Sahithi Goes to school, Teacher's home visit, Ethiopian Journey, Blog Post - 63

Pranav had difficulty in understanding the concept of currency. An Ethiopian Birr had 100 santims. The coins were 5, 10, 25 and 50 in denomination. I told him “4 of 25 santims would become I Birr”. For a kid, that was confusing because his teacher (Padma told him that 4 times 25 is 100!). Many repetitions later he understood the concept of money and that 100 santims become I Birr! It was coming of age for him. Mathematics and currency are two different things.

Pranav had his classes whenever Sahithi slept and that meant that most of the time he would be free to do as he pleased. He would watch cartoons or pace in the garden! He was our “pacing tiger”, He carried a stick that he would swoosh around as if he was wielding a sword!

He was quite good at drawing at that age. He drew pictures that had quite profound meaning. Once he drew a picture of a tiger eyeing a rabbit and next to the tiger were the words, slurp, slurp drawn in a dialogue bubble. The tiger was salivating thinking about roasted rabbit meat!

Oblivious of the greedy tiger, the rabbit was eyeing fresh carrots and funnily next to the rabbit were the same words, Slurp, slurp and the rabbit was thinking of tasty carrot halwa! It was funny and quite philosophical. In the “tiger eat rabbit world”, the rabbit was aiming to devour the poor carrots and he himself was about to be devoured by the tiger! Some of his drawings were later published, courtesy my father who carefully collected them and sent them to The New Indian Express.

On the other side, for Sahithi, school was something new that she never experienced. She was only two at that time and had not even attended a play school in India.

She would take a bath, dress for school, wear her socks and shoes, take her school bag with books and lunch bag that had her lunch box, water bottle, snacks and a napkin. She would pack all these all the time muttering that her mother was 'delaying her'. She would even wear a cap as if it was quite sunny!  She would wave good bye to her mother and set off to school. She would arrive at her school, 10 seconds later!

Meanwhile magically mother had to become teacher. Wearing her Pallu (Sahithi was very strict! Her teachers had to wear proper dress!), Padma would sprint from the kitchen or from the drawing room and arrive in the school, a second or two earlier than Sahithi!

Once she is at school (our bed room with its solemn and quite colourful mosquito net) Sahithi very carefully took off her shoes, placed them carefully near the bedroom door and climbed onto to the bed. We did not have any table or chairs. Our bedroom magically became the school!

We had a rolling black board that we had brought from India. We also had different coloured chalks and Padma and Sahithi had a whale of a time learning new things.

Sahithi had many imaginary friends, Pooja, Viha, Chetan, Sanjana and Ashok. They all had their respective places in the classroom. They were like real class mates. They were asked questions and apparently gave wrong answers all the time!

Padma would chide the errant child and then patronizingly ask Sahithi the same questions. Sahithi would visibly brighten and earnestly answer.

Even though it was all make belief, it was realistic and entertaining to see the charade being played out, every day. Sahithi loved all her friends and the only student whom she was disliked was Ashok; fat, chunky, short and always late to school. He would laugh loudly and irritate the girls.

Many times, I being the principal of the Bahirdar Indian School had the misfortune of hosting Ashok in my office (our drawing room).  

I was told in no certain terms that Ashok was banished to the Principal’s office for his bad behaviour. Apart from babysitting Ashok, the principal hardly had any work. If he peeped into the classroom there would be pin drop silence. Even the ever noisy Ashok would put his finger on his lips!

Sahithi found the entire thing very entertaining and she had no pressure at all. She was not scared of her teachers and could take a break whenever she wanted. The only persona-non-grata was Pranav who could irritate anyone in the world at that time with his unanswerable questions.

One time he popped into the classroom disturbed the class and asked with a twinkle in his eyes "Teacher, what does the tiger do with the clothes of the people that he eats? Does he eat people with the clothes? Or does he undress the victims before he eats them? If he undresses the victims where does the tiger store the victim’s clothes?” It was a Tsunami of questions. Before she was washed away in the tornado of questions, the teacher quickly banished Pranav to the Principals office.

That day I had the experience of two errant students in my office. On one side was Ashok and on the other side was Pranav. Quite a tiring day for the Principal! How I wished that the teacher made their naughty students sit in a corner and not force them down the throats of the poor unsuspecting principal. One naughty boy was bearable but two of them on the same day! It started to look like as if the principal was getting punished! 

In the same school, singing classes were held and both Sahithi and Padma would sing many rhymes. Telugu podupu kathalu and Vemana Satakalu too were recited. They even dabbled in art. Sahithi did finger, wax, bubble and blow painting and Pranav painted animals from numbers.

One day in the morning as I was getting dressed, Padma came up to me and said, “We are having a surprise visitor today. Sahithi’s teacher is going to visit us. You have to be here in the afternoon”. I was nonplussed. “When you are the teacher, why do I need to be here?” 

“No, no you better be here”. Waving her finger at me and scolding me just like a naughty student, she warned “better be here on time. Sahithi and her teacher might be upset”.

When I came home in the afternoon, I was shell shocked. There was palpable tension and excitement in the air. The entire house was sparkling clean and there were incense sticks giving out fragrance. Every one including a sullen Pranav was dressed as if we were hosting a party. Padma was wearing a saree. I gave a knowing wink but was silenced by a frown. We were expecting that Sahithi would invite Padma as her teacher. We were in for a big surprise.

Sahithi rushed in. She was frantic, “My teacher is at the market; she does not know our address. Guide her” She thrust her plastic toy phone into my hand. It was my turn now. I picked up the phone and gave directions to the teacher.

When I put the phone down, Sahithi glared at me. “Nanna” she said “you did not tell her what the sharing blue taxi uncle would charge from market to our house”. I told her that taxi drivers are very scared of Indians and that they would not over charge her precious teacher.

Sometime later Padma, Sahithi and me went to the main road and accompanied Sahithi’s teacher home. We walked slowly as Sahithi’s teacher was new to our Kable and the roads were muddy.

We had sumptuous snacks. On menu were Pakodi, murukulu, biscuits and Coke. Sahithi was at her best behaviour. She was ensuring that her teacher was fed with all the choicest snacks. Padma was conversing with the teacher. 

Sahithi's teacher apparently told Padma that Sahithi was well behaved and that she was very prompt in all her class work. Sahithi blushed when Padma told her the same. She looked at her teacher and gave her a winsome smile. At the same time Sahithi was unhappy with Pranav. She would continuously frown and look menacingly at Pranav who was enjoying his snacks with gay abandon.

At last the teacher got up and was about to leave. Then tragedy struck.  It started raining and quickly it turned into a down pour. Sahithi informed us that as it was raining outside, her teacher could not go in the sharing taxi. We had to call her an individual cab. Sahithi was on pins and needles. Finally, after a long delay the imaginary cab arrived and we bundled Sahithi’s teacher into it and the cab left enveloping us in its dark and smelly exhaust smoke.

Sahithi was elated. She asked Padma “amma, do you think that my teacher was happy visiting our house?” “Happy” I murmured to myself “another such visit and I would be a prime case for a heart attack!”