For most people, vacation is an event much looked forward to. I have seen people put up countdown charts on the wall and religiously strike off each passing day. Sometimes I feel that for them, the anticipation of the vacation is rather more joyful than the vacation itself.
I - on the other hand - prepare my countdown chart once the vacation begins. Vacation means a pause to the tranquility of the everyday routine of my life, the most rewarding part of which is going to the classroom where I had spent three years scribbling in the back pages of my note-book, taking a count of how many people were sleeping if I myself managed to keep sleep at bay, chatting with Damu, watching Ashwin drawing half a car (he refrained from drawing the other half as the lack of symmetry would ruin it), observing Hussam, G-Man and Jayalal playing Hangman with names of football players, looking out of the window at the trees in the distance and the passers-by, laughing at Roshan's comment about the nerdy professor on the dais and - rather occasionally - living up to my official occupation of "student" and listening to the nerdy professor.
But those three years were long gone. I was now thirty years old. For five years now, I was the (hopefully not so nerdy) lecturer (struggling with his Ph.D. so as to become a professor).
The end-semester exam was over. I was done with correcting and grading the answer papers of the two hundred second years that I taught. I taught Solid State Devices, which meant that a good part of the answer sheets were blank. There were some who made a valiant effort to cook up theories in the exam hall. All rubbish of course. None of the ground-shaking theories till date were produced in an exam hall. But I preferred the answer sheets containing the atrocious concepts of these radicals to those of the studious dozen who had mastered everything that Streetman, Banerjee and Neamen had to say on the subject. While the studious' answer papers always made me feel like I was reading the text-book again, the radicals' papers had that quality which Subramaniam Sir claimed about theories he would explain in class - "you will not see this in any text-book".
I completed the list. I looked at each name and the letter in front of each name that denoted their grade. Needless to say, the studious twelve had all secured the S grade (the top grade). It was with a heavy heart that I gave the radicals Cs and Ds. I contemplated the grade I had given to that over-sized boy who frequently bunked my classes in the name of FOSS and IEEE. If only I could cut his twenty marks and thus award him an F grade ... but no. That was out of the question. Ethical issues notwithstanding, if the dratted kid lodged a complaint and it was found that I was using the examination as a means for vengeance, it would mean another meeting with the Dean - perhaps for the last time.
All my academic duties for the semester now over, I went to my room and set to packing my bag. I was going to Thalayolaparambu the next day for a week.
* * * * * *
Thalayolaparambu is what villages should be - scenic, quiet and peaceful everywhere except the chandha, the market, where vegetable vendors compete with each other in raising their voices above the others. My father frequently keeps reminding me that the vehicles that have increased in number due to the newly constructed bridge have destroyed the peace, but for me, who spends a good part of the year in a college campus where students ride bikes without silencers, Thalayolaparambu is peaceful.
I got off from the bus at the bus-stop. I was making my way, bag in hand, along the chandha. The familiar sounds greeted me. Cries of "Ulli, Savola, Inji, Veluthulli ..." from the man selling onions and ginger and garlic ... "oru kilo pacha maanga muppadhe" from the old man selling unripened mangoes ...
I went to the old man, not because I liked unripened mangoes. I have always liked my mangoes sweet and ripened. Those unripened mangoes reminded me of a bespectacled football maniac with the scarcity of hair on his head more than compensated by the density of his beard and mustache.
Many things reminded me of Shanil. Blue Chelsea T-shirts with "SAMSUNG" written on the front reminded me of the night he ran along the second floor corridor of C-hostel screaming "Chelsea has scored a goal! Chelsea has scored a goal!" Whenever I see an advertisement of Gulfgate (a hair-fixing agency), hair-loss controlling oil or my own receding hair line in a mirror, I remember the day I asked him for the fun of it "Hey Shanil, which hair oil do you use? I want to make sure I DON'T buy that particular brand" to which he replied "Firdous! I shall be praying for you. My curses never fail. Those who have laughed at the hair on my head (or rather, the hair not there on my head) have not laughed long." Whenever any of my students boldly and persistently questions me about some concept he has not fully grasped, I remember Shanil. I see Shanils in those of my students who openly criticise the way I take the class in the middle of a lecture (fortunately, this criticism has been thrown at me only twice) and in those who imitate me secretly while at the Amul ice-cream parlour, ignorant of the fact that I am in the queue just behind them (unfortunately, this imitation has happened about seven times, and I suspect the recent decrease in frequency of this imitation in Amul is because it is now common knowledge in the branch that I am a hopeless ice-cream addict).
As for the unripened mangoes, it is a different story. Memories of a day in my first year at NIT-C came back to me.
* * * * * *
Another graphics hour was over - finally. No matter how hard I tried to rotate the cone in my head, in the end it seemed like it was my entire head that had been subjected to the rotations. The next hour was free for us. We walked out of the the lecture hall complex, some of us headed for the peace and quiet of our rooms for a well-earned rest, some to the computer centre which we called "tharavaadu" - ancestral home - among ourselves, and the more battle-hardened of us heading for the library.
Shanil, Shameem and Shaju were making for their rooms. They passed the mango tree on the way. On that clear February fore-noon, the trio found it difficult to rein in their spirit of adventure, and their hunger for the unripened mangoes. They set to work first jumping as high as they could to reach the mangoes, then giving each other a leg-up, and then collecting sticks and stones and throwing these at the mangoes.
Unfortunately for them, they were unconsciously poking a sleeping dragon in the eye. The mango tree was right in front of the Training and Placement Department, where dwelt Dr. Surendra Prasad Sir (with special emphasis on the “Dr.” and “Sir”, as we had been coached by our seniors). His being the head of T & P was the cause of whispers that he had the power to ruin our lives.
Sure enough, the T & P Head had a good view of the three happily picking up stones and fallen mangoes.
If I were writing a fairy tale, the next sentence would be something like “The dragon, disturbed from its slumber, emerged from its den, took one look at the three knights in armour, and let forth a deafening roar, fire emerging from its open jaws”. Though this narration is based on a real occurrence, this is as close to dragons and deafening roars as it gets.
Surendra Prasad Sir, disturbed from whatever he was doing, emerged from his room, stepped out of the building, and took one look at the three students with leaves sticking in their hair. At least this was the case with Shameem and Shaju. Shanil had no leaves entangled in his hair, for, indeed, his hair was not thick enough to entangle leaves. Surendra (at this point, I must remind the reader that it is with great personal risk that I drop the honorary prefix and suffix of “Dr.” and “Sir”... anyway, Surendra) let forth a shout which froze the three in the midst of their merry-making. He covered the ground between himself and our three knights in seven strides, and after releasing considerable steam, he demanded the ID cards of the three. Shameem was wise enough to have left his ID card in his room. Shaju cleverly declared (untruthfully) that he had left his in his room. But Shanil, who had his ID card in his pocket, was foolish enough to hand it over.
On a warm night one week after that incident, as I was returning to the hostel after an hour in the computer centre, I passed by the T & P department. Shanil, with the aid of a long stick, was trying to get mangoes from the same tree. I noticed that he already had about four mangoes on the ground. Knowing him to have rather a weak bowel, I inquired of him the reason for this unnatural vigour and zeal for mangoes. That was when he spilled out the whole story.
“...you know, Firdous, for one week now I have been regularly coming here for mangoes at night. Taking my ID card ... I am so pissed off!”
Unfortunately for them, they were unconsciously poking a sleeping dragon in the eye. The mango tree was right in front of the Training and Placement Department, where dwelt Dr. Surendra Prasad Sir (with special emphasis on the “Dr.” and “Sir”, as we had been coached by our seniors). His being the head of T & P was the cause of whispers that he had the power to ruin our lives.
Sure enough, the T & P Head had a good view of the three happily picking up stones and fallen mangoes.
If I were writing a fairy tale, the next sentence would be something like “The dragon, disturbed from its slumber, emerged from its den, took one look at the three knights in armour, and let forth a deafening roar, fire emerging from its open jaws”. Though this narration is based on a real occurrence, this is as close to dragons and deafening roars as it gets.
Surendra Prasad Sir, disturbed from whatever he was doing, emerged from his room, stepped out of the building, and took one look at the three students with leaves sticking in their hair. At least this was the case with Shameem and Shaju. Shanil had no leaves entangled in his hair, for, indeed, his hair was not thick enough to entangle leaves. Surendra (at this point, I must remind the reader that it is with great personal risk that I drop the honorary prefix and suffix of “Dr.” and “Sir”... anyway, Surendra) let forth a shout which froze the three in the midst of their merry-making. He covered the ground between himself and our three knights in seven strides, and after releasing considerable steam, he demanded the ID cards of the three. Shameem was wise enough to have left his ID card in his room. Shaju cleverly declared (untruthfully) that he had left his in his room. But Shanil, who had his ID card in his pocket, was foolish enough to hand it over.
On a warm night one week after that incident, as I was returning to the hostel after an hour in the computer centre, I passed by the T & P department. Shanil, with the aid of a long stick, was trying to get mangoes from the same tree. I noticed that he already had about four mangoes on the ground. Knowing him to have rather a weak bowel, I inquired of him the reason for this unnatural vigour and zeal for mangoes. That was when he spilled out the whole story.
“...you know, Firdous, for one week now I have been regularly coming here for mangoes at night. Taking my ID card ... I am so pissed off!”
* * * * * *
I walked the rest of the way to my grandfather’s house, my bag in one hand, thirty rupees worth of unripened mangoes in the other, oblivious to the greetings of neighbours and relatives on the way.
No comments:
Post a Comment