in the crowd.

Huh? Why the hell did he not say anything, she cried in disbelief.


Oh, was that kid your son?


Yeah, but that STUPID STUPID boy. Why didn't he say anything? That IDIOT he is.


Ummm..okay...I thought he was quite adorable. He is okay. Was he supposed to say something as well?


Ohh, yeah yeah yeah. I had taught him so much. He had to say - "I am a mobile phone. You need me all the time. I help you stay connected to your near and dear ones and am always with you wherever you go...(the recitation part was quite long and this lady even delivered it in a rhythmic tone best suited ONLY to a 3-year-old).....He was saying this all right before the performance. God knows why he didn't say it. Wait till I go and get him for this.


She stormed out of the seat rows towards the backstage. That moment, my heart went out to the kid. I am sorry for him.

It was clear that the stage wings were choked with parents carefully guarding their small manifestations of divinities from being trampled by other participants (and their parents) or worse, ignored by the teacher while calling them out to the stage. Talk of overwhelming support and supportive parents.

I mean seriously, what were you thinking, boss? You kid would mention this gratefully in an interview with the Time magazine when he goes on to win many more fancy dress competitions in the later part of his life? Ever heard Kamal Hassan linking his parents to performance in Dasavatharam and such disasterous movies?

What is the point in losing collective shit and being so pushy about something as useless as a fancy dress competition? Look at the kid carefully. It is scared and even jittery while facing a packed auditorium. Instead of teaching him to enjoy what he is doing or taking it lightly, you are making him mouth unpronounceable stuff. Have mercy on the poor kid, people!

The Husband returned from a 5-day trip to India at midnight that day.

"So how was that fancy dress competition? Anything friendly?"

"Whenever we have our kids Ash, we will never be overbearing or pushy on them"

"I get it. Say no more. Not at least now."