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.
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.
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