My 10 A classmates were up in arms saying that I never write about them; most of my posts involve stories from the adjacent class of which I had also been a part of. In my defense it is not intentional as to what I choose to write about. How can I not write about the fond memories of my very own class which I once topped.Firstly a brief about this motley bunch of 43 students who were notorious in our school for all the wrong reasons. Our class teacher, a veteran of sorts used to lament on the fact that this was one of the worst batches she had ever seen in her chequered teaching career. Our Principal had a dedicated corner in his room where you could always find one of my classmates being pulled up for indiscipline.
Into this mix comes Mr P to teach English. He was a peculiar character who used to exaggerate the words a bit when he spoke the queens language. For instance he threw you out by saying ‘out you go’ in a loud and booming voice instead of a simple “get out”. You were in ‘jeopardy’ of being thrown out of class if you didn’t get your act straight because of his strictness. One fine day Mr P was in a rotten mood ‘chucked’ out M on the least of provocations. At that opportune moment our Principal was in the midst of his routine rounds. Seeing him at the end of the corridor like clockwork M sneaks back into the class at the very instant when Mr P’s back turns towards the black board and stealthily closes the door. This enables him to stay out of sight of the Principal for the time being by hiding behind the door.It is a matter of time before Mr P finds the door shut much to his chagrin. He asks M to leave the door ‘ajar’. In response to this J points to a dozing D with his mouth open thoroughly tired after a game of intense cricket during the lunch break. J exclaims “ Sir, his mouth is ‘ajar’. Mr P exclaims ‘silly boy’ his mouth his ‘agape’ not ‘ajar’ and goes on to shake D from his stupor with an earful. This left the entire class in splits which led to a ‘pandemonium’; D and J join M for company at the door.
One fine day Mr P was checking on the homework in class and there were a good number of us who did not complete it. Mr P was trying to understand as to why so many of us didn’t finish their homework. A general trend was that we forgot about it all and would do it the next day. To which Mr P gave a word of caution ‘Procrastination is the thief of time’. As this unfolded R from somewhere back in the class was tapping on the bench purely out of boredom trying to connect with the innate tabla artist within him. A quip from Mr P “Who is the carpenter’s son here?” silenced him for the rest of the academic year.
Another day the same story repeats and Mr P in a candid moment tells the class that ‘Old habits die hard’ so you guys better mend your ways or else you will get into trouble sooner or later in life.He rounded off the lecture by saying ‘let bygones be bygones’ and ‘let sleeping dogs lie’. He was ready to move on and implored us to start afresh . But we never changed I and for him we always remained ‘incorrigible.’
Another fine day our Maths teacher was on leave. Being in the midst of the first board exam of our lives we were always under a lot of pressure. In turn we never ‘let slip’ an opportunity to just go play to our hearts delight. Our class leader B was dispatched promptly to the Principal’s office to capitalise on this juicy opportunity to squeeze in a games period. The tension was palpable as we were all in anticipation of a much needed break. We were in for a shock when Mr P walks into the class and a pall gloom descends through the entire room. At that very instant every soul in the class was cursing B. What a useless guy he was, who couldn’t get this simple task done and why the hell did he go call Mr P when he was supposed to get us a goddamn games period.
Meanwhile, B was on cloud nine when he managed to negotiate a games period with the Principal. In his excitement he took a detour to the games room manned by the ‘effervescent’ Jose uncle to get the required sports 'paraphernalia’. With a huge smile written on his face he rushed into the class to announce his successful conquest oblivious to the fact that Mr P was in full flow. He froze in terror when he realised that Mr P was glaring at him who went on to ‘chide’ him for his recklessness. A crestfallen B walked back to his seat dejected; he should have noticed something was amiss when he walked into the unusually quiet classroom, in his moment of ecstasy he chose to ignore this fact as he walked in.A collective sigh escaped the room as it came to light that we had cursed this hapless soul needlessly a moment ago.The ‘omnipotent’ Mr P had pulled a fast one on us; the moment he saw a window of an opportunity to cover some unfinished portions he just grabbed it.On second thoughts B felt that the Principal on his part might have been in a ‘dilemma’ given the fact that he was deliberating with his deputy as B walked in with his request.
A few of my classmates currently reside in or are in the vicinity of Ohio in the US of A but not many of them recollect that for the first time in our lives it was Mr P who taught us the correct pronunciation, it is Oh "io” instead of Oh"ei"o which we were using until then.
My post today though a light hearted take on my 10th standard English lessons is actually quite the contrary . All the ‘words’ in the post that are in single quotes are directly taken from the vocabulary that I was introduced by Mr P in that very classroom. If I am still able to recollect these words after close to two decades it is testimony to the greatness of Mr P as a teacher. As a writer I will be forever indebted to Mr P for introducing me to a totally new set of words quite early in life thereby bringing in some diversity to my existing vocabulary. It has also to be mentioned that I have only used first letters to denote the names of my characters in this post. That is due to the fact that I don’t recollect the names of the guys who were in these hilarious situations. For the record these blokes include globe trotting academicians, business men, doctors, software engineers,management professionals,HR executives,marketing leaders,civil servants among many others.
With Inputs from Arun R,Nidhin Thomas,Jithin Thomas,Sudarsan,Sreekumar,Rahul Ravind, Bijo Thomas
In case you liked my post please check out similar posts Mitochondria, An inspiring teacher, We are the underdogs, English lessons
Kollam! Midukkan
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