See the thing is, I don’t know where to
start. Where it started with YOU I am able to remember and all. But
then, what to say, how to say, that is a little difficult. It has been
so many years no…
And yet, after so many years, I am not able to forget you. You know why? Because of the things you have done to me!
Boss what is the problem if I went running
down the corridor, shouting at the top of my voice? Immediately you will
stop and pull my hair and scold. And while pulling my hair only you
will realise ki I have not had my haircut on time and scold me for that
also. Because of you, even today I am getting restless if I don’t get a
haircut on time!
What is your job and what you are doing? You
want to teach means teach but why you are threatening me all the time? I
am thinking ki they actually paid you to scare the hell out of me just
by glaring at me. Especially with your glasses and all, your eyes looked
even bigger! My god, how scary! And I am still thinking you are the
reason I get scared even today whenever I see someone with wide-open
eyes.
And you know something? It is now officially
in my DNA to look around first before speaking out an unparliamentary
word. I’m just making sure you are not around when I am saying the bad
word. See what you have done to me!
Best is, for anything and everything you will
threaten to call my parents and complain about me. And at home, you
know what my parents will do? They will threaten to complain about me to
you! Arey! What kind of game was this? And I was getting so much
worried about who will complain what to whom!
All this despite the fact that I was so much impressed by you.
I liked the way you had command over English
so much, that it often sent me stammering while talking to you because I
didn’t want you to ridicule me in front of others. And I always thought
you deliberately used cursive writing on the blackboard to mock at my
useless handwriting.
You wowed me with your intelligence by giving
answers to every question I asked. And I knew what kind of questions to
ask you because certain kinds of questions and certain kinds of actions
attracted violent physical reactions from you, that is a different
story.
And oh, I even had a crush on you because I liked the way you dressed.
No no, I am not saying ki you are bad or that you made me feel bad and all. In fact, it is the opposite.
I may be an average person today, but you
never made me feel average. Somehow, at least one of you had something
nice to say about me. At least one of you said I was good. At least one
of you stayed back every day after work for me because you felt
responsible for my future.
But you see, after you left, a lot of people replaced you.
Unlike you, they didn’t scold me for fighting
with others. They actually told me that everyone around me was my
competitor and that I had to ‘fight the world’ to survive. Maybe
because you knew something that these guys didn’t know. Maybe you knew
that the guy I was fighting with, was not my competitor but would
actually become a friend for life.
They didn’t ask me to stop running around or
even slow down, because they only said I had to run hard if I had to
stay in the same place.
They stopped worrying about how much I
absorbed. They were only interested in how much I could give. They said
they had a job to do. But nobody said they had a responsibility.
At least once, I had wished I would become
someone like you. But I did not. And you probably expected that to
happen, because you knew me better than anyone else. But I also think
you are expecting something else to happen.
You are probably sitting in your
chair with your big eyes reading something, expecting me to come up
meekly and say, Happy Teacher’s Day.
No comments:
Post a Comment