The
students from my high school formed yet another social circle for
me, after home. School provided me a space to create the second layer of my
personality and value development. I was able to achieve good results without
putting in much effort. Many classmates had private tutors who came to their homes
to teach them. They had exotic reference books for each subject and other fancy
things. Yet, I continued to score better marks than most of them.
I used to come second in my
class. Rajarshi was a very serious and studious boy and he would score better
than me overall in my section. Our school used to have three or four sections
in each class with about fifty students in each section.
The fifty students in each section
were like a tribe. We grew fiercely protective of each other because of our
shared sense of belonging to the same section. We would have friendly fights
with other sections of the same class in the school. Every new academic year, there
would be some adjustments in our sections as someone would drop out and some
new students would join the class. There would be one or two adjustments where
someone from one section had to move to another section of the class. We
loathed the moment and dreaded letting go one of our own into the enemies’
dominion. Children would cry and plead to remain with the same section but
would have to go. For the next couple of years, that child would still keep
coming back to the original section for lunch breaks and any social gatherings.
Slowly, he would be assimilated into the new section.
Some of the best students from
the entire state would be admitted to our school each year; that would result
in a dip in my ranking, as I was not studious enough to go that extra mile to
retain my rank in class. Since my school was one of the best schools for boys
under the central board of secondary education, many parents preferred to move
their children to this school.
It was a Parent Teacher Meet
in school; my mother was hyper-active since the morning.
“Take me to every teacher. I
need to know what goof ups you do in your class.”
My mother had a friendly
rivalry with me. She was a keen critic of mine. She enjoyed finding fault with
me as much as I loved to prove her wrong.
“Come and see for yourself. I
have already told you, the Biology teacher punished me a couple of times for
talking in the class. Apart from her, everyone will praise me. This time I have
got more marks than Rajarshi!” I beamed with confidence. This time around, I
was especially excited about bringing my mother to school. Something rare had
happened. I had fared better than Rajarshi in the exams. Mathematics and Hindi had
always been my forte. We were equally good in Science. English and Social
Sciences were the two subjects where Rajarshi would take the lead over me. The
lead in those two subjects would be far more than my modest superiority in
Mathematics and Hindi. This time around, I had more marks than Rajarshi and I
was extremely happy with my performance.
My mother dressed in a plain
sari and looked shabby. If you did not know her, you could write her off as an
illiterate woman, although she had a master’s degree. My mother entered my
classroom with me.
Father Dominic, a Catholic missionary,
was our English teacher. He smiled kindly at my mother and me. He talked softly
in broken Hindi to my mother
“Aap Angrezi samajhte hain?”
My mother’s eyes lit up when
she saw Father Dominic addressing her.
“Yes Father, a little bit.”
She replied promptly.
Father pulled out my answer
sheet from the bundle and passed on. “Your son has performed well.” He spoke in
a reassuring tone.
My mother got down to the
business of scrutinizing my papers. She caught some mistakes. There were a
couple of questions from English grammar where one had to convert an active
voice sentence into passive voice. I had committed some minor mistakes that
Father Dominic had overlooked.
“Father, this conversion is
wrong.” My mom called Father Dominic’s attention to this. This took Father
Dominic by surprise. He smiled somewhat shamefacedly as he had initially
assumed my mother did not know English.
“Please deduct his marks.” My mother requested
in a firm tone. Father Dominic had no
choice. 
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