Having studied in a co-ed school from kindergarten to high school, never in my wildest dreams did I think that one day I would join a girl’s school. The broiler chicken in me waned off over time after I moved to Kerala from Chennai. Chennai was my first home and indeed it was a painful departure. But neither was it the Partition nor the Stone Age that you could never see your friends ever again. So I slowly tuned in to my new settings.
My learning process
spanned over three educational systems. All of them have one thing in common
--- academic bulimia, where you simply throw up whatever you learn from
textbooks. However, you can’t blame the schools because our modern education
system is hell-bent on teaching us that way. But apart from this, one thing
that makes life after high school exceptional is the natural ease that comes
along with the academic bulimia.
Normally, an average class is a mix of the class clowns and pranksters,
nerds and all-rounders—more like mixed vegetable soup. But my class is a blend
of just one variety – the naughty ones and the multi- faceted characters. Of
this, the naughty ones make up an overwhelming majority—an extremely spicy dish
where chilly was the main ingredient. I still wonder how Ceema Miss even
managed to stand between us.
Humanities is a pretty dull
subject to opt for. If a story of kings and queen could be made so vibrant with
Mini Miss’ unpredictable jokes, we realized that politics was not just a story
on Indian elections. It was also about Shiny Miss who never once suspected us
of all the mischief we’ve done in her class. Then comes Gisha Miss who is also
a child like us—a child who can be both naughty and nice. English wouldn’t have
been fun if we didn’t get to listen to our Jilsy Miss find herself at a loss
for words to speak Malayalam—a language that had cast a spell on her tongue. When it comes to our Malayalam teacher, she is
what the name suggests, literally. Seena Miss can be a Malayalam dictionary
when she wants to.
Forgive me if I’m getting carried away. But I’ll feel myself guilty if
I don’t write on our Economics teachers --- Ceema Miss and Sr. Annjose. If one
was the innocent wide-eyed pussycat, the other was its stoic-faced mother, and
a person who cracked jokes like normally.
In this rat race
called life, it is these uncommon characters that splashed colour to my
otherwise dull canvas. If my previous school dug out the writer in me, Sacred
Heart’s unearthed the woman of substance
buried inside me.
