Random Ramblings of a Reluctant Blogger

 School memories are funny. Some stay fresh
some grow old and some, like with old films rolls negatives stuck together,
morph into each other. It happens especially if one has been to several
schools.  It is even more difficult if
one has lost touch with schoolmates immediately after leaving school. And in
the 60s, when an old school mate from four decades back came knocking, thanks
to the ever-evolving technology, I had dig into the deep recess of my memory
bank.

Names linger, I learnt, but putting faces to
it becomes tough. Easier though, to recollect are incidents. And some have withstood
the time.

I have always found it tough to wrap myself
around any figures of mathematical kind. And my close encounter with my
diminutive maths teacher only added to my woes. It was between classes when we
all gathered around the water tank taking in our fill. Waking back, I casually
put my arm around my friend to tell him how I will have to sit through a boring
maths class I. It was a deadly silence that alerted me to the danger. I
realised too late that the shoulder I had leant against was not that of my
friend but my Maths teacher. I sheepishly, do not remember if I said sorry,
moved back, and have ever since been playing catch-up with maths.

Relatively speaking, Physics was more
tolerable, till of course a tangential force, altered my thoughts. The
gentleman teaching physics had a very pronounced Malayalam accent. Naturally
for us it was a subject matter of mirth. Once someone suggested we all get
together and clap our mock appreciation as soon as he finishes the class. Class
over I enthusiastically applauded, only to realise I was the lone Ranger doing
it. Demonstrating Newton’s law, the reaction was swift and strong. The stinging
slap was not as hurtful as the thought that I have been at the wrong end of a
failed prank!

A high moment in the class was when we were to
go on excursion. With all the goodies we waited expectedly chatting and
creating a ruckus, even as some classes were going on. And as time passed and
no sign of the buses that was supposed ferry us, we got impatient. Little good
did that do. For we learnt much to our horror someone goofed up and the picnic
never happened. The remaining time was spent in the class, even as we tried to convince
hard our teachers to let us go as we were without books.   

I was always in the middle of the, what HR
loves to call, the bell curve. That certainly did not stop me from enjoying
life without any care or thoughts of the future. So it intrigued me when I
heard from one of the girls, she was the tallest in the class, that she wanted
to be a Radio news reader. And here I was not thinking even next class ahead.
But my future calling sprang at me at an English class, though I did not realise
it then. I plunged myself with glee when asked to write an essay on ‘The day
when everything went wrong’. The teacher gave it back saying, “very
well-written, but highly improbable.” The seeds of my writing career and
journalism had started sprouting that day.

(to be continued)