There are times in life, when Man must make a tough decision. He needs to be fast and he needs to be stealthy. Especially when your lab is 30 minutes from now and you�ve left your record notebook at home.
So what does an ordinary mortal do? He raises in arms in despair and starts practicing the Grovel-Trot. Never heard of it? Here�s how you do it:
1: Place your feet four feet away from the teachers table.(yes of course homosaps have only two feet, I�m talking distances here�)
2: shuffle your two feet sideways about 20-25 cms
3: Look the teacher directly in the eye and keep repeating this mantra � �I�ll finish it and get it tomorrow, sir�
4: Keep shuffling your feet.
These ordinary mortals usually get away with a public censure and an injured sense of self-esteem. But then as I said before, men must make a tough decision. Being strategically placed close to your school makes this decision easier for you � as easy as �Do I slink out of school and get the notebook during or after recess?�
This is just one of the things that spring to my mind when I sit back and think about my old school days. Then when I continue my reverie and get even more nostalgic, I think about the persons who made me into the intelligent/smart/decent/verbose/nerdy/bored guy that I�m today � my teachers at RSK. The first ones that come to my mind are the ones that have made a lasting impression on me, have instilled in me some of their values and ethics. So before I get all Hoohah and rhetorical, To all the people who still might be reading this: Let me just reminisce here so that those of you who might have had the same experience can slightly nod their heads and smile and look vaguely moronic.
Back in my primary school, when I still wore half-trousers(but I still wear them???) , I got called up on stage by my teacher to explain something bad that had happened in the class. Being the totally uncool guy that I was (and still am�), I pointed out to a guy in the back benches and squealed on him saying, �he�s the one who did it Miss, it was him!!!� And then came my first lesson in Etiquette, my teacher said,� Never Point at a person when you�re speaking to another person�. Now this might seem a pretty simple thing to say, but how many of us go through our lives without basic courtesies, such as thanking someone or saying �Please� to all the nice people who do nice things for us??? Of course, the bus conductor who doesn�t give us back change isn�t included among those nice people. The reason I still remember that lesson is because I got something that never gets taught in school, even in moral science classes, the lesson of mutual human respect.
And then there was the incident of the Missing Social notebook. Still uninitiated into the secret art of slinking home to get your notebooks, I got caught red handed without my social notebook. I tried to fib my way out of it, saying I had loaned it to a guy in another section. This might seem an easy way for a consummate liar to escape a possible nasty situation, but not for a novice like me, who was hyperventilating and opening and closing my mouth like a landed fish by that time. My teacher who can read signs as plain as these, immediately caught me hook, line and sinker (continuing with the fish theme), asking me to go the other section and get the book from him. Now there was nothing that I could do, and I confessed my fabricated story and started doing my first-ever Grovel-Trot. That was the second lesson I learnt and still remember, that its better to own up to something that you did instead of covering it up or blaming it on others. Before you get all uppity with me about later sneaking home and getting the notebook, hey, I got the book to the class and that�s all that matters, right???
The third teacher who stands in my mind is the inimitable quiz-master of RSK, those from before the 1996 batch might know him. Do you, guys??? He was the very terror of the class, starting his day off with a quiz session. Like a diurnal panther on the prowl he would go through the desk columns, randomly picking his victims for the day and riddling them with questions like �What�s the Densest element in the periodic table?� I could easily answer this question since that element was undoubtedly present in large quantities in my brain, but the other poor souls who couldn�t, felt the torment equivalent to that of a Spanish inquisition. He inculcated in me a sense of curiosity and a thirst for knowledge and trivia. He was the quintessential absent-minded professor, and always had a pleasing word of encouragement for the quiz team and the class. I can still remember his final day at RSK, when instead of giving us a long-winded farewell address, he played a tune on his harmonica, and said this is how he wants to retire out of the school. A rare insight into the sort of person he was, and I will remember him as the originator of my astounding quizzing prowess. (Note to self: keep egomania out of piece)
I could go on and on and on, but I wont because I�m hungry and I�m getting the Carpel Tunnel Syndrome (Trivia: that�s the pain you get in your wrists and fingers when you use the keyboard too long. The pain you get on your behind and back are just bad ergonomics, so change that chair!!!). So let me just finish with a teacher I had during my high school years. Someone who taught me to do what I�m doing now and do it my own way - To write and to create. His history classes were epitomes of style and substance. History never was and never will be a favorite subject for many people, but if there was one person who could make it leap out of the textbooks, it was he. He appreciated my quirky subtitles in mid-term papers (that I got extra marks for this is an entirely different matter!) and instilled in me the urge to write and pen my own ideas. He also brought a twist to the boring history lectures, by presenting his own ideas and interpretations and experiences.
Of course, there is that group of teachers who are always almost left out of special mention, but they are and they will be the foundations upon which, according to me, the greatness of RSK stands � those who teach English. If I am now able to communicate with native English speakers with more than the Me-Tarzan-You-Jane hand-symbols, it is due to their untiring efforts to drill the language into our inviolately sub-continental minds. I just hope that their effort in the face of changing syllabi to teach English as a language/art and not as a subject continues, because that�s what non-native language teachers are for, to make you respect and admire a language�s beauty.
Well now that its said and done, I hope that you all might read all this and reminisce about your own special teachers. Like G.B.Shaw once quoted, �Teachers are your second parents�(when in doubt of any quote, attribute it to G.B.Shaw). I hope this piece might have refreshed in you some of your own pleasant and not-so-pleasant memories about the times we had in school.
- Dev
(Devanand Rajoo Ravindran is currently in the US trying like hell to get an MS degree. He spends his spare time and most of his study time doing crosswords and generally lazing about. He is an avid quizzer. He is also an excellent sports jock and has brought laurels to his alma mater in Cricket, Water Polo and Samurai-sword fighting (No of course, he just made that up). Also he has excelled in skiing, football, basket ball, fencing (all these in videogames). He can be contacted at [email protected] )