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.