The 8th Grade

(Written on Jan-31-2010)

I happened to check my own blog. There are less posts these days. For a moment I felt happy about it coz there passed many blogs through my mind during every sleepless nights, which were in plenty, and had I wrote them the next day, it could have resulted in kind of criticism type blogs about a BIG country in which I live now; not all of the blogs but many of them. But lack of sleep has this ability to wipe off those blogs from my mind rather quickly. If we do not get enough sleep, our brain will not function properly. There will be confusion, short term memory loss, fatigue, acidity and GERD (GastroEsophageal Reflex Disease) and so on…some latest studies say that prolonged insomniac nights could result in early death. Whatever…

I think that is a nice introduction for this blog coz it has nothing to do with what I am going to write. Sitting on this couch with slight back pain, upset stomach, tired eyes, mild headache, and aching toes I was thinking about my 8th grade. It took some time to get a visual of my class room. Once it came into my mind, I wondered why it took so long to remember it coz I do remember that class room.

When I joined this school as a 5th grade student, our division, the ‘I’ division, had no particular class room. We were split into many groups and were accommodated into other divisions. I had no idea why they just accommodate and did not absorb. But 8th grade ended this slavery and we got freedom. A separate division got created and we the ‘I’ division became ‘F’ division. May be 8th I division was English medium, I don’t remember now. We had both English and Malayalam medium divisions in our school and I was in the Malayalam medium. English medium was considered as something ‘above’ Malayalam medium. English medium had no representation from poor people (this does not mean that Malayalam medium was filled only with poor people). I think there wasn’t any extra fee for English medium or was there?

Who was my class teacher? Can’t remember.. it was either John Sir or Titus Sir. I still remember some of my 8th grade teachers, obviously by their nick name. Geography teacher was known as ‘Ambattan’ which means barber and Malayalam teacher was known as ‘Eruma’ which means buffalo. English teacher’s name can’t be written here coz it means something dirty (once I got a very niiiiice pinch from him for trying to imitate his signature).

None of us in that class can forget our Math teacher, Titus. He got transferred to this school that year and ours was his first class he taught. He was a terror. He always carried a cane. He beaten up the students and very soon there came some uproar against him. There came writings and graffiti against him on many walls on the school. Our school was well known for politics (major political parties have their student wings. Our class and school elections were just like president and prime minister Elections of the country. All contestants belonged to one or another political party ) and thus there were kind of rowdy students too in our school. I think Titus became a discussion among them and some of them even called him names, hiding here and there. (Later on, Titus sir left the school and joined a College as a Math lecturer. This wasn't coz of the anti-Titus movement but he always wanted to become a College teacher than a school teacher.)

Our new class room was already occupied by a boy who failed two times in a row (such students have to pay a fee for their next term). Happened to meet my 2nd grade best friend. There were only three students in my class who scored first class in 7th grade and promoted to 8th grade and I was one among them. There wasn’t any competition in my class. If Math wasn’t there as a subject, I would have been the topper all the time in that class, coz the other two always scored more marks than me in Math.

One thing about this school is that, once you pass out from here, you will have a clear idea about almost every filthy word in our mother tongue. This is coz every class had some kids who use abusive words liberally and once there was one ‘filthy word competition’ in our class, when there was no teacher for a period. The class divided into two groups for this purpose and each side had one lead person to shout the swear word and the rest hauled, whistled and made noise tapping on the desk. All of a sudden a teacher appeared and asked who did that (shouting dirty words). Though couple of students including me were against that ‘competition’, we did not name others coz it would have made our lives tough in that school. Some students managed to bring some porn book in the class and they always kept we, the so-called decent guys, at a par and we were warned to not to tell this to the teacher.

The English teacher assigned the work of checking the homework to three (or four?) students and I was one among them. We were selected based on the marks we scored for the first term examination. My old buddy was supposed to show his book to me and he took advantage of my friendship and many a times came without doing the home work. He never took me seriously. Once or twice I gave my book and asked him to blindly copy it into his book.

(went to bed early coz of headache)
(Feb- 1- 2010)

I started wearing full pants from 8th grade. There were only very few students who were still wearing shorts. That boy who failed twice and studying for the third time was wearing shorts (we had uniform. Black pants –half or full- and white shirt. And, on Wednesday we were allowed to wear color). He was a big boy and the reason seemed that he is poor and half pants cost less compared to full one. But he too started wearing full pants, later on; may be its coz he felt embarrassment since only 2-3 boys were wearing half pants and they were small (short) too.

I got befriended with couple of more boys. I was choosy as far as friendships were concerned. None of my friends used any filthy words while speaking to me. There was a gap between those students who do not study well and those who study well. I wasn’t a very studious boy, though I stood 2nd or 3rd in my class. I was attentive at class and used to do the home work. Other than that, I never had this habit of studying each day. If there was no home work, I didn’t study anything. There were moments where I came without finishing home work and then copying it from one of my friends (this boy (usually) never allowed others to copy from him. He stood first or second in the class and he never helped others during exams). I was one among the toppers because our class mostly had boys who do not study well. There wasn’t much competition and hence I never put an extra effort to improve myself.

I started participating in some Hindi language exams (every year till 10th…I passed all those exams with first class and I somehow lost all those certificates when I shifted my city after marriage) and that’s the end of my extracurricular activities. There were some other similar exams but I did not participate. Now I feel very disappointed about that because, I was good at science and I could have attended some science related stuff. Even our class teacher was not interested in sending his top students to any such exams. At home? Who cares about my studies? Mother never cared about what, how or when we study and father felt OK since I always scored a first class (60% or above). It looks like he had no idea about my potentials.

Usually, we used to play something during lunch break. But I don’t remember what I played when I was in 8th grade. But I remember one incident where one of my friends falling into a pit. It was fully covered with long grass and he accidently fell into it. Which was stupid, keeping a pit open in a boys school or playing somewhere which was not meant for playing? Anyway, he was my close friend and I helped him come out of it by pulling his hands. He had pain in his chest, looked like he felt some difficulty to breathe…

We were more active during ‘Sevana Vaaram’. Sevana Vaaram literally means ‘Service Week’. Every year, during/starting October 2nd, which was Mahathma Gandhi’s birthday, we used to celebrate Sevana Varam. That is, there won’t be any class for one week. But we have to come to school. All we had to do was cleaning the school, neighboring roads etc and some helping the poor and needy acts. The school arranged something to eat (steamed tapioca/cassava for example) and drink (usually black tea or coffee). We always enjoyed that week.

There weren’t any change in my home atmosphere, which never wasn’t great. My sister started attending college. The college was very near (just 5 minutes walk from our home). During the initial days she did not like the college and even cried since the medium of instruction was English. That time, I had no idea how it would be when all of a sudden our teachers teaching everything in English. My house owner’s wife, who was an illiterate that time, came to console my sister. Even now I can remember that moment. I can still see it in my mind (?, or whatever. I refer those dream kind of visuals what appear when we think of something).

In our native place we had this educational institutions called ‘Tutorials’ (and ‘Parallel college’ too) which provide tuitions, not for just one subject but for all subjects we learn at school (we had Malayalam I and II, English I and II, Hindi, Math, Drawing, Craft, (P.T.), History and Civics, Geography, Physics, Chemistry and Biology). By default, most of the middle class students (the upper middle class and rich prefer private lessons or one to one tuitions) used to attend one such place and so did I. It wasn’t the best known place for tuitions or teachers (there were such places too) but one which was closer to my home and run by some unemployed guys (who were friends). It was a mixed class and many a times I had butterflies in my stomach when some girls look at me. One of the boys used to wear the cleanest shirts to impress the girls. He was my school mate and if he came home with a dirty shirt (oh yes, we used to make it dirty), he used to wash it and dry it immediately using electric iron and wear it whenever there was evening classes.

There weren’t any boy-girl friendship in my tuition class. Most of the good girls hardly spoke to boys. I faced serious competition from three girls. Many a times I managed to stand with 2 of them in overall marks but never ever bet one girl (her name is Subha). She was very strong at Math. When I recollect those moments now, I realize that I never took any effort to compete with those girls.

Did I have a soft corner for one of those girls?