A sweet recap…
For a long time I was thinking of writing my own story and here I pen down one…
It was a bright sunny day, completely drenched in sweat I rushed to the school with my BIG Hercules cycle. It was time for the morning prayers and the watchman uncle was about to close the school gate. When he saw me he ceased from closing the gates and with great concern said "Pappa even today you have come late… but that’s ok please go slow…" (For the sake of non-Tamils Pappa means “Baby” J, he always calls me so, though the fact is that I was twice his sizeJ)
Then I entered the narrow gates, parked my cycle and rushed to the long “queue” that starts from my class and goes to the main playground where morning prayers take place. I was the tallest among my class girls and so had no problem in adding to the queue at the last. But yes there was one more person in my class, the tallest+1J, my close friend “Jenny”. She always used to wait for me when all the other girls would march towards the playground. Most often there will be a five feet gap between Jenny and the girl in front of herJ so that I can join in at the last moment. I know Jenny only a year before since when I joined this new school of mine to do my XIth and XIIth stds. We became real good friends since then.
The prayer ended and we walked back to the class, XII std ‘B’ section. It was the day when the first unit tests results were about to be circulated. And as always we were terribly worried, not because of the punishment that we would get for bad scores but for the advice that the teachers would shower on usJ. At first the language teachers gave their papers and the tension in the class kept reducing. Now there came our Physics Mam, she was a very strict and a sensible person and I love her subject a lot. In her class the first ten minutes will be reserved for questionnaire. She randomly picks people, asks them to stand up and questions them from the topics that she covered the day before. If you don’t answer you will be in soup!!! After questions and punishment she would teach for about twenty minutes and then gives us a fifteen minutes break, this break is of no use as she never lets us talkL.
When she entered our class with the answer papers all of us were sitting frozen! As expected she made six people stand and unfortunately I was one among themL. She asked the first question to the first person, it was about “Big bang theory” , as usual no one knew the answer and the girl got a big bang on her head!!! One by one everyone got blasts ...don’t know from where she picked those questions. And when it was my turn, she asked...Name the scientist who said that the earth was a fixed, inert, immovable mass, located at the center of the universe, and all celestial bodies, including the sun and the fixed stars, revolved around it. In my mind I was thinking “even I haven’t seen earth revolving ...he he he..so can I give my name”. She repeated the same question with more commanding voiceL... I could only remember that his name ended with “my” and nothing else.. My mam was furiously staring at me I was frozen with fear… Hurry!! I got it... I exclaimed “Mam it is Plotemy “!!!... My mam burst in laughter and said he did not plot anything ...’P ‘silent and it is Ptolemy.. Claudius Ptolemy… “Plotemy” or “Ptolemy”, it doesn't matter, he was a real savior, he saved my life that dayJ.
Then I got my physics paper with good marks and even while giving the paper my Mam was laughing. Thereafter till I completed my XIIth she never asked any questions to me… I still don’t know why ;-)..
It was a very busy day, the last one paper left was” Maths”, the sickest of all subjectsL. Since my childhood this was the one subject I hated very much. People say remember all the good things in the past and forget the bad things.. but you know I remember all my Maths teachers(bad things ;-)). But yes this Maths Sir was very different from the others, he was very polite, not so strict and not so commanding. Now, he too made five girls stand up and I was one among themL. I was thinking why me all the time?? Standing in front of the entire class for multiple times on the same day is not acceptable.. huh.. I got up. The other four girls who were standing with me were very good in Maths and they were very confident of scoring good marks. My friend Jenny was looking at me with amazement on why I was made to stand, I was all the more scared thinking that maybe I scored the least in the class. My Maths Sir gave away the papers to the other four girls and told them, put a little more effort and you will surely get centum in the board exams. He came to me, gave my paper and said .. good job Parsaline.. put a little more hard work and you will surely get centum. I said... Thanks and sat down.. quickly opened my paper to check the marks. I had got 100/200(centum though ;-)) On top of the paper it was written “Neat”. Many times in the past I have got this kind of appreciation but not even once from my Maths teachers.
My Maths Sir had very sound knowledge in his subject but was very modest. Days passed by and I was improving well in Maths but not so good to get a centum. Throughout the year my interactions with him was very little, very occasionally I talk to him, but in all those interactions he has made me feel better. He always says a little more hard work and you will get a centum. I had put all my efforts to do well in Maths.
Finally the day of the board exams arrived. I got my maths question paper, found a few familiar questions and so started writing down the answers. Suddenly something happened to me and I made a mistake in the first question, I had to strike it. It didn’t stop with that, the second one also went wrong and I had to strike. The entire first page was “UGLY”. I lost all my confidence and started forgetting everything.
In my previous school there was a practice to recite “Gandhiji’s talisman” before starting the English Class. Gandhiji’s talisman occupied the front pages of our English text books. It reads as follows,
"I will give you a talisman. Whenever you are in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test. Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man [woman] whom you may have seen, and ask yourself, if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him [her]. Will he [she] gain anything by it? Will it restore him [her] to a control over his [her] own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to swaraj [freedom] for the hungry and spiritually starving millions? Then you will find your doubts and your self melt away."
Our teachers ask us to use this when we are in doubt during exams. I have tried it many times and most of the time it doesn’t workJ. Anyway I tried the same thing again, to my surprise it worked this time!!! J Do you know the poorest person whom I remembered??? It was none other than my “Mother”J, she is a great soul who had lots of hope on me. When we came out of the exam hall my Maths Sir was waiting to hear from all of us. I was not completely sure of how well I had done so I hid myself and went the other way.
Vacation that comes after the board exams are the most painful ones, you can hardly enjoy a dayL. After the vacation we got our results and I had got really good scores. I was called to my school by my headmaster. Only on reaching school I realized that I was one among the very few who secured “centum in maths JJJ”. It meant a lot to me!!!
My Maths Sir never gave us boring speeches on how important Maths is, because he believed that every subject has its own importance, he only made us love the subject. He never underestimated the ones who couldn’t do well in his subject, he only put faith in them. Whenever I get a chance to teach someone I think of my Maths Sir, and I tell to the listener that they are going to be successful. Sooner or later that person will surely be successful.
-This story is dedicated to my dear Sir Deepan Prakash.
