Down the memory lane- III

Third Grade
A litmus test

Three years at one place, and you don’t remain an outsider. You become a part of it!
This was the case as I entered my third year in Vizag and KVW.
A decent telugu with a tinge of nativity that included a “Babu” at the end of every dialogue, a “Subba rao” for a nickname, and a gang of loyal friends in class, all lent some testimony to it.
Life was no longer a fight against the odds. Things had fallen well in place. I had finally managed to build a good rapport with my teachers thanks to my stage exploits (I am allowed to exaggerate because it is my blog!) and being among the top five rank holders of my class in the preceding annual examinations.(sounds better than just “fifth rank”, isn’t it?).
But just when things seemed to settle down, two of the bitterest incidents of my childhood stuck from the blue- One for the body and the other for the mind!
I am picking the latter, owing to the series being restricted to the incidents in school.

It was time for the cumulative examinations. And we had to deal with the Languages first.
Right from day one, languages have been no less a saviour for me.
I could boast of a school first in tenth while others with a greater total couldn’t, as I had topped in Hindi! And, I managed a 95+ % in high school despite screwing up all the important papers big time, all credits to the languages.
Even my last CAT scores could at least cross *&% percentile, thanks to English.(censored by Mr. Dignity).

As far as my memory could take me, English and Hindi were usually the first two subjects on the Exam Time table. It was the case that time too.
We had 2.5 hours of written test every morning of a week within which all the 5 subjects were dealt with.

To a primary class student, examinations are always fun and excitement.
2-3 hours of study would just about enable us get an 80%.
And back then, we were all role models for leading a contended life! :)

And examinations meant we could leave our back packs home and take fancy writing pads plastered with cool pictures of Wrestlers and Cricketers, and anything that was colourful including the National Flag .(And at one corner, for sure, images of our favourite Gods, to help us get that additional 5-6 marks that determine the rankings. )
And also, after the test, we could play cricket with our weightless, fancier cricket bats (writing pads, of course) and a not-so-heavy-ball (A paper, in most cases being a copy of the day’s question paper, rolled into a ball with a rubber band). Oh boy, weren’t they more entertaining than T20?
And when those are the easier tests like the languages, students would be that more enthusiastic.
And I learnt a lesson just for that.

It was the turn of the Hindi test. The paper was half printed with questions and we had to fill the answers in the spaces using pencil.

Most of us finished the paper well in time, as usual. But, as the rules didn’t permit us to leave the hall before the bell rings, we had to wait in our seats till then.

At that age, I was coming out of my bedwetting habit and believe me; it is harder than the cigars.

And so, you see, I wasn’t an expert in holding my bladder. (Man, It was winter too! What do you expect?)

And thus, had this sudden urge to leave for the rest room. I got up from the seat in a jiffy and requested the considerate ma’am to let me out (no pun intended!). And she did, on one condition that I should be returning to hand over the papers to her. I accepted her treaty like Japan post Hiroshima. I didn’t have a choice.

I put my paper on the table, went to my comfort zone, and was back in a fiver. The bell rang, and off we went to start another day’s play!

The week was over, and I was not particularly upset about any of my papers. I thought I had given a good performance overall.

A few days later, our Hindi teacher walked into the class with our answer sheets. She always had the habit of sorting the papers in the ascending order of marks for distribution.

And there she was, calling each student to the front of the class and reading out his/her mark as she handed the sheets out.

Like any other student, I wanted mine to get as much delayed as possible. And my happiness grew with time, only to burst in the end as she called out the best student in the class to receive his paper.

A sudden moment of loneliness engulfed me. I checked my neighbours if they had got theirs. Of course they did. I looked at the teacher’s table and there was one shabby looking paper lying on it. Even from the third bench where I was seated, I could tell it wasn’t mine.

I wasted no time in heading to the teacher. And before I could tell her, she thrust that shabby looking answer sheet in my hands with an ‘I-can-read-your-mind’ expression on her face and said, “Here, You haven’t written your name properly!”
One good look at the paper and I was left shell-shocked! The sheet had a 12/80!
What more? It had my roll number and some strange looking name starting with “s” on it.

This was probably my first taste of injustice in life! I returned the paper immediately saying it wasn’t mine. There were no absentees on that day (One of those handful days in school. It must have been one with 2 P.T periods!). So, the teacher found the only possible solution.

She asked me to check each student’s sheet to see if mine had got mixed up with anyone.
By this time, I was on the verge of tears.

As I went to each desk and had a look at the papers, my sorrow grew. Though I was among the contended lot, it was still depressing to see the dullest of dull students having a score of over 12.

Just a 7 year old, I neither had an IQ, nor the patience to go through the answer sheets. I only went through the names in the answer sheets to see if it had mine, and alas, there was none.

The raid having got completed, I took my one and only weapon out- My tears.

The teacher tried to console a weeping me for a while in vain, and then, took me to my Class teacher’s place. She was a no-nonsense lady. She heard from my hindi teacher and the two discussed in a low tone for a while until they arrived a consensus. They handed that answer sheet back to me and started consoling with words that included-

“We can understand your situation. You are a bright student and must have come under prepared for the exam. So, having done poorly, you would have written your name wrongly to disown your paper later.”

It took me sometime to realize that they weren’t consoling, but were, in fact, accusing me.
It was THE TEACHERS who had accused me. So, I thought I had no other choice than to take it.

A 7 year old doesn’t know he can argue with THE TEACHERS.

I wept the longest time at school that day.
In the evening, I waited teary eyed for my parents to break the story to them, though with a valid doubt,

“My TEACHERS didn’t believe me. So, why would my parents?”

And my doubts were squashed later, when my Dad turned livid hearing my teachers’ accusations through my brother and me as we showed the shabby answer sheet to him.
I realized, parents were parents! None could equal them!

I got some courage back as my parents said they would talk to my teachers the next day accompanying me to school.

I started to feel I might not have to own up for this 12/80 marks, after all!

A heated argument between the Headmistress, teachers and my parents followed the next day.
Both the sides stood like a rock on their stands. It was so intense that I was left wondering which would happen first- My expulsion or my drop-out!

On hindsight, being a Government school, it was not within the powers of the teachers to remove a student on any ground. And nor would they, if they had the powers.

My dad, an articulate person, had to undergo a serious test of patience. With the feud not heading to an end, he decided enough had been said and cut it abrupt. He asked me to go back to my class and said we could think of something after school. I had handed the baton over to my dad by then and resumed my lessons peacefully.

I was told by my parents not to accept the marks in any circumstances and that we could deal with it at the time of Progress report signing.

Three days passed by without any news on my marks. And, the mystery was solved on the fourth!

I was called to the Headmistress’ room in the middle of the Post noon session.
I went there with a whole bunch of apprehensions. As I said those May-I-Come-In thingy, I noticed my class teacher, Hindi teacher and a timid looking boy alongside the HM.

The boy was my classmate and a not-so-good a friend of mine. It turned out that he was the real culprit!

My Sherlockish Hindi teacher had pulled the rabbit out of the hat! She had compared the Unit test scores of all the students with their Cumulative exam scores. And the only duckling happened to be that boy. They had called him for enquiry and he went into submissive!

This was his modus operandi:-

On the day of the test, when I had been to loo, he managed to steal my paper from my desk, erased my name and roll number written in pencil, and wrote his in the spaces. And, then, returned the ‘favour’ by placing his paper on my desk after scribbling my roll number and name on it!

And I couldn’t notice anything wrong on my return, as I was more focussed on handing over the sheet to the invigilator as soon as possible so that I can enter the playground early.

But, the ‘poor’ criminal had committed a grave mistake which led to his trail!

He didn’t know the correct spelling of my name!
And, that became his nemesis!

(I don’t blame him for this shortcoming! Even my present day friends find it hard to spell my name!)

For once, I was thankful that my parents had named me big! :)

It is still hard to imagine what would have happened had he spelt my name correct. No one would have believed it wasn’t my paper, probably including me! :)

All the concerned teachers apologized for their incredulity and asked me to convey some more to my parents.

The boy was let off with a severe warning and a week of suspension. And I got my real score eventually- a 62/80!

This boy became a good friend of mine later on and was leading a well-improved life till I last heard of him in eighth.

This incident was not a lesson just for me, but for all the characters involved, and also from now on, is one for the readers! :)