Monday, April 24, 2006

Catch the one lie if you can!

There is so much truth in the saying “what goes around comes around.” I should know!

I have been educated in Lady Irwin Sr. Sec School in Delhi. I was a fairly good student. Though not exactly the teachers pet. Never could be! I was one of those students who could never sit still and was always asking questions. Most days I disrupted the class. My hand was up even before our teacher asked any questions. Punishments were wasted on me!

I did very well in my 10th board. So I was forced to take up Science subjects. I wished I had not done so well! I had wanted to take up humanities but my dad insisted I take up sciences! So here I was studying Physics, Mathematics, Chemistry, Biology and English. I took up painting as an additional subject. I was only interested in my English, Mathematics and Painting classes! (Now I am thankful to my dad though. I am deeply interested in the Physical Sciences!).

To cut a long story short, we had a very boring Physics teacher. He used to talk nonsense and never encouraged any questions in class. Pretty difficult for me. I found a perfect solution.

Right in front of him, I used to take out a romance novel and my lunch box. It was kind of adventure to read a novel and finish my Tiffin in class in front of the teacher. I did not get caught for a few days. He was rather dumb! (I know, not a nice thing to say for a teacher!) When he did see me, I was thrown out of the class. My dad was summoned to school. Poor dad. He couldn’t believe I could do this. All his three sons were angels and his only daughter, this! Needless to say, my dad was angry with me. He stopped talking to me. I was not sorry for what I had done but I did not like my dad going silent on me! Those were very painful days. But he came around eventually. How could he be angry for long with his favorite child?

But did I change? No. I became a backbencher and got on with my novels, food and drawing! But in retrospect I think my teachers let my by.

Now that I am a teacher, it has come a full circle! I have to deal with precocious kids, though not bad as I was. I pray that I never get a student like the way I was…..

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Wrote it for a writing exercise a few months back! Most of it is true apart from a single lie!

4 comments:

Schrodingers cat said...

Its really hard to spot the lie. The obvious one is you not doing brilliantly well in the 10th board. But again, I know I cant expect the obvious from you.

M.

gautami tripathy said...

Keep trying, Manoj! Its not what you say!

Schrodingers cat said...

hmm let's see...Painting in 11th grade? I havent heard that before.

M.

Anonymous said...

I found four lies. The first is obviously 'I found a perfect solution' 'I should know' and 'never could be!' :)

Perfect is subjective and sometimes even unstable. I is ego and it is not us that are knowing as it is the world itself that knows and we are a part of it. Never could be? You have always been? Which contradicts the second statement, but at the same time validates that 'you SHOULD know your true self because the self based on false ego is a lie since it is fixated on the 'I am not a teacher's pet label.'

Actually when you say 'what goes around, comes around' or 'what comes around, goes around'... you pray that you never get a student the way you were... so since you haven't gotten a student (now that you are a teacher yourself) that had the disposition you had in school... then you cannot say there is so much truth in this statement 'what goes around, comes around'... :P

Jeff