SIMPLE DAD

The Dad is always known to look after his children and care for them till it is possible. The Dad about whom I am going elaborate upon will give you the shock of your life. He is such a nice person that his wife gave him the name of Gandhijee , although this so called Dad did not have any physical resemblance to The Great Mahatma but was very kind and of helpful nature to every body except his own family which he thought was the sole responsibility of his wife. One can call him as simple and kind in nature as Gandhijee.

For his children this Dad was good only on one aspect that he never used to get  angry on them or shout at them and the best part is that he never punished or beat up his children no matter what the mischief was. This Dad did not even know the names of his children till the age of 87 years when he left for his heavenly abode. Even while taking the children to get admission in schools he would turn to his wife and ask the names of the kids as well as used to put in any date of birth he thought of on the day of filling in the forms(during those days birth certificate was never required).

The example of this Dad's simplicity can be measured from one of the situations at his home. He had purchased a new china clay tea set and brought home. This was given to his third child a daughter who went to keep it in the kitchen when there was a loud noise of something falling down and crashing sound was there for everyone in the house to hear. All rushed to the kitchen to see what was the matter? The mother of this daughter started shouting at the top of her voice that the new tea set had been broken to pieces, this girl could not even handle it properly and so on and so forth. The role of this Dad comes in between. How ? He came in with a broom in his hand and asked all to leave the room so that he could clean the floor or else the small pieces of china clay might injure small children moving around  without shoes. All present there were dumbfounded at the simple behavior of this Dad.

One day or rather night this Dad did not return from his place of work even after heavy rains had stopped in the dead of the night. His wife was visibly worried and was on the verge of crying when the family saw this Dad coming in a bicycle without any clothes except his underwear. All ran towards him with towels so that he could dry up his body. Kids were eager to know as to where were his clothes?. His answer once again shocked the whole family. He said that while coming back from office he saw a person stuck in slush formed by rain water and the trench dug by the telephone department which this man could not see as the street lights had gone kaput because of the rains which had lashed the city. Children said OK fine Dad saved that man but where are your clothes ? Dad said that the person drenched  in rain was shivering of cold hence he had given all his clothes to that man to save him from dying of cold. Well the kids asked Dad that he was also shivering without clothes and rain water which the Dad ignored as if nothing had happened.

There is another reason for his simplicity that he did not have a good job and at times used to do two jobs a day to run the show. The simple reason being that he did not have qualification. Well that was another shocking thing that this Dad who had studied well and had certificates to that effect had donated his own proofs of qualification to another person because he could not qualify the minimum qualification needed to get a job in the Government Departments. That person got a good job and even retired from there getting pension for his old age but this so called Dad was jumping from one small job to another to have a below normal living. Then another part of this story is there where this Dad's eldest daughter was to be married to the gentleman's(who got job on proxy) son. The gentleman asked for dowry to get his son married and the demand was the handing over the only house this Dad owned to his daughter in marriage. Still this Dad did not sever relations with that gentleman and said that how can he help this is the custom that bridegroom's side has to demand, it was not the fault of that person.

Story still goes on but will be continued in the next blog.....

TEACHERS OF YESTERYEARS

I had to study in a school as normally every child has to study but this school was with a difference. Well you will be thinking that all schools are the same so what is the difference I am blogging about ? The difference was that most (not all) of the teachers of those years when I was forced to study there had a mentality to differentiate between rich and poor students.

I belonged to the category of poor students which were very few. Then there was another  category of students who belonged to a particular community were given preference over the other students. It seems that  I am rolling over the surface instead of coming to the core of the subject which I want to convey to you.

I will give an example. The teacher in class VI who was the class teacher as well had a special liking for poor students. He  used to thrash them to pulp for very silly mistakes but will forgive the rich ones and top of that he will not punish the students of his community.

The class was given home work  and few of us including me had taken the liberty to copy the answer from the text book. Which this teacher did not like and he categorized us into the compartments which he always used to do. The rich and the students of his community were spared but the poor ones of other communities were punished.

Now, what was the punishment ?  He asked us to write the lines "I have cheated" and ordered us to get it signed from our parents and show it to him the next day. I was a very docile child fearful of my parents, teachers and all elders. I had a reputation of being honest and my parents were proud of my honesty. I did not have the guts to get their signature in my home work note book. Each day the teacher would ask me  whether I have done as he ordered and on finding that there was no signature on my note book he used to thrash me to pulp. This continued for few days. My class mates said that they can put false signatures of my parents and I can submit that but I was against committing fraud. Then one day this teacher asked me to kneel down on upturned drawing pins with their points upwards. My fear of getting my knees injured prevented me from kneeling on the pins and he went on caning me on my buttocks again and again till the other students started shouting at me to kneel down on the pins to get spared from the spanking. In the end I also decided to kneel down on the pins but as I knelt just before the pins pierced my knees the teacher pulled me up and asked to go an sit on my seat but the pain on my buttocks were severe hence I could not sit.

I had thought that this was the end of my troubles but I was wrong. The next day the punishment started from where it had stopped a day earlier. That is once again I was called by the teacher and on not finding the signatures the caning started all over again. Fed up of this I took up the courage to get signatures of my Father on the note book, although he did not utter a word and signed as well but he stared at me as if I have committed a murder.

The story does not end here. This teacher got nominated as MLA and I too got a job of a Probationary Officer in a Bank. The day I felt as if I had proved my point was when both of us were travelling in a train in air conditioned coach and sitting beside the teacher and the fun is he recognized me but I mustered the guts to ignore him. I felt so contended. I do not know whether I was right or not in my behavior but it gave me solace.