Scribblings of a soon-to-be 15 year old - II

Continued from Scribblings of a soon-to-be 15 year old - I

The astounding 10-comments-success of my first essay amongst my peers, convinced me of the reality of my ambitions towards the NP (Nobel Prize). Not willing to let India miss this chance of showcasing her 'literal' talent in the international arena, I embarked on the project of writing another essay. Giving it much more thought and concentration this time. The subject on this occassion was an hourful of the mathematics lecture that tested the helpless endurance of the whole class (My views at that point in time, I was yet to see engineering, you see!). While the earlier essay was entirely true in facts, this was a healthy mix of fact and fiction. So this was what I wrote [My comments are as usual in the square brackets]:

"
My Maths Teacher
(As seen from the eye of Ankur Saraf)

She enters the classroom and what a grand entrance it is. Armed with the maths textbook and answers to sums 'inspired' from the guide and self-study. Medium in size, both in length and breadth, clad in a saree, does she come presenting a tough fight for us.

Ah! School-days have their own memories and her memory will be fresh in the top of my head forever. She will never escape the memories of the most terrible experiences of my life. If everything has pros and cons, certainly I could not see anything that signifies a 'pro' in her.

She glares at me through her specs. The look of a blood-thirsty hound in search of its prey catches my attention. The butcher is waiting, with a knife in her hand to sacrifice lambs. Blood is dripping from here eyes, her tongue is tasting the taste of our heads. Well, she really does enjoy eating our heads, it is but obvious.

She has three periods today, that completes a full one and a half hour of struggle to live, of struggle to suppress our laughter at her typical accent, of struggle to bear her, of struggle to see, hear, talk to her. It certainly is an endless strife.

She starts her lessons. Her typical south-Indian accent, flows out of her mouth, like the river Ganges (well, the Ganges does have polluted water). Her flower-like face (even a withered flower remains a flower), round in shape makes strange faces. If I were secret agent 007, I would certainly follow her, fight her extreme levels of intelligence with my abilities.

She says "A,P,B, [symbol for angle],[symbol for rectangle],x,y,z" and God knows what. "Blah, blah, blah, blah,......" She goes on and on and on and on and..................... Her mental frustration getting down at us. For the first time in my life, I regret joining the school, I regret attending the Maths period, Oh! was I born and brought up only to see this day!

She catches two boys talking and playing. They stand victorious. She scolds them out of the class, "You go now, out, out of the class,". Her sharp voice pierces my ears. They march out the class, those lucky ones. Oh! how jealous am I?

Seconds seem centuries, hours seem millenia. It certainly is a tiresome and tedious job. Well she goes on with her rubbish talk, useless theorems, meaningless words. Oh! If only I had not been educated, I would have not seen this day!

Seeing her I remember the news telecast, "600 children freed from bonded labour." Well I am myself a slave now. A slave of time. The Human Right's Commission I feel should certainly interfere in this matter, a certain violation of human rights, oh yes, thats what it is.

Time is running, it is runing, the clock is ticking, only 20 minutes have passed. Oh no! It cannot be just 20 minutes. It seemed years and years fo broedom. My watch I feel is running unusually slow today, yes, certainly it is running slow.

My ears long for the welcome ring of the electric bell, the one installed outside the classroom. That bell is certaily one of the greatest pranksters I have seen in my life. During the recess tiem when I don't ask it to ring, it ring's and now when I am really in need, it does not.

She's coming towards me, well I don't believe in filling my book with rubbish and she takes notice of my this good habit. I wonder, why does it not please her. After all, I am saving pages and in a way, helping in saving trees. We all know trees are necessary for a healthy environment. My ear experiences an extreme word of warning from her. [All of this is the fiction part. I never had any guts in school not write in the lecture. Case of chronic sincerity I guess!]

Hearing her lessons, I remember George Bernard Shaw. He had rightly said, "One who knows what to do, does, one who does not, teaches." It implies fully well on her [sic]. She is like....... like a nightmare come true. I remember seeing a bore film called a 'Satvan....' something or the other. It was very very boring. I left the theatre hall in the interval itself (it was my only chance to escape). Now, I am locked in the classroom, with every means to torture me, I dave a thought for the creator who created her and me. perhaps 'cause he wanted me to worship him for some reason, there certainly cannot be any other reason or was he extremely offended with humankind to send this angel of hell on earth.

Now, I hear the iron armature, hitting the gong, the bell has rung at last. The time of her 'sad' (rather) departure arrives. She leaves the class. From her face, it is clearly evident that she was enjoying herself, in an extremely cheerful mood, she departs and the whole class wakes up to the dawn of a new period (of Geography).

Tomorrow again, she will come armed with her Math book and overloaded with extra intelligence and inventing new ways to torture us to the full extent.

-[My signature goes here]
(Ankur Saraf)

(I do not intend to hurt anybody's emotions. I have written this essay only for fun and it should not be misunderstood - [My signature goes here])

[I was still chicken of the said teacher finding this essay circulating in class while I was busy in my comment gathering spree]

Please write your comments on the adjoining page. Don’t forget to mention if the essay is worst, bad, O.K., good or very good.

[The adjoining page is a sad witness to the disinclination of my voracious readers to comment, that is another story I will come to in a moment]

“

This essay was broke all records that were susceptible to shattering in a class of 40. Perhaps, an (equally) awful understanding/usage of the English language coupled with an innate hatred of that monstrosity called school were to blame. Anyways, this spurred me towards promoting my essays from the rough book to a 200-page book of their own (The one which I stumbled upon recently).

Aware of the fact that no one in my class is Swiss or part of the NP committee, I ventured for outside opinion. I don’t know about the NP winning capabilities of my essays but they sure made workaholics of all my relations. All the adults I gave this book to, suddenly remembered all kinds of important work, the calls they were supposed to make, the ones which were waiting for them, by the time they reached the third page. By the by I also realized that Rabindranath Tagore was the only other Indian to have the NP honour and he had to wait a goddamn long time to get that thing. No wonder, he must have spent all that time trying to convince people to read his full book or so I thought. This effectively killed the bright young writer in me. :(

As for the aforementioned teacher, the last I heard of her was in FE when I learnt she died in a car accident. They had shown it on TV. I had my own two minutes of silence to pray for her.

Scribblings of a soon-to-be 15 year old - I

Stumbled upon something today. An old essay book from school. NO! Not the Navneet style printed essay book with 'My favourite festival, colour, country, planet, toilet etc. '. It was the book where I had written some pretty 'un'academic essays, the first ones I was not obliged to write academically. Retrospectively, I don't find any signs of a budding genius in these essays :P (Though, in those days, I felt that the removal of the budding tag is an accurate description of my literature) and I shudder thinking of how I was the 'best' in English in the matriculation class of Umedbhai Patel English School.

I am documenting these here to preserve my ideas for posterity (who knows a future biographer may stumble upon it someday and document my legendary lifetime :P). And a warning to the regular readers of this blog (even those who are addicted to the trash I churn out!); before you consider reading this, consider the background of the author:

The writer is a soon to be 15 year old who holds great airs about being the best in English in his class. His experiences with literature encompass great authors like Enid Blyton and the Grimm Brothers. His readings include everything from Champak to Chandamama, from Hardy Boys to the Famous Five. His experiences with humour in the Queen's language have been confined to a one chapter excerpt from 'Three Men and the Boat' and he still equates Wodehouse with a habitation constructed from dead and hardened carboneous plant life.

Ok so here follows the first of the two essays from the book, with all the spelling mistakes and grammatical errors intact. [My comments, the present me I mean, are in square brackets like this one.]

"
[Page 1]

My book of absurd Essays
-Ankur Saraf

All the events and persons mentioned in this essay are fictional. Any resemblance to any person living or dead is purely co-incidental (and co-incidents occur too often)

Warning

This book is registered under the trademark of Ankur Saraf [This is followed by my signature]. No part of it may be printed or reproduced in any other form of binding or cover in which it is now without the prior permission of the author.

[Page 2]

Preface:-

I have written a few essays in this book on persons I have met and incidents (rather, accidents) in my life which I remember (dread). I hope you find it enjoying to read these essays. I have prepared a column in the last pages for your review. Please consider them. Happy reading.
-Ankur Saraf
P.S.:- You might find it a little difficult to understand my handwriting. [This is one situation which has only taken the downward path since then. Thankfully a computer and keyboard are here to help.]

[Page 3]

Index
1) The elocution competition Pg.No.1
2) My Maths Teacher Pg.No.10
(As seen from the eyes of Ankur Saraf)

[Page 4]

The elocution competition

The day started as any other. I got up lazily at 6.40 in the morning, got ready for school unaware of the disaster that was going to befall me on this very dreaded thursday of 16th Sept 1999. We had a half day at school due to an elocution competition to be held in the school. I lazed away my time at school with the boring lectures [Somethings never change, do they?] being delivered by one of my teachers I disliked. Joking and passing time, the disaster was approaching near. [sic]

Time sped up. We were asked to wait in the school compound. Our class teacher had informed us that we were given the 'privilege' of being audience to the event (which would mark history and of course I needn't explain why?). One of our teachers had been given the responsibility (dreaded by everyone, the teacher of course) to see to it that we don't play truant and spoil their plans of spoiling our day. My teacher announced that the 'privilege' would be denied to us because of the lack of enough seats but the 1st three rankers were granted the calamitous oppurtunity. (unfortunately, I was one of them.)

I marched towards the hall where a batch of the greatest orators known till now waited for the competition to start. The competition started as soon as we arrived (hunters always wait till they get their guns ready and innocent animals slowly approach the most terrible trap set for them)

First, the juniors were called on to deliver a 3-minute speech (of course, 3-minutes wasn't the real time. I certainly felt the timer's watch running slow).

I was given the first taste of the hunter's gun. Then we were all asked to clap. (After all, the formality had to be finished like it or not). I could easily go over 2 or 3 speeched but the whole lot of 15 was lying in ambush to attack my 'tiny' [you will understand this if you see me!] little self.

The sharp woices attacked my ears and went right to my head which slowly started aching. I tried to stop this using a handkerchief but they excelled in the art of carrying forward with the only thing they had got to do. The only aim of their life seemed to bore me to the full extent. The voice on the mike grew louder and louder. Blah, blah............ went on their non-stopping mouths. The only one I liked was the one who said nothing. The first prize should have been awarded to him (in the name of humanity)

Seconds seemed hours. Minutes passes like centuries. Many millenia passed till one by one they tortured me mentally. Compulsory, literal mental torter [sic] of the highest service was served
before me with a kind cruelty. To top it all, a teacher was made to sit behind me, all parts of a pre-made plan.

The luckiest person seemed to be the chief guest. She ran away during half the competition.

Then the senior group started. I had been tired to a great extent and the noblest thing I could think about was to kill the organiser, call my best friend Dracula to suck every drop of blood out of him, kill his friends, relatives everyone, to down his house and sing comic songs on his grave. It was my moral responsibility to save my fellow spectators from this calamity.

Hitler should have called these people in his concentration camps to torcher the POW's and take my word for it, every piece of information would be lying at his feet. And the Mumbai police could certainly make good use of them.

I saw before me, each of them passing by, a demonic smile on his lips. What humour was, I didn't see. My objective now was to reach home alive. I kept thinking of this beautiful world and how less I have seen of it. My science teacher (who was sleeping a quiet sleep with a serene and divine look upon her face) had explained us that mental stress often led to heart-attack.

The deadly giants of the devil himself had started hitting my ears. I began to feel sick, ill, my time, I felt had come. Suddenly, the prizes were announced. The judges had been the expectators [sic] of the trauma. The prizes were given to those who persecuted [sic] their task with perfection. But, I think, the audience were really worthy of being rewarded for going through these demanding situations. One of the participants spoke on child labour in inhuman conditions very similar to the present situation. Now, the golden words were uttered, "The programme is over, thank you.". Well I thought I ought to thank them for letting me out of this tedious experience. I rushed out, a bird freed from a cage, proud of my brave self.

-[My signature went here]
(Ankur Saraf)

[Something I added later as an afterthought. It is written with different pen.] Please register your comments on the adjoining page after filling the details and please don't forget to mention if the essay is worst, bad, O.K., good or very good. For eg.
Name:- A. Saraf Sign:- [My sign]
Remarks:- O.K. ............

[The 'adjoining page' is quite hopelessly empty]

"

And if you thought the above post was not worth blogging about, you are not getting the job of my biographer. Get that? :P This essay was written in my rough book the day after the elocution day. The girl sitting next to me read it and passed it on in the class. I had got some pretty good comments on my rough book, sufficient enough to egg my soon to be 15-year old ego, to write a another essay.

Goodbye ! Goodluck !

It was a fine morning. I was sitting, my neice was tugging the corner of my shirt (hellbent upon making my PC a guinea pig for her 'My first computer' practical sessions) and my aunts had a nice conversation running in the background. I was arranging a seat for myself in the crowd, warding off my crying neice, ignoring my aunts, checking emails, cursing spammers, when suddenly yahoo buzzed. I was not in a great mood to chat but the conversation turned more interesting than the 'Hello dude wassup?' kind. My internet connection, acutely distressed by this blasphemous act, rebelled and fainted. Next thing I know, Akshat posted it on his blog. This is the reason for this blog. I wasn't going to write all this but what the heck!

17th April 2006, or last Monday was the last day BE Electronics collected in the classroom as a class. I realized this fact later that day, while having dinner (Four submissions and eight hours of non-stop writing leave you weirdly numb, don't they?) Strangely for many, and rather not-so-strangely for me, I was feeling kind of happy. I could remember the other farewells I have had. The time I had to leave school, I was a bit sad but also full of hope. Leaving Sathaye was kind of neutral, since I did not have time to spend time there. No feelings. But leaving SPCE was different. I was positively happy I was going. I was also kind of sad, but not about leaving. I was more sad I had to stay on this long. Four years is a pretty long time you know. An especially long time if you have endured it and not enjoyed it.

But lets begin from the beginning.....

I still remember the day I had entered SPCE for the first time. After all, one had to submit the forms for engineering admissions. Long queues, badly managed, perhaps it should have given me the hint. But I too awestruck at that moment in time. And awe inspires imperviousness. I still considered it a privilege to walk on the hallowed corridors of this superhuman structure.

(I had put in this post as a draft. Perhaps stopped writing because of some interruption and did not continue. Let us see if I ever get down to completing it.)

Testing Times!

The tension in the air was palpable. The group of 40 were crowded around the door, waiting, with a bated breath. As the lights came on, the faces became visible. As the clock ticked, the numbers mounted. The trepidation on each face was increasingly evident. They were all waiting. Waiting for the watchman!

'I should not lose out this time. Perhaps, this would the last occasion I will have to attempt this. A last chance of being party to the stellar example of class unity.' My thougts were racing as I raced up the stairs. (Ok! Ok! I confess... It was more of dragging myself up!)

"Twenty-two", went the chorus I reached my destination. Many of my would be partners-in-crime had already arrived. The Counting was a feeble attempt in introducing a much-needed comic relief. It was exciting.

Beating the system is strangely pleasurable. The anticipation of popular rebellion is always shrouded in mystery. It never wears off. The initial excitement, the covertness of the act, the sense of achievement that follows, makes it worth the effort.

The strained muscles on the tired hands were conspicuous. After all, the weight of the book they had held, for more than an hour, could easily give a dumbell a run for its money. The Counting went on. With it, rose the impatience. Before the unity, came the competition. The seats were limited, the contenders - numerous. Mutual tolerance was not the first thing that dominated collective consciousness presently. As moment by moment passed, the jokes flew thick and fast. It was the jokes that highlighted the all-pervading stress. Underlined it.

The confused eyes stared at the alien figures; trying to make sense of the outlandish diagrams, attempting to remember the convoluted examples. 'Arre khali index padh le', sanity screamed from somewhere. I smiled.

9.00 a.m. - that was the time at which the test had been promised. But a gruelling examination had already commenced. A common thread spun through the crowd. An indomitable belief in their teacher's immutable methods. This was what had attracted them an hour before time. The door was bent, but not broken by the incident pressure. On display was some excellent engineering.

A spark of expectation ignited in the crowd. The imminent arrival of the treasured one fired hopes. The watchman climbed up.

'Yay', went the collective exclamation.

The saviour disappointed. He went past his waving fans. But he would return - they knew that. Patient. But he stopped. The armour of the knight lost its sheen. The mob intimidated him. The air was rife with the sense of adventure. Adrenaline was pumping in each body. He took a few courageous steps, towards the periphery - towards me. The pack made way for him.

It happened too fast then. 'Ankur uske peeche jaa..', shouted a voice. I sensed the opportunity and lunged for it. Before the sea became one, the Jews guided by Moses had crossed to the other end. The key went in. Click! The crowd screamed forward, easily rivalling any Virar local. Legs spattered over the wooden dias. First, second, third.... the fourth row, that was the place for me. I rushed, battling the oncoming pressure. The last one was gone. But I was not late yet....

Exhilaration. Ecstacy. I had conquered the second last bench. My fiefdom was established. In half a minute, the class was full. Victory crowned my forehead. My eyes were shining and my hands were trembling, still incredulous of my brave attempt. Finally, passing in today's class test seemed a distinctly realizable possibility.