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Recently, a few incidents reminded me of some forgettable days in school. It is very unfortunate, because it’s almost after six years that those memories have come back again to haunt me. No doubt, there were better days in school; but somehow they are overshadowed by these malevolent occurrences.
Our batch in school was really lucky, because our seniors did not get the opportunity of learning computers in the fifth standard. They could only do it in the eighth standard, which for us, meant three extra years of computer education. Our syllabus included Dos and Microsoft Paint, which was not considered obsolete then, as it is today.
My school was a government-aided Christian missionary convent school. Obviously, we didn’t have plenty of computers. We had to share one computer between the three of us. This teacher was supposedly very strict and mean. We were comparatively timid school-going kids, unlike the hippies of today. She scolded us often for trivial issues and all of us were terrified of her.
After about six months of learning Dos, we were very eager to switch to Ms Paint. We were bored of that same old black screen full of senseless jargon. The day finally arrived. We rushed to the computer lab, the ‘hag’ followed close behind. We settled quickly in our places and waited for the session to begin. But she stuck to her old dirty ways. The crone shouted at us for not wishing her ‘good morning’. She dampened our enthusiasm; she threw a poor kid out of the class for a filthy reason.
Those of us who use computers at least know some basic physics. We don’t require a genius to tell us how difficult it is for three people to work on a single PC. In those days, flat screens didn’t exist. Obviously, we had two options – either stretch out our necks to get a better view, or simply just adjust the computer screen to suit all three of us best. I did the latter, only to face the unexpected consequences.
The old hag saw me touching the screen panel. Her blood boiled and she started abusing me on top of her voice, “You stupid boy! How dare you touch the computer? Does it belong to your father?” she added a few more sentences, but I didn’t have the guts to hear them. I was dead scared.
I almost cried. Probably, I was too young to understand the real meaning of such a crude remark which she said so easily. As a fifth standard school kid, I was a coward, but I knew I was being shouted at for an extremely foolish reason. Thinking thus, I replied, “I…I couldn’t see…”
She marched towards me with a revengeful look. I froze in my seat. I heard my partners sighing. They knew the consequences too, but I had already put my foot in the quicksand. I looked straight at her, feeling helpless. I couldn’t possibly take back what I had just said. She yelled again, “You can’t see, eh? Who will pay for this computer if you spoil it? Your father is a doctor isn’t he? Can’t he take care of you and your eyes?”
I had taken enough by now. She had exceeded the limit. So what if she is my teacher? She had no right to talk about my father in such a derogatory manner. If students are supposed to respect their teachers, teachers too are supposed to reciprocate with love and respect. If a teacher genuinely wants to teach and make his/her students a better person, the student will automatically respect that person. In the heat of the moment, I felt that I’m justified not to respect her. Immediately, I made a decision. I had to give her shit back to her. I yelled back at her, much to the surprise of my batch-mates, “Ma’am, you have no right to talk about my father like that. I have done nothing wrong. If you think I should be able to see the computer from this position, come, sit here, and show me how.” I got up and offered her my seat.
She fumed with anger and my friends tried to support me by certain obvious encouraging gestures. Probably they too wanted to get back at her at some point in their lives. Few rogues snickered at my fate. That old hag was extremely angry. She literally dragged me to the principal’s office and abused me all the way. The principal was no better. He reprimanded me, scolded me and wrote a remark in my ‘calendar’. He threatened to throw me out of the school and told me how that would bring shame to my family. Finally, he forced me to apologise two-three times and let me go. I was made to sit out of that class, but I had anyway lost all interest in that subject.
Eleven years down the line, I’m still angry, not at her or him, but angry at myself. I shouldn’t have let them take advantage of my cowardice. I should have given them what they deserve. Retrospectively, I think whatever came to my mind in the heat of the moment then is absolutely correct.
However, I do get some mental relief when I realise that they belong to such a category of unlucky teachers who will never get even a speck of respect from their students (sic). I don’t know how many (more) eager students they will traumatise in their goddamned career.
