The lovely daughter has been coming back to me with all kinds of complaints since the day she took her first steps to letter herself.
In PrePrimary II, as a mature 4 year old she announced that she hated Rohit because he said he wanted to marry her. Her father said that he would first check his bank balance then follow him around with a gun before he would allow any such thing to happen. She found that reassuring. Then again in Class I, it was the older boys who were teasing her in the bus. She swept aside my lectures on how she should elegantly ignore it and deal with it on her own and once again called in the big guy who with all his fatherly tactlessness, stood his big frame firmly in front of them and warned the guys off his daughter. It worked. She also took to smugly walking into the bus with her elbows jutting out, so that she could knock all and sundry out of her way. This was on the advice of a particularly interesting colleague of mine with a soft corner for guerilla tactics.
In Class II, it was “Operation Remove Vamshi”. She simply did not want to sit next to a boy. But the teacher insisted on pairing the XXs and the XYs. But my kid gave me various excuses ranging from “he took all my erasers” to “he smells funny”, till she hit upon the one thing she knew would get my goat—she told me he had lice. I raced to school; to find that the target of her chagrin had very little hair…lice could not have possibly made a home in such sparse territory.
It’s been an amazing insight into the world of primary education from a parenting perspective—were my experiences the same? As I have followed my four-year old become a much wiser 11-year-old, I watched her drop the complaining and take on the world by herself. More responsible, more mature, she’s a natural counselor for other kids who call asking for her advice the moment we get home. The teachers congratulate me on my daughter and my parents’ gloat over her report card as they never got to gloat over mine.
Then as suddenly as it had gone, the complaining was back. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to be Prefect”? Nope—was never the prefect material. “All the kids hate me!” Then why do they still call at 4pm asking for your advice? “I bet it never happened at your school…did they ever write your name on the wall along with all kind of other stuff?” Yes, they did. They even wrote on the back of contour maps and on the library books. They scratched our names on the doors with all kind of plus signs.
School isn’t all Ha Ha Hee Hee…but isn’t it? Was I complaining too when I was in Class VI. I really need to think back…to the last few days in Class 10.
When you’re in class 10, you never deign to think what you and your school mates would be doing 25 years later...You are so full of yourself and how things are affecting you, but time has a habit of flying and you fly with it. You had the thoughtless nicknames, the alleged link-ups, the chap in class who always came first and the bullies who wanted their way. You had groups based on height, sex, and class sections. You had writings on the walls, classroom politics, and the secret notes shoved into desks (along with the occasional frog) and they all seemed like insurmountable problems. You were misquoted, or ignored or put on a pedestal. You smirked over wisecracks, and imitated the teachers behind their backs. You were sent out of the class for talking too much, and ran the 100metres. You complained about and laughed cruelly at other kids. You also made the best friends. You learned the bad words and recognized the good deeds. You always liked what was in other people’s lunch box. You had bus stop friends, car-pool friends, best friends and second best friends. School and schoolmates were the microcosm of the big bad beautiful world out there.
Despite it all, you had to study when you didn’t want to and you would pray that the future would take you away into a rosier world, with just the right amount of rain to make rainbows, just the right amount of money to have the good things in life, just the right kind of love to make your life complete, just the right kind of success that would show them all….
Then you walk over the threshold and see what the world is actually like and you actually grow wiser. You finally know that the microcosm you left behind is the only bit of turf left that lets you be you.
Schoolmates are the ones you grow up with. They are the ones who gave you memories to laugh over. They are also the ones who with their torturous teasing tactics, toughen you up. They are the ones who have seen you at your ugliest, so whatever you look now is pretty. They won’t lie about frivolous stuff like age—because they can’t! They make you feel young. They also point out how old you are. They are thrilled to see your kids. They are the ones who really want to know about how you are and happiest to get back in touch.
So, one Christmas day, when you are talking in terms of 25 years ago…you know that things have changed, you have changed, but somewhere…time still stood still so that you could go back, sign into a online group and share a laugh or wipe a tear. And hopefully, if you keep your fingers crossed, they are the ones who will stand by you and understand.
