WARNING!! THE FOLLOWING BLOG IS LONG. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK. I WILL NOT BE PAYING FOR ANY ASPIRINS!
Mum grunted as I pulled her out of bed at 4:30 in the morning. She just could not understand my excitement and nervousness over doing something she did everyday. As it turned out, we needed every bit of the next one and a half hour to wrap the never-ending cloth around me. There were problems unlimited – due to my being tall, the sari had to be tucked in just the right length, so that it doesn’t become short, ("No high heels!" my mother warned, admiring her work of art at finally tucking in the cloth without my ankles showing). On top of that we had the usual arguments of where the sari should start, mum wanting it like hers, me going in for a more Britney Spears look and making sure it was way below my belly button. 60 minutes and several hundred arguments later (including scolding me for the fact that I just don’t wear any jewellery) I was finally ready. As it turned out, that was the easiest thing I did all day.
Somehow, after a lot of tumbling over my own sari and screaming at every kid in the bus who came anywhere near me, I finally reached school. And that’s when it really hit me – I was a teacher for the day. My juniors, who were my friends till yesterday, were my students today, and would go to any end to make my life miserable. I grimaced at the memories of the hard times we had given our seniors on the previous teachers days. And the knowledge that I was the bakra for the day, didn’t make me feel any better.
The day began with the assembly, where neither the students nor the student teachers actually listened to anything (this obviously does not include Bax, Nima and a few others, who somehow manage to stay awake during these things). First half of the function we spent looking at all the other student teachers and commenting on how pretty or more often, how ‘eewwweey’ some people were looking. Of course, our teachers were doing the very same thing, and when we went to five our flowers to them, some even commented on our appearances. But the one thing that amused me a little was this look in all of their eyes, a look that I just could not place. Was it happiness, or relief, or simply amusement? I had no idea.
And then the first bell rang and all of us hurried (as much as we could, without falling with ten bed sheets wrapped around us!) to our classes. Me? Well I didn’t have any classes till the end of the day, so I just roamed around with friends, took photographs and enjoyed myself. There were of course lively incidents like taking snaps in Bose’s office, or eating frozen Frooti, and of course trying to figure out how to tie back Mansi’s sari after it got open from the wrong end. The didi from the kitchen helped us out and Mansi ended up having a sari which was 5 inches too short. So we spent another fifteen minutes trying to figure out how to untie it and then tie it back again!
Then at last, the dreaded moment came. I had a double period with the commerce section, easily classified as the most notorious section of that batch. I knew that teaching them economics wasn’t going to be an easy task. Needless to say, I really didn’t get anything done in that hour. The fact that the teacher gave me the wrong syllabus didn’t really help. So we just ended up chatting. Somehow the final bell for the day rang, and I daresay that I ran out faster from that classroom than any of the kids!
The day had finally ended, and here were the results of me and my friends – we were dead tired, our sandals were hurting us like crazy, our saris were at all levels, and we just didn’t care! I suddenly had a newfound respect for all my teachers. I looked at them admiringly as they came back into the school, and I saw that expression on their faces again. Only, this time I realized what it said, "Gotcha!"
Mum grunted as I pulled her out of bed at 4:30 in the morning. She just could not understand my excitement and nervousness over doing something she did everyday. As it turned out, we needed every bit of the next one and a half hour to wrap the never-ending cloth around me. There were problems unlimited – due to my being tall, the sari had to be tucked in just the right length, so that it doesn’t become short, ("No high heels!" my mother warned, admiring her work of art at finally tucking in the cloth without my ankles showing). On top of that we had the usual arguments of where the sari should start, mum wanting it like hers, me going in for a more Britney Spears look and making sure it was way below my belly button. 60 minutes and several hundred arguments later (including scolding me for the fact that I just don’t wear any jewellery) I was finally ready. As it turned out, that was the easiest thing I did all day.
Somehow, after a lot of tumbling over my own sari and screaming at every kid in the bus who came anywhere near me, I finally reached school. And that’s when it really hit me – I was a teacher for the day. My juniors, who were my friends till yesterday, were my students today, and would go to any end to make my life miserable. I grimaced at the memories of the hard times we had given our seniors on the previous teachers days. And the knowledge that I was the bakra for the day, didn’t make me feel any better.
The day began with the assembly, where neither the students nor the student teachers actually listened to anything (this obviously does not include Bax, Nima and a few others, who somehow manage to stay awake during these things). First half of the function we spent looking at all the other student teachers and commenting on how pretty or more often, how ‘eewwweey’ some people were looking. Of course, our teachers were doing the very same thing, and when we went to five our flowers to them, some even commented on our appearances. But the one thing that amused me a little was this look in all of their eyes, a look that I just could not place. Was it happiness, or relief, or simply amusement? I had no idea.
And then the first bell rang and all of us hurried (as much as we could, without falling with ten bed sheets wrapped around us!) to our classes. Me? Well I didn’t have any classes till the end of the day, so I just roamed around with friends, took photographs and enjoyed myself. There were of course lively incidents like taking snaps in Bose’s office, or eating frozen Frooti, and of course trying to figure out how to tie back Mansi’s sari after it got open from the wrong end. The didi from the kitchen helped us out and Mansi ended up having a sari which was 5 inches too short. So we spent another fifteen minutes trying to figure out how to untie it and then tie it back again!
Then at last, the dreaded moment came. I had a double period with the commerce section, easily classified as the most notorious section of that batch. I knew that teaching them economics wasn’t going to be an easy task. Needless to say, I really didn’t get anything done in that hour. The fact that the teacher gave me the wrong syllabus didn’t really help. So we just ended up chatting. Somehow the final bell for the day rang, and I daresay that I ran out faster from that classroom than any of the kids!
The day had finally ended, and here were the results of me and my friends – we were dead tired, our sandals were hurting us like crazy, our saris were at all levels, and we just didn’t care! I suddenly had a newfound respect for all my teachers. I looked at them admiringly as they came back into the school, and I saw that expression on their faces again. Only, this time I realized what it said, "Gotcha!"
1 comment:
exams r pretty crappy....i think colleges are allergic to me....
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