Sports Day- then and now

"You're not spending enough time with your children! You simply keep working and working! What's the point!?", my daughter complained. When a 7 year old questions your priorities or the lack of it with such a scathing attack, you have to mend your ways. I decided to skip work and show up for the Sports Day at her school.
I could see my daughter along with other children, neatly arrayed in rows, moving their arms up, down… and sideways in synchronization to the brisk chant of "one-two-three-four…" and "…four-three-next-change!" Like other parents, I waved to my daughter furiously from the stands till she had little choice but to notice me, grin and perhaps wonder- "He's such a clown! Does he expect me to wave back at him when I'm doing these exercises? Maybe, I should have just let him go to work!" My wife gently corrected me... "You are waving at someone else! Our daughter is standing in the fifth row... from the left!" As we sat in the shamiana, there was time to reminisce.  A lot had changed in Sports Days then and now. A lot was just the same....

"Biscuit Eating race” was conspicuous by its absence. So was sack-race which generated the most laughs- where children hopped, skipped, tumbled over, lost the plot mid-way, veered into the bushes and somehow managed to get back into the race! In a “biscuit-eating race”, the child had to gobble up a stack of "marie" biscuits and run to the finish line. Designated teachers scrutinized the child's mouth (and even the esophagus) to ensure that the biscuits didn't remain scrunched up in a corner. Some children were naturally relaxed and took their time- they munched the biscuits with interest and savoured the taste. They followed instructions from a different class to the letter- each morsel of food had to be masticated exactly 32 times before gulping it down...! Little wonder, they got a mouthful (or is it an earful?) from their furious parents after the race- "Have you never seen a biscuit in your life? Why couldn't you eat fast?" Dinesh was known to have done an Oliver Twist- After finishing his stack of marie biscuits, he asked- "Can I have one more…. and some water please to wash it down!?"
I missed my favourite- the "marble and spoon race"...with that marble precariously balancing on the spoon. Adhir had a problem with the hygiene. He felt delicate to grip the spoon by the mouth after the previous set of students had used it. "Can I bring my own spoon Miss?" he gingerly asked. "Sure you can Adhir! You can have your own spoon and your own marble and your own race... in your own home!" Ms Grace hollered.

Some things just hadn't changed- school "houses", the jingoism associated with it and the irresistible urge to brand other houses. "Blue house" students (and even the teachers associated with the house) cried themselves hoarse supporting their stars and heckled other houses. In our time, yellow house students were "cheaters" (preferred form to the more grammatically correct usage of 'cheat'), red house folks were "snooty" and the green house adherents were simply "losers"! The names of the houses may have changed- "Gandhi, Nehru, Tilak and Tagore" then  to "earth, fire, space and sun" now... but not the colours and what the affiliation meant to the students. It was tough being in Gandhi house in our time. We could have a  full head of hair- but would still invite cat-calls of "Aye taklu house!" or "Oye ganje!" (you baldy!)... well after school hours and in a totally different setting!

"Physical Education" now is definitely more structured. The variety in presentation cannot be missed either. The uniforms are smarter- white T-shirts, faded blue jeans and Nike shoes to boot. Students confounded us by contorting themselves in unbelievable “yoga asanas” making us wonder how they would finally extricate themselves from all this twisting. Aerobic exercises in Zumba style with feet tapping Latin American music made interesting viewing. There was never a dull moment throughout the programme- crisp and well rehearsed, with even an army band thrown in- complete with Scottish bagpipes and drums.

Unfurling the school flag, lighting the torch, the march-past, the guard of honour, the chief guest's "inspiring speech", the drill sessions, the running races, the hurdles, the potato races, the relays...the rituals were all intact.
Parents egged their wards.. with a half eaten samosa in one hand, pumping their fists, with shouts of "C'mon Aditya"... "faster.. faster..bhaag..faster"... and even tried to transfer their energy by sprinting in their own places!  There was still that lurking feeling of "betrayal and partiality" that so-and-so won because he ran in the innermost lane of the oval track and hence had to cover less ground!!
The relay race, as always, was the top draw. Some elements continued to tickle us- surprisingly, no one dropped the baton or continued to run with abandon  without passing the baton, so that his own comrade now played “catching-cook” with him! One weak link still pulled down the whole team; the gap between the weakest and the strongest team was so wide that the number of laps was forgotten and one suddenly got the feeling that the weakest team was in fact surging ahead! At the end of the race, the participants licked GlucoseD- cold, sweet and refreshing off their palms to give them “instant energy” for the next race! Nothing had changed.

The ceremony was "declared open" with the oath centred on the theme- "winning is not important"..... "what's important is fair play and the spirit of sportsmanship". It's only later in life that the child will grown up to be a sportsman with a new set of mantras- "go for the jugular", "show some agro man" and "develop a killer instinct"! Till then, the current messaging is just fine!

Book Abuse

Mehernosh's mother ensured that her son never read a school text book, at least never in full. At best, Mehernosh read every alternate page, the right-hand page- as you stare at a book. The page to the left could never be read as the last few letters of every sentence disappeared into the stitching. The mother's intentions were noble and unquestionable- she wanted the book to remain intact through the school-year and had all of Mehernosh's textbooks nicely bound. His books stood out- with a canvas binding, a thick, hard cover and never in tatters.
But every silver lining has a dark cloud- binding the book meant that it could never be laid down on the table and read normally. The moment you selected a page and laid down Mehernosh's book, it would protest, much like him and simply snap shut with a recoil-spring action! It required counterweights- either your left elbow or the compass-box had to nail down the left page so that you could read the right page. The left pages though, like the dark side of the moon always remained elusive. It's not as if Mehernosh made no effort- at times he held up the left page- at right-angles to the right, bent his head to one side as if he was peering through a pipe and tried hard to read. But it just wasn't easy and probably he gave up. Instead of complaining to Mrs Clare that her son was a "gaddha" (Parsi pronunciation for a donkey!) and couldn't read, his mom could have fixed the issue so easily. It's a case of child abuse to an extent, but more importantly, a case of book-abuse!

Book-abuse is too strong a word; we just want to "customize" the book at times and give it our personal touch. To that effect, the ink pen came handy. To amuse ourselves and break free from the grind of the History class especially after the lunch-break, we drew out our pens and drew... right on the textbook. Certain candidates in the text-book lent themselves to caricature- we picked a Lord Cornwallis here or a Lord Curzon there. Some characters were decorated with a Chaplinesque toothbrush moustache, others with a Chinese version- no moustache at the centre and a few stray whiskers trailing down each side. Figures suddenly grew large side-burns which extended to a copious beard or sported a bulbous Rajasthani turban over English wigs. Icons of the French Revolution resembled our own Panchapakesha Iyer and Varadachari- with prominent caste marks on their foreheads- complete with vibhuti and tilak! The urge was irresistible. The text-book ceased to be the staid, uninspiring tome that it once was. By the end of the year, it came alive- albeit with a new set of pictures- of pirates, bootleggers, drug-peddlers and beggars!

Hell broke loose when Mrs Fernandez forgot her textbook and had to borrow one of the student's books- no one wanted to share the textbook for obvious reasons. When she finally managed to get hold of Sridhar's textbook, she was aghast to see how far his fertile imagination carried him.
Evidently, Shah Jahan had been well provided for- instead of 3 wives, it now read 3000000 wives! "Please omit" was corrected to "please vomit"! "Moral Science" was selectively blackened to "oral Science"! Against the line "Garibaldi married Anita", a string of hearts and arrows decorated the margin.
That line tickled us to no end- Bang in the middle of the Italian Revolution with its grisly details, a line in the textbook apologetically read "Garibaldi married Anita" with no reference whatsoever on Anita's credentials- no lineage, no place of origin, no pompous titles, absolutely nothing. It looked as if Anita could well be a girl next-door or perhaps a maid-servant. In a way, we felt sorry for Anita. Couldn't Anita have found someone better? Why did she have to marry "Garibaldi" who was both "garib" ("poor" in Hindi) and a "baldy" to boot!?

Sridhar had a habit of underlining "key sentences" in the textbook. It perhaps helped him to focus on those lines before the exam. The problem with underlining lines in a textbook was that after a point, the distinction between important and unimportant details got completely blurred. Sridhar in his over-enthusiasm had taken a ruler and pen and scrawled a line below every sentence in the entire textbook! Mrs Fernandez, already turning a shade of red and purple as she leafed through the book with its grotesque figures, found it impossible to read the sentences. The strain was a bit too much for her.

Library books had a personality of their own. Someone would have a treasure-hunt organized to enthuse the reader and lift his sagging spirits. Page 7 would have the following line written in a flowing hand on the top margin- "Turn to page 18". Page 18 would promptly say, "Go to page 117". The trail had to be pursued and we turned the pages in feverish excitement. Page 117 sure had a message- "Go to page 100". Page 100 led to 256, 256 to 971, 971 to 301..... We leafed through the whole book to find the culmination... written in bold- "You idiot! Don't you have anything better to do!?"
A few enterprising blokes would complicate the contest by sending us on a wild goose chase- we were to be trapped in an eternal loop! Page 971 would say "Now, go to page 18". After an hour, we finally realized the futility of the exercise as the page numbers became increasingly familiar and repetitive!

A rookie had read the first chapter of a Wodehouse novel rather meticulously at the University of Roorkee library. He had taken the trouble to underline each word that he did not understand and had the meanings written at the top. It was laborious work. "chum"-> "friend", "capital"-> "mark of exclamation", "sow"-> "female pig"... It went on and on. Abruptly, it ended after the first chapter. Probably, the reader gave up or had improved his English to the extent that he didn't need the dictionary any more. A more advanced reader expressed his contempt for the novice at the end of the first chapter rather openly- "Moron! If you don't know the meanings of so many words, you bloody well shouldn't be reading this book!!"

The worst book-abuser surely was that scoundrel who borrowed books from the Abbas Library, Mumbai. With great interest, we followed Hercule Poirot as he systematically dissected the case. Just when he was about to reveal the assassin with his customary flair, the book came to a frustrating, abrupt end. The most important page was missing. In its place, was the handwritten message- "Serves you right!". Those were times when the best of us felt like wringing the rascal's neck!

"I don't want this book brought inside the house. Leave it in the passage and pick it up when you go to school tomorrow!" my mother screamed. The context was simple. I had casually mentioned that the teacher had used some saliva to turn the pages of my notebook as she corrected the homework!
That was simply not done. "Isn't the book Saraswati?" mother began, disgust writ on her face. "That you know and I know, but does the teacher know? Does Saraswati care?" I protested. Till a moment ago, everyone at home treated me and my notebook just fine. Suddenly, it became an object of revulsion- to be picked up gingerly, with outstretched arm, between the thumb and the forefinger with all the pages flailing over... as though a dead rat picked by its tail!! My sister felt that some pages were still moist and exuded an offensive smell  and had to be dried in the veranda! How could she be so sure? It's not as if someone slobbered the book! It appeared an easy way to torment my sis... I just had to stalk her from room to room, with the simple threat to touch her with the book!

Anyway, I had the final say- "Forget it! I am not going to take a head-bath to cleanse myself and in the process, come down with a bout of pneumonia now.....just for this notebook! And how do you think I am going to convey this point to my teacher- not to use a little lick to flick the pages of my book? Can I extend a piece of moistened sponge ...when she starts correcting my notebook!!? Be reasonable! This book is going to stay and that's it!"

Moral Science!

Don Bosco was a secular school. Christian students left the class for special "Catechism" lessons. The rest of us stayed behind for the class on "Moral Science and Community living".
"Ch" in English has multiple possibilities when it comes to pronunciation. It could be "ch" as in 'Chimpanzee' or "ch" as in 'character' or even with overtones of "sh" as in 'charade'. Needless to say, "Catechism" was a complicated word we stumbled over and made little headway. We chose to refer to it in our circles simply  as Christian studies (or "krish-chin studies" as we pronounced it).
Occasionally, the Catechism students came back and openly gloated over the stamps, key chains, postcards and other trinkets that Father Oscar donated with overflowing generosity. It appeared an interesting subject as well- the books were colourful and filled with references to quaint personalities like "Job", "Jeremiah", "Isaac" or Geography centred on distant lands like Jersusalem and Jordan. If we had had the choice, many of us would have surely opted for Catechism.

"Moral Science" on the contrary was dry, bone-dry-- an insipid, tasteless subject which made even Mathematics appear delightful! As it was meant for a "secular" audience, the "Moral Science" textbook could not teach morals through mythological stories we were familiar with... which would have had a far greater impact on children. It would have been easy to appreciate the value of "speaking the truth" through Raja Harishchandra's travails or the "spirit of sacrifice" through the stirring story of "Rantideva" or "the value of friendship" based on the story of Krishna and Sudama. Moral Science chose to teach these values with no illustrations whatsoever- it was didactic, preachy and simply tedious.
Sometimes, it borrowed contemporary American idioms which the students were unfamiliar with. The textbook had a picture of two boys with angry faces and a broken glass between them and on the other page, the same two boys.. all smiles this time and a full glass between them. The caption read-"break up and make up". It was much later in life that it dawned upon me that the picture was suppose to symbolize "break up in relationships" and "make up in relationships". For a seventh grader, the message was more straightforward- it just meant that the boys were angry that one of them broke the glass and were happy later on when the glass was repaired with some fevicol! The rest of the page had to be filled with 5 examples from our lives. Given our direct interpretation, it was rather simple. We just filled it with 5 other things which could be broken and mended- bottles, bats, chairs, cups and saucers!

In a way, we made up for the ugly textbook by having the most colourful notebook for Moral Science. The students had to choose the picture of a God, a saint, a visionary or some other religious symbol for the cover. A thin strip of cotton was stuck all around the picture and the entire notebook was then wrapped in colourful, translucent, "gelatin" paper. The book had a distinct aura- Vivekananda with all the cotton around him appeared as if he was standing behind the clouds and fixing his gaze on us... his eyes now.. even more mysterious when seen through the coloured blue paper!!

Students preferred their present day heroes though regardless of their moral standing. Mrs Clare was aghast when she caught Mehernosh in the act! He had a little slit on the cover through which he secretly inserted pictures of Kapil Dev and divas like Dimple Kapadia and Zeenat Aman to study how they would look through the gelatin paper!! Of course, Mehernosh had to kneel down outside the class for the rest of the period!

The notebook was meant to write down "good deeds" on a daily basis. The deeds were evaluated every week and "houses" were given points based on the impact of the act. It allowed the students to exercise the full range of their imagination more than any other faculty. Adhir was forever helping old people to cross from this side of the road to the other. Since the position for this job was already taken, Sridhar had to make a slight modification. He helped old people to cross from the other side of the road to this side! It appeared as if old people would finally flop down- dizzy from all this ferrying across the road, regardless of whether they actually wanted to cross it in the first place!
Going through the Moral Science notebook, the world appeared a really needy place- it was overflowing with challenged people, both physically and mentally, all of whom required a Moral Science student to either fold clothes or to run errands or to help a sibling's homework or to clean the room!

If I ever write the Story of My Experiments with Truth, I can boldly confess that I have copied in an examination just once. The irony is that it was for a Moral Science examination! Father Romel conducted the mid-term Moral Science examination for the tenth grade. You didn't prepare for Moral Science. By tenth grade, we were past masters in writing eloquent answers on "sharing is caring" or on "helping our less fortunate brethren". However, Father Romel added a sudden twist which completely caught us off-guard. He wanted us to quote from memory a particular poem in the textbook. He stepped out of the examination hall, convinced that by now, each of us, were living embodiments of values and morals that he had taught over the years.

The number of the marks against that question was not trivial. It did not seem prudent to skip the question and answer the rest of the paper. Morals could wait another day. The moment was opportune. We dashed across the hall, hurriedly pulled out the textbook, copied the lines of the poem out feverishly and put the books back just in the nick of time!

Moral Science was the last examination and we travelled by train to Chennai that night.
Like Gandhiji who was anguished by the bleat of the goat after he had furtively consumed meat, it was tough to ignore the pangs of conscience. Why did I have to copy? Was copying necessary? Couldn't I have forsaken 10 marks? After all, Pragnyat did not copy.
It gnawed my insides and kept me awake as the train made its way through Lonavla, Pune and Daund. The first rays of dawn streamed through the window as the train ground to a halt at Solapur. "Garmaa-garam tea.. tea...chai-chai... chaiye...chaiye"...the hawker was doing brisk business for sure. I looked out of the window.....

A peddler.. with this most beatific toothless smile... looked me in the eye and announced... "garmaa garam...." and followed it up with "copy-copy-copy... fine copy-copy... fine... copy!" It was like "ashariri-vaak"(divination/heavenly-voice).....with an overt beverage advertisement for some... but with a hidden message especially for me....Don't be too hard on yourself.. It's fine to copy this time!!

Copy-cats!

God created Man in his own image. He had a reference... Himself. It  begs the question, "What about women?" By elimination, we are left with little choice but to consider women as His "original" work. Needless to say, it is left to each person's interpretation whether this original work turned out to be a masterpiece, a caricature or simply a disaster!
That He used Himself as a model and copied it is a given.... and in doing so, He set the trend for copy-cats in his creation as well.

Lord Shiva must be particularly relieved that copy-cats exist. In a moment of indiscretion, He had granted the demon Bhasmasura the boon to reduce to ashes, whosoever's head, the asura touched. Matters came to a head when Bhasmasura wanted to test the efficacy of the boon by touching Lord Shiva's head! Shiva was on the run. It required the guiles of Mohini,Vishnu's enchanting form to extricate Shiva from the crisis.
Taking a cue from Bollywood, Mohini engaged Bhasmasura in some mindless dance sequences. Bhasmasura was a copy-cat and smitten by Mohini's form, aped every pose and step. At one point, Mohini touched her head; so did the asura who had fallen head over heels. In doing so, much to Shiva's relief, he brought about his own doom.

Cats have reason to be miffed that humans have sullied their name when it comes to copying. Nothing can be farther from truth, the cats mew. After all, cats are curious and curiosity even killed one cat. Isn't curiosity the seed of originality, of invention? The curious never copy. In fact, it is the humans who strut around on cat-walks and copy each other in dress and step.

We're told that there are 64 art forms. Surely, "copying" has to be the Queen of Fine Arts. Students devised ingenious methods when it came to copying- always a step ahead of the invigilators in this perennial cat and mouse game!

The formulae would be scrawled in the smallest possible font on the "examination pad"- with a picture of Lord Hanuman to cover the crime.
Sometimes, they wrote out lengthy answers on reams of paper and neatly tucked the papers underneath their full-sleeve cuff. Once the invigilator was out of sight, the paper would be pulled out, perused and placed back ever so deftly!

At times, the notes would be stuffed into the socks or even the shoes. The modus operandi was simple, yet effective. Drop the compass box below the desk- get down to pick up the scattered contents, refer to the notes, rise up.. to write more. Some students were forever dropping something or the other- at times the pencil or the pen or the eraser and simply taking too long to pick up the contents!

Another common method was to slowly creep very close to the partner so that the two soon sat like siamese twins..... or surreptitiously glance at the paper ahead of you. Teachers did their best. They warned students- "Sridhar! Your eyes are shifty!" or they made students of different classes sit next to each other or in adjoining rows; but never quite matched the originality of the students.

The little devils timed their toilet visits with their pals. Once in the loo, they would discuss the answers and get back to their seats as saintly as ever. Suspicions were aroused when students suddenly wanted to go to the loo more often, at the stroke of the hour and always in pairs. Soon, the toilets required a sentry as well, but by then, the students moved onto other ideas, leaving the sentinel marooned in the smelly toilets!

Multiple choice question papers offered greatest scope for copying. All that was required was an oral recitation- 1-A, 2-B, 3-D etc. The method was error prone though. B and D sounded alike when whispered. Also, several such recitations went around the examination hall, rendering it difficult to latch on to the correct frequency. Some students got the entire paper wrong. They had carefully recorded their benefactors answers, only got the sections completely wrong! It was tough for them.

"Got you! Trying to be over smart, kyoon? Come to the Principal.. At once! Out!" thundered "Pandey sir" as he caught Valentino red-handed with the sheets of handwritten notes right in the examination hall. We felt sorry for Valentino as he was pulled by his ears and roughly marched to the Principal's office- a proverbial lamb for slaughter.  The remainder of the story was filled in by Valentino himself much later, to a delighted audience!
Apparently, Pandey sir was exultant that he had finally nabbed the culprit with undeniable evidence to boot. "Father (Principal), this boy was shamelessly copying! Father, here are the papers where he has all the answers written down!" To his horror, Mr Pandey found that the papers were missing. Valentino had the papers just a moment ago, Mr Pandey swore, now they were gone- clean as a whistle! We were told Valentino was strip searched, but the papers were never recovered. Pandey sir shook Valentino violently and many times peered down his throat and even other orifices, but the case of the missing notes was never solved. Valentino had apparently gulped down five full-scapes of paper in a matter of seconds! The Principal now doubted Pandey sir's sanity and detained him in the room. Valentino was back in the examination hall... cool as a cucumber!

Abacus and the 8 minute competition

"Why do you sign up for exams like these? Can't you spend your time like we did.. when we were kids... plucking guavas from guava trees?" I complained to my daughter. "That's because there are no guava trees in Bangalore!" pat came the answer.
If you grow up on Ruskin Bond's novels, you get a feeling that childhood is well spent only if you steal and eat "litchis" on the sly, walk the forests of the Shivalik foot-hills following a leopard's footprints, have oodles of time on your hands to stalk a solitary ant or follow the trail of a raindrop trickling down your window! At least, you should stand in the blinding rain (with no one questioning your mental balance) and sing- "yeh kaagaz ki kashti, yeh baarish ka paani" (Jagjit Singh's famous ghazal on childhood- 'this paper boat... this rain water')!
Anything less- and you have been robbed of the innocence of childhood! Unfortunately, I didn't do any of these when I was a child and neither will my daughter. But I turned out just fine (I hope!), that's the only consolation.

We had just emerged from the Abacus competition and I couldn't resist a comparison between my daughter and many of Mr Bond's protagonists. This is not the first time that I've seen this competition, neither will it be the last. But the experience is always mind-numbing each time. It's a little like a trip to Tirupati. After each trip, you swear that if God exists everywhere, you don't need to risk a potential stampede to see Him for those 10 seconds. Still, you're back the next year and the next- such is the mind's resilience or its innate amnesia.

For the uninitiated, abacus is by far the most effective method to do calculations mentally. Children are roped in as early as kindergarten and by the time they are in fifth grade, they can navigate through arithmetic with the ease of a Shakuntala Devi! In fact, we are not even competent to verify their answers!
Initially, they use  the abacus- a primitive device with beads strung to it to add and subtract. Soon, they can visualize the beads and their movement mentally and don't need the contraption any more. The method is proven and works like a charm.

If there is a flip side (or is the flop side?), it is the path- if the path to education is bitter, the path to "abacus fiefdom" seems worse- karela, neem and castor oil rolled together! The child has to spend two hours of a Sunday in class and a few more hours during the week to complete the homework. If the child can sit still and not complain, you are set. If the child is a free spirit, abacus can be a sentence in solitary confinement- he will revolt and rightfully so, till you finally free him from his shackles!

Abacus exams are not for the faint-hearted. That there are many who are heart-wise strong, headstrong or simply heartless is evident from the far flung places they come from! For the competition in Bangalore, folks troop in from Gulbarga, Raichur, Hubli, Shimoga and Sagar to name a few. For the competition in Chennai (the nationals), wards and parents come from Rajasthan and Jharkhand. All for a "8 minute" competition! You heard it right- 8 minutes for the higher levels of abacus and exactly 5 minutes for the lower levels!! A little like your hundred meter dash- you run like crazy and hope you'll win.

All you see at the venue is a sea of wards- in yellow color T-shirts and double the number of over-anxious parents. After all, this is India- staggering numbers and the anxiety to outdo the other.... go hand in hand. One parent has to wait in the make shift shamianas at the venue. The other (typically the father) accompanies his ward to the examination hall.
The hall is enormous- row upon row of desks and chairs into which children are stuffed like sardines. A barricade all around the hall separates the children from their parents. Parents click away using their cell phone cameras at anything and everything. Trying to spot your child is an impossibility. She is hopefully somewhere there- one grain in that sackful! If you do catch your ward, the parent has the most enlightening last minute comment screamed from the side-lines - "Don't forget to write your hall-ticket number"!
Children- in first grade and second grade blink at complicated instructions blaring over the microphone in English and Kannada alternately- "Z- category students: if you don't use the abacus, you will be disqualified". Parents run helter-skelter trying to verify which category their ward falls under. Invigilators have a tough time reining in the parents.

The question papers are distributed and placed before the child face-down. Parents are told to switch off their cell phones. The competition is about to begin and the organizers want silence. A child who is really late has to be accommodated. "Children... are you ready? Take deep-breaths!"- is the instruction. Children hold on to the end of the question paper... to flip it over.... exactly at the whistle! A nervous excitement takes over everyone. A huge electronic clock shows the 8 minute stop-watch ready to count down!

And then.... a shrill whistle punctures the silence sending shivers down your spine. Like a Mexican wave, on the dot, the question papers are flipped over by your seven year olds and ten year olds and they start solving the questions like mad. They are truly possessed by some spirit... definitely not human! Some of them punch the air with their fingers and fists with one hand, others with both. At the end of the pantomime, they scribble something on the question paper and get back to more action. Some cannot sit down and write; they stand up, write, and again break into a percussionist's tremble with an imaginary ghatam! A grimace is seen on one child's face, a scowl on the other, an involuntary jaw movement and a sudden gnash of the teeth in the third. All our eyes are on the electronic display... like sand trickling down an hour glass, it drains away.
Eight minutes are over in a trice, the whistle rings, the pencils are down and the papers are snatched away! Parents use all kinds of sign language if they spot their child- how many did you solve? 60, 100, 120? The answers and reactions are varied.
For a parent who has not followed his child closely, it is all too bewildering to say the least.

At the end of it, I had a one simple agenda- be sure to pick a child..... my child and head home.
I leave it to you to decide- what would you do?... pluck guavas or add-subtract-multiply-divide in eight minute competitions? Don't vote for the guavas... it will give you a stomach-ache!!

Practical exams

"Examination is a great botheration to the population of this nation. Hence, the only solution is the abolition of this abomination!
yours truly,
Adi seshan!"
We don't know who Adi Seshan was or when he lived. Like the savant Adi Shankara, Adi Seshan's precise position in the annals of human history is yet to be determined. But, we need little confirmation that he was a tormented spirit and examinations in particular contributed to his pained state of mind, which he vocalized so eloquently!

Examinations in India are not new. Though we would like to lay the blame at the feet of Lord Macaulay, examinations existed in ancient times. We hear that Kanchipuram had many centres of learning called ghatikas (or ghatikaa-sthaanaas). A lot of research has gone into the origin of the term- ghatika, which has ghata or pot as its root. Was it an institute which specialized in pot-making or perhaps teaching the ghatam (clay-pot used as percussion instrument) or did it churn out the Harry Potters of those days? We can take pot shots all right, but we're told that the term had a lot to do with the style of examinations conducted. To keep the examinations fair and square, all the questions were written on chits of paper and dropped into a pot. The student picked up one such chit from the pot (ghata) and answered it. Probably, the term pot-luck originated from this system. Hence, the word ghatika for these centres of learning.

Examinations come in different flavours- written, viva-voce, open book, multiple-choice, quiz, "surprise-test" and "practical" exams. Some examinations are etched in our memory; they hang on like the proverbial monitor-lizard and refuse to leave us- this one was a practical exam in the Electronics Laboratory.

The details have been thankfully blurred by unforgiving time- it involved setting up an elaborate circuit on a "bread board" and have the output displayed using an "oscilloscope". Some of us were challenged in this activity. To us, the resistors with their red-green bands, the quaint-looking capacitors and silvery transistors were but colourful toy-pegs to be inserted in various slots on the board, connnected or soldered to wires and have that entire tangled mass finally hooked to the oscilloscope. 

The three of us were particularly pleased with our progress this time. For once, the oscilloscope answered our ardent prayers and displayed the most delightful waveform! Professor Sinha surveyed our creation with childlike curiosity. Nattily dressed in a tweed overcoat, corduroy trousers with suspenders, he twirled his pipe around his mouth. "Indeed! Most interesting!" he remarked, while we were cocksure and beamed with more than usual pride.

He carefully removed one of the resistors and commented, "Aapka output ab bhi aa raha hai!" (the oscilloscope still shows the same output). It was difficult to react to that comment- a little unsure whether it would be correct to say, "Sir, that's expected" or "Sir, we can't believe it either!". Thankfully, he didn't wait for an answer. Next, he stepped back a bit, knitted his brows, surveyed the bread-board like a chess player... and with precision, selected a capacitor for a change and kept it away. "Aap ka output ab bhi aa raha hai!" he casually mentioned and got back to more work.

One by one, many resistors were removed; several transistors lay prostrate outside the board and the bread board looked sparse and particularly uncomplicated. "Dhyaan deejiye! Aap ka output ab bhi aa raha hai!"- ("May you please note- the output still hasn't changed!") Clearly, something was amiss and we sensed it. Our creative invention elicited attention from all the adjoining benches and soon, quite a crowd gathered. We shuffled our feet, cleared our throat, wiped the sweat from our brows, but clearly, there was no escape. Professor Sinha was still his meticulous self.

Suddenly, Sinha was transformed into a fiend and seized with a fit of rage, dug his nails into the bread-board and in one brutal sweep- uprooted the entire remaining contents and flung it away. The oscilloscope still wouldn't budge and mocked us further by displaying the same pattern. Looking at us straight in the eye, he thundered- "Aap ka output ab bhi aa raha hai!"
He shook his head in disbelief. Our expertise or the lack of it rendered him incapable of finding appropriate words. He stormed out of the hall and asked his apprentice to take over!

"It happens; don't take it too seriously!" Krishna tried to console us. There were several theories on what went wrong- Kamlesh felt that we had "shorted the two wires of the oscilloscope" so that the oscilloscope was cocooned in its own world and hence displayed the regular sinusoidal waveform that was its trademark signature!

Some practical exams leave us practically dumb in speech and numb in mind!

A predator in the post-office premises!

Tha catterpillar wriggled and crawled its way under his collar. The postmaster gave his shirt a little scratch and twitched his shoulders. Something obviously irritated him."Where is the pincode on this letter? You please fill it. No! No! We can't find the pincode for any Dhamtari district here. Where is it ? Chhatisgarh ? I have no idea. You please fill it and come back. Next person please....." His attention was on the next customer. My attention though was on him and the catterpillar. Beads of perspiration drenched the postmaster and his ebony skin gleamed like a well-oiled granite idol in a temple. The catterpillar made more headway and gnawed at him with greater vengeance! The postmaster glanced at his shirt pocket, half squinting his eyes. But the catterpillar was within the "least distance of distinct vision" and eluded him. He rotated the left shoulder blade clockwise a couple of times and again anti-clockwise, rubbed his collar too but didn't find relief.

I was still a few heads away from him. It was time to act. "Hello!" I began and watched all heads turn to me. I pointed a finger at him and shouted "Insect! Keeda! Poochi!" in three different languages. In a mock imitation, I pretended to scratch my chest with both my arms. To my horror, the postmaster took offence and didn't pay attention to the words "under your collar" which somehow didn't have the same volume. He was under the impression that I was calling him a "keeda" (creep!) with monkey-like mannerisms to boot! It was already resembling the spat between Symonds and Harbhajan Singh with a distinct possibility of snow-balling into a brawl. He briefly stood up, removed his spectacles and postured aggressively- "Saar! I hope you are educated! I can't do any faster. You have to wait for your turn."
Nasty stares met my eyes and silence appeared a preferable option in the circumstances. I left the postmaster to his fate and surveyed my surroundings.

Like most post-offices in this part of the globe, it hadn't seen a broom for at least a quarter of a century. Over us was a false ceiling made up of frayed thermocol sheets supported by a grill and home to many generations of spiders. One of the sheets was missing and made way for a low-hanging ceiling fan which whirred away lazily, more ornamental than utilitarian. Shelves were filled with envelopes, parcels, magazines and several files with oversized paper sticking out of them and yellowed with age. Hopefully, these were not undelivered correspondence! A picture of Gandhiji was stacked over one such bunch with the words 'customer is my God' scrawled on it. Evidently, no one had found the time to nail the picture to the wall.

On one side was a table, the top of which looked like a collage- inlaid with a million  tiny paper strips, perforated corners of stamps, some badly torn stamps and copious glue stains which gave the table-top a nice, shiny facade. A conical, blue bottle of gum stood on one side. The cap was missing and so was the swab to apply the glue! In its place was a makeshift twig to serve the purpose.
It takes a lot of dexterity to use the glue. One gentleman struggled with the twig, gave-up and made the fatal mistake of tilting the gum bottle in full over his envelope. An oversized blob of gum plopped on his envelope and completely disfigured the address that he had so carefully written. We heard a swear and a hasty retreat and the man was not to be seen thereafter.
The episode convinced another to use saliva. It appeared a safer alternative, though a trifle disgusting for an onlooker especially when a dozen stamps have to be stuck this way! The after-taste must have been particularly awkward judging by the way the chap continued to hang his tongue out!
Someone made the mistake of having excessive adhesive on his hands. He stuck the stamp onto the envelope and slammed it with his fist a few times to double-check that it was stuck nice and well. At the end of the pounding, to his dismay, the stamp had latched onto his fist like a leech and refused to travel with the envelope!

Another youngster carelessly leaned against the table laden with glue so that when he extricated himself, he found that the table had pinched away a part of his pant at the back and had probably drilled into his underwear as well!
On the other side of the table lay a pen chained to a peg to ensure that no one walked away with it. The effort seemed quite unnecessary for it was a relic from another era- no nib and incapable of writing using normal methods. At best, it could possibly be used to etch letters on palm leaves.

"Your turn saar"- announced the post-master, twisting his torso, still in discomfort. "Sir! There is an insect under your collar. That is all I wanted to convey!" I said calmly.
"Where? Where?" jumped the post master, skipping animatedly, jerking his shirt off and ruffling his trousers as well! An attendant ran for cover as if a snake was in the premises! A few others in the queue backed away in the ensuing commotion. "There sir, right below your chin!" The postmaster soon spotted the predator and flicked it away with his thumb and forefinger to finally free the hapless creature from his person.

"Why couldn't you tell me earlier?" he began. "I tried sir," I protested, only to be cut short curtly. His tone irritated me and I silently wished it had been a scorpion instead!