English class

Dr. A.P.J.Abdul Kalam has rightly said, “Sometimes it’s better to bunk a class and enjoy with friends, because today when I look back, marks never make me laugh, but memories do…”

We were in class XI or XII G when half of our class decided to bunk our English lecture. As soon as we started running off from our ground floor classroom, Chakraborty Sir, our English teacher spotted us and came trailing behind us shouting at us,” Girls come back, girls come back,  girls…”

He came till the cycle stand to take us back to class. Finally, he succeeded in taking some of us back to the class who were unsuccessful in out running him.

On reaching the classroom, we ran and sat at our benches as if we were not the part of bunking and it was the others who were running off! Once in the class, Sir asked the students who were trying to bunk the class to stand up. Nobody stood up. This added up to his anger. Slowly, some of us stood up and started staring at others who were still not ready to stand up. Then all the unsuccessful bunking students stood up and got a nice scolding.

Marks!

Even after over two decades, this event is embedded in my memory vividly.

We were in class IX H Sanskrit section. English Sir had come to our class with the corrected answer sheets of our half yearly exam.

As he started distributing the answer sheets, first, he called out Roll no. 2. My roll no. was 2. I was startled as to why had he started with my no instead of roll no 1 which is the usual practice. As soon as I stood up at my desk with the feeling that I have done very badly in the exam, Sir gave a look of disbelief at me. He repeated loudly,” Roll no 2” so that the real roll no 2 would stand up. I meekly admitted that my roll no is 2 which he was not ready to believe getting me confused as well.  

Finally, Sir handed over my answer sheet announcing that I had scored the highest marks in class (52/60). I was elated…

Sir had least expected me to top the subject as I was a very quiet and introvert person as also the fact that Sanskrit section was a class full of brilliant students.

Memories! Memories! Picnic

It’s been so many years now, 26 years to be precise, that I have only faint recollection of the sequence of events.

Since the school didn’t arrange a picnic for us, we decided that we are grown up enough to plan a picnic to Bordih dam for ourselves. We were in class X H at that time.

We thought, maybe we were grownups, but we should take some elders with us as it was not a school picnic and teachers would not be accompanying us. This would also help all the students to get permission at the home front. So, we started scouting for the elders. My paternal uncle and aunt were guests at our place at the time. I convinced them and we got parents of another student to accompany us.

We started out for the picnic happily in the bus which was parked in front of our school main gate. We thoroughly enjoyed our trip. We all went off to sleep tired at the end of the picnic on that Saturday night.

When we reached the school on Monday morning, all of the happy go lucky students of our picnic were in for a shock! We were made to stand in front of the Principal’s office and asked to bring our parents to school without which we would not be allowed into the school premises.

When I went home to tell this to my parents, they were not ready to meet the Principal, Borle Sir.

I did not go to school for may be a week and kept crying for as many days. My uncle and aunt tried to console me saying I need not worry since they had accompanied us. But for me, it was a matter of worry all the more and I would start sobbing louder.

Also, we as our friends, started analyzing the situation as to why our parents were called. We arrived at the conclusion that we went for the picnic on a Saturday, ie, we bunked our classes that day and the other mistake was to board the bus for the picnic in front of our school main gate! If it would have been a Sunday, nothing of this sort would have happened…

Then somehow I braved to go to school where I was surprised to find that I could attend classes without being stopped by any teacher. After a few years, I came to know that my father had talked to the Principal on the phone and kept it a secret so that I would learn a lesson from this episode.