The Silk Route and More

On Friday the 21^st I had a rather new experience. The class eleven History students of our school were taken to the iLEAD auditorium to watch a documentary film on the Silk Route by director Goutam Ghosh, which was followed by an interactive session with the director and others. Such things are quite common in the schools of metropolitan cities, but since my previous school has always been a very determined frog in the well, we were never taken to such events in our entire school lives.

Students from at least ten schools in Kolkata had come together to watch the screening of the first two episodes of Goutam Ghosh’s five episode documentary movie ‘Beyond the Himalayas’. In 1994, the director along with a number of other people had made an expedition following the Silk Route through Central Asia all the way to China. The movie traces their journey and their findings in five successive episodes. Theirs was the first Indian expedition through China. Other than the director himself, two other team members of the expedition, writer-director-actor Mr. Jagannath Guha, and historian Mr. Phalguni Matilal were present for the interactive session that followed the screening of the movie.

I have not watched many documentary films, so I was a little skeptical about how the movies were going to turn out. But I was pleasantly surprised, and enjoyed myself over the next few hours. The first episode sketches the route taken by the explorers, starting from Delhi, from where they were airlifted to Samarkand in Uzbekistan. From there started their car ride, tracing the entire Silk Route. Samarkand and Bukhara are two of the oldest inhabited cities of the world, and are known for the important positions that they occupy on the trade route to China. The movie has successfully captured the dusty grandeur of these two ancient cities, alive as they are with the history of millennia. Both cities throng with historical monuments, which portray predominantly Islamic architectural styles.

From Bukhara they travelled on to Fergana, which is the old capital of Babur’s kingdom in present-day Uzbekistan. Fergana is also claimed to be the Zoroastrian homeland by Zoroastrian literature. It was from Fergana that the travellers left Uzbekistan behind and crossed Kyrgyzstan to enter the Xinjiang region of China through Kashgar, where the oldest Indian handwritten manuscripts have been retrieved, and Hotan, which is famous for its jades. This is where the first episode ended.

The second episode deviated a little from the main theme, and followed the route taken by Hiuen Tsang to and from India. The episode was called On the Search for the Buddha, and it spoke of Hiuen Tsang’s journey to the birth land of the Buddha, his studies in the great Nalanda University, and his return to China to develop his own school of Buddhism there. It was shown as a journey to India by London-based producer Mr. Michael Haggiag, who was member of the original expedition, and his wife, after the expedition itself had ended. Mr. Haggiag and his wife visited Bodh Gaya and Nalanda, and it was through their eyes that the episode has mainly been depicted.

The movies as a whole were enlightening. There were so many new things that I came to know from them. For example, Hiuen Tsang is actually pronounced as ‘Xuanzang’ in Chinese. Also, the best among jades are not the ones which are a lush green, but those which are the palest and nearly white. The monks in a certain Buddhist temple in Xinjiang chant the original Sanskrit verses brought back by Hiuen Tsang as a tribute to the great traveler scholar. It was from the Chan school of Mahayana Buddhism that Zen Buddhism of Japan has been derived. The Taklamakan desert, through which the expedition journeyed, is a Persian saying that means “He who comes in does not get out”.  That now, is a really ominous name for you!

The movies were no doubt interesting, but it was the interactive session with Mr. Jagannath Guha that I enjoyed the most. Mr. Ghosh arrived late and was too stiff, and Mr. Matilal was a reticent sort, so it was Mr. Guha who did most of the talking. He shared with us many small anecdotes that had made the expedition so memorable for him. Someone from the audience asked him about how he got over the language barrier during their travels. He just shook his head and said, “But I didn’t!” He went on to tell us how body language was often the only means of communication between the natives and the travelers, and how they had at times had to resort to base tricks like bribing the policemen with cigarettes to get themselves out of fixes! While answering the queries of another member of the audience, he talked to us about how little awareness there was about India among the population of China, her largest neighbour. Of course, here he spoke of their experience of 1994, before the era of the internet. I suppose the conditions are much better now. According to him, the travelers were gaped at like extra terrestrial creatures. Some of the children on the road used to pull the hair on his arms in wonder, as they had never seen such a hirsute person before. Some old ladies rubbed his skin to see if his dark skin was painted. The ‘smarter’ ones asked the travelers whether they were from Africa!

While I was enjoying myself hugely during the event, it was highly evident that most people were not. The girls sitting behind me continued to chat and giggle among themselves throughout the entire program. After the short lunch break, I changed my seat in the hope of finding a little quieter seat somewhere. But soon, the girls sitting in the row a little way apart started fiddling with their mobiles and talking loudly. In fact, at one point a teacher of their school came up and took away their cell phones after reminding them none too gently that they had come to watch the movie, not play around with their phones. Some of my own classmates, as soon as the second episode got over, started sighing deeply and loudly expressing their thankfulness at the ‘boring’ show being finally over. I wonder why these people had opted for History in the first place when they are so fundamentally apathetic to anything outside the syllabus.

I returned from the show feeling satisfied, but I know many of them were just glad that the show had come to an end. In this context, I would like to mention a very common complaint among students about the bland and mechanized manner in which classroom teaching is done. I completely agree, newer and more interesting methods should be employed to enrich the learning experience. Having said that, I must also say that the students themselves have to be more receptive to new experiments in order to make the innovative ideas work. The primarily uninterested attitude that I saw among most of the students in the show explains why teachers and school authorities often show no interest in providing such educative and entertaining experiences for the students. Our school is trying, and so are so many others. It now rests on us students to make the best of the opportunities that we are being provided with.

A New Beginning

My ICSE examinations ended on the 20^th of March. It has been only over a month now, but it feels like another lifetime. 20^th March was the last time that I went to the school that I had been going to under duress for the past twelve years. Unsurprisingly, there was not even a twinge of remorse in my heart. I was hugely relieved to be leaving that accursed place at last. Wild horses will not be able to drag me back there again, once I have collected my ICSE marksheet.

As soon as ICSE ended, I had to get busy with my admission in class eleven. I had applied to one renowned girls’ school in Kolkata, and their admission process began right after ICSE. During that period, we had to run back and forth between Kolkata and Durgapur half a dozen times. I had applied only to one school, and fortunately I got admitted there itself. After returning to Durgapur, mother and I packed our bags for the final time, and went away to start our new life in Kolkata on the 10^th of April.

This was the first time that I was living away from home, away from daddy. So one can imagine what a hard time I had adjusting in the new environment for the first few days. But there were a lot of things that needed to be done, so I could not spend too much time being sad. We have a flat in Kolkata. It is a new flat, and had been quite bare and unfurnished. The first week or so was spent only in buying furniture and tidying up the house. Naturally, we found that we had brought more books than anything else from home!

Then we had to buy new school books and the new uniform. My new school has a very smart uniform. Side-pleated blue skirt, pink striped shirt that does not have to be tucked in, and laced black shoes with white ankle socks. I was lucky that the regulation shoes were actually of a sort that is worn by boys, because, big-foot that I am, back in my old school I always had to get those girly buckled shoes especially made for me by the shoe-makers! The new books were exciting, and also a little intimidating. There is this common belief among idiots that students of Humanities and Commerce do not have to study much. For them classes eleven and twelve are basically fun and games. I always knew this to be a myth, yet it was only when I got my own books that I realized just how big a lie that is. For someone who only wants to scratch up a pass-mark, there is not much of a load. But if someone wants to do well, studying the Arts involves putting in lots of effort and out-of-syllabus reading. My school offers a wide range of elective subjects for the plus-twos. My own electives are not strictly Humanities-based. It is in fact a cross between Humanities and Commerce. I have opted for History, Literature in English (that’s besides compulsory English), Business Studies and Economics. My third and fourth electives are mainly theory-based, so learning by heart covers most of the syllabus. But with History and Literature in English, I am increasingly finding myself looking up all sorts of reference works and background detail on the net and in books. I know I am one of only a handful of girls in class who are doing this, but I’m sure we’ll get the reward for our extra effort in the form of wider, more in-depth understanding of the subjects and better results during examinations.

My first day of school was 16^th April. My mother accompanied me to school, because I didn’t know Kolkata roads, but also because she knew that I was apprehensive and nervous. Till class ten, my schooling experience had been nasty. So naturally I went to my new school expecting the worst kind of experience possible. But thankfully, I was proved completely wrong. From day one, I have been having a lively experience there. Only eight girls from other schools have been admitted in class eleven, two for Science, three for Commerce and three for Humanities. On our first day, the Head Girl and her assistant, both of whom are in class twelve, took it upon themselves to familiarize us  with our new surroundings. We were first taken to the Principal’s office where we were told our sections and our Houses. There are eight school houses named after eight flowers, and I have been put in Gulmohar House. We were then taken to our classrooms and introduced to the old girls. My class teacher, who is also our Economics teacher, warmly welcomed us to the school. Later, the entire class eleven was taken up to the MACE hall, which is an air-conditioned assembly hall, for a back-to-school talk from Mrs. Dutt, our Principal. There, the new girls were called to introduce themselves in front of  the entire class.  After that, it was a cake walk. The old girls made conscious efforts to make us feel at home. After returning to class, they asked us about our old schools and friends. They were especially curious about me, because I was not from Kolkata. In fact,  I am still answering some question or the other about Durgapur and my old school every single day!

My new school is very different from what I have seen in the last twelve years. Till now, I had known school to be a place that should be avoided as far as possible. Here, I am going to school of my own will every day. The school is a huge building, and it has five stories including the ground floor. My classroom is on the third floor. We have single chairs with one broad arm as a writing desk. Each classroom has a computer, a projector and a screen. The rooms are hot, but since we have only forty five students in class, fifteen girls less than what we had in my previous school, the heat is not unbearable. We have different classrooms for different subjects. There is no unpacking of bags; we roam about with them all day. It is more similar to college that way. The MACE classrooms on the fourth floor are air-conditioned, and we have History and Literature in English classes in them. It is a relief to enter the cool rooms, but we have to pay the price for the comfort. I am going around with a perpetually sore throat and a runny nose, thanks to the constant fluctuation of body temperature!

The school has a good library, from which we can take books of our own choice, unlike in my previous school, where just half a dozen books were given to us from which we had to take one! Another plus point is that we are allowed to use the library even during free periods, with permission from the substitute teacher. There are also endless after-school clubs and activities, ranging from social service to book- and movie appreciation to public speaking to cookery! A number of games are also played in the school, and the basketball team, the badminton team, the football team and the soccer team have won numerous prizes in and around Kolkata. I have not yet joined any such activity, but will be auditioning for the book and movie appreciation club this Monday. The school has a canteen which serves lip-smacking (though strictly vegetarian) food at surprisingly low prices. In fact, these days I have almost stopped taking my lunch from home. The canteen also has an ice-cream parlour which is certainly contributing to my perpetual cold!

More about the school later. Kolkata, as I am increasingly find out, is very different from Durgapur in some ways, and totally the same in others. I travel by bus mostly, and all sorts of people travel with me. There is no ego issue about using public transport among people there, unlike in Durgapur where parents are horrified at the thought of using and letting their children use transport that are for the masses, because apparently that undermines their ‘status’ and ‘position’ in society! Also, people here seem to be much more helpful in general. Being new to the city, I have often had to ask people around for locating the right buses, areas and whatnot. Till now, I have been willingly helped, sometimes even without asking. In school, I see that the students and teachers alike have a much better grasp of everyday English than in Durgapur. Daddy says that it is so in every metropolitan city. It is not that everybody speaks refined and poetic language, but at least they are fluent and can get across with ease. I have also found something which is a personal relief; the number of tall girls is much higher in Kolkata than in Durgapur. In school itself, there are many girls almost or as tall as I am. There is even a girl who is taller! In Durgapur, I always stood out uncomfortably because of my height. Even in Kolkata I stand out in a crowd, but at least I am not stared at like an unusual specimen from the zoo!

But the mall-culture is virulent here. It is there in Durgapur too, but in Kolkata, especially among the girls of my school, malls seem to be the reason why they are alive! They see me as a weirdo of sorts because I have made it clear on the first day itself that I do not like malls! They rolled their eyes in disbelief when I said I do not enjoy shopping. I read in school all the time, and just like in Durgapur, they think that I am crazy. One girl actually told me not to read so much as I would die if I did! Even in Kolkata, ‘having a boyfriend’ is considered a very exciting thing, mainly because it has to be done in secret! And just like their contemporaries in Durgapur, they are looks and gadget-obsessed. Spending money (earned by their dads, certainly not by them) seems to be a favourite pastime. I have noticed another very disgusting habit among the girls: it seems to be the ‘done’ thing to get boys to pay. If they are going out with their boyfriends, it is understood that the boy will bear all the expenses. Even if it is just a friend from school, he will have to pay for whatever the girl is doing. When I expressed my disgust at this custom, they gave me one of their pop-eyed stares again. Anybody who knows me well will know that I will never have someone else pay for me without giving something back in return, girl or boy alike. I wonder why they find this shameful practice ‘cool’!

Another, and perhaps the biggest difficulty in my present life is living away from daddy. Ever since I had any consciousness of my surroundings, I had been used to seeing him at home. Unlike most other daddies, he is a stay-at-home dad. His not being physically around all the time is quite unnatural to me. I don’t think I have taken in the full import of the situation yet. Now, I am coming home to Durgapur every weekend, so I am away from him for only five days a week. Also, we talk over the phone and chat over the net numerous times each day. But two years from now, I will be going much further away, and we’ll probably meet just twice or thrice a year, if not once! I wonder how both of us will cope then…

Anyway, my days are a mixture of nice and not-so-nice experiences. Having been brought up in a small town, it is not exactly easy for me to adjust in a metropolitan city. But thankfully I am not doing too badly, and I have had a lot of help too. My thanks to all the dadas and didis and classmates who are constantly writing to me and calling me over the phone. This strong reminder of home helps me overcome the periods of homesickness and loneliness. This is the beginning of a long and arduous journey, and it will be many years yet before I can settle down and make a home for myself again. But with the amount of care that I am receiving, I am not afraid to face life. So, thank you again, all my well wishers :)

An Essay

[There was an essay competition held in the school sometime last year. It was conducted by some national organisation whose name I cannot recall right now. I found the topic a little strange and very vague: "If it is necessary for us to change to become what we want to be, why not initiate that change immediately, that which needs to be done at the earliest". I participated in the competition more due to the teacher's insistence than from my own wish. I was not very happy with what I wrote. I have written far better pieces than this. However, I'd like to know my readers' comments on the essay.]

To Change the World, I Change Myself

When I was in primary school, I was one of the most careless girls in the class. On an average, I would lose a dozen pencils and erasers in school every month. My mathematics examinations routinely went badly because I would fill the papers with careless mistakes. My evenings would be spent bulldozing the house looking for exercise books I had adeptly misplaced. Then, when I was in class five, something clicked within me, and I asked myself, “What exactly do you think you are doing? You are turning out to be a good-for-nothing little brat. Is that how you want your parents to think about you?” This is it, I decided. Things have to change.

Today, I am a much more disciplined and well-organized person. I rarely have to hunt around wildly for my belongings, and my grades have improved considerably. I have been able to bring about these changes in my life by some observations and realizations, like, one of the commonest of human flaws is that one often forgets that one is guilty of umpteen shortcomings, and starts imagining oneself as perfection personified. However, that is arguably the biggest barrier in one’s pursuit of perfection. According to the Bible, the seven deadly sins are anger, pride, envy, lust, avarice and gluttony and sloth. Every human being carries the seeds of these sins. Only when one accepts and identifies one’s imperfection can one begin making a conscious effort to eliminate one’s flaws and work towards a more fulfilling life, and ultimately, towards attaining salvation.

Very few of us are fortunate enough to know exactly how we want to spend our lives and see ourselves ten years from now. Gerald Durrell, the renowned author and naturalist knew at the age of two that he wanted to spend his life with animals. Sachin Tendulkar knew his life had to be spent in the cricket stadium, Lata Mangeshkar knew she wanted to sing throughout her life. But most of us commoners have only this vague notion of wanting to be ‘successful’ in life. Most of us love to think of ourselves as ‘different’ and ‘special’, but in reality, most human beings are not only perfectly happy being mediocre and common, but try desperately to follow the herd and be exactly like one another. Very few people have any definite dreams and visions: they simply spend their lives drifting around and being carried by the current like a leaf in a river. These are people who are blissfully unaware of their flaws, and have no intention of being woken up to reality.

Even for those of us who are not so indifferent to our flaws, another great barrier to betterment is procrastination. Yes, this is THE word. The word which we fear and despise, the word which all of us knows to be an arch enemy of progress, yet the word which finds a silent yet substantial position in most peoples’ lives. All of us know that ‘tomorrow never comes’, yet we keep waiting for that tomorrow to get our work done.

As a sixteen year old student standing at the close of school life, if there is one thing that I have come to understand well, it is that it is on myself alone that I have the greatest amount of control. It is only myself whom I can mould to my liking to a great extent. Gandhiji once said, “Be the change that you want to see around you”. I try to follow his dictate and live the kind of life that I would like to see others around me leading. For the last few years, I have been trying to live by a routine. Sure, there have been blunders and slip-ups, but I have not given up, and I count that as part of my success.

However, my quest for a better life has certainly not ended. This is only the beginning. Very soon, I shall be leaving the haven of my parents’ protection and entering the real world. There are so many things that I would like to change about the way my society, my country works. For example, most western countries are so much quieter, cleaner and greener than ours. When Indians are told about these bitter truths, they grow green with envy, yet only a handful of people actually do anything to change the circumstances. It is thanks to them, people like Bittu Sehgal, Subhas Dutta, M. C. Mehta and Chandiprasad Bhatt that the country is not entirely engulfed in ugliness and dirt. I aspire to follow in their footsteps and contribute something to the social and cultural development of India, and I am proud to say that I have begun already. I make it a point not to accept polythene bags from shopkeepers, and turn off taps and switch off lights and fans whenever they are not in use. I know these are small steps, but if enough people can be persuaded to follow these small steps, India will become a much greener and lovelier country.

Sherlock Holmes, probably the most famous of fictional detectives, once outraged his friend and assistant Dr. Watson by saying that he had not known that the planets moved around the sun in the solar system, and had no remorse whatsoever for not knowing it. To Watson’s shocked exclamation of “But every schoolboy knows this!”, Holmes had replied that he was not every schoolboy; he was the great Sherlock Holmes. This can be dismissed as an unsavoury show of pride, but I will always maintain, it is the Sherlock Holmes’ who matter in this world, and not ‘every schoolboy’. That day in class five, I had decided to start being what I wanted to be afterwards in life. Hopefully, my decision has allowed me an access to the world of the Sherlock Holmes’ and the M. C. Mehtas, and when the day comes when my life’s movie flashes before my eyes, it will be worth watching.

Fun with waste

This year, the Children’s Day celebration in our school was a bit different. There was the usual quota of dances and plays and picnic. But the real fun began after all this was over. A rather unusual competition was held. Each house from each class was asked to make something out of waste materials. When we initially heard of this, we were rather irritated. How could we possibly make anything presentable out of discarded materials? I am the leader of the Violet House of our class, but I washed my hands of the matter entirely. Then one of the other girls took charge. She chalked out a very innovative idea. We were going to make Humpty-Dumpties spending a day out on the beach. This caught my attention, and slowly my interest in the competition revived.

I shall not go into all the planning and fighting and bossing that went on in the days before the competition. On the day of the competition, this Saturday, we went to school with all the materials. To tell the truth, I had forgotten all about it the previous day, and remembered about the green wrapping paper that I was supposed to bring only at the gate of the school. Fortunately, I had money with me, and some of the roadside shops had already opened. I managed to get some sellotape and had to make do with some green marble paper. My friend Srimoyee is a wonderful craftsman. She had made a beautiful background of the setting sun on the sea on a used sheet of thermocol.  She had also made some beach shades by winding thread around a used pen’s refill. There was even a volley ball net made with intricate designs out of that same thread. This one was made by her aunt though. But what was most remarkable was that she had ever so carefully drilled holes into seven eggs, taken the yolk out, washed the shells clean and painted them into Humpty Dumpties! We were so amused and also amazed when we first saw them! The poor girl had had to work late into the night to do all that work.

All the different houses chose their own space to work in. The Violet house girls of our class were the fastest, and bagged the best space available; a raised platform right outside our school library. One of the girls had brought a huge cardboard box which once contained their new T.V. That became the base of our beach. One of my friends and I acquired some sand from the garden next to the convent, and that formed our beach. Soon, all of us were very deeply engrossed in our work. We had been given one hour, but we could easily bet on an extra half hour. I along with one of the girls started making some trees for our beach. At first we were a bit confused about how we could make them, but then I had a sudden brainwave. We used old refills (Shivangi had brought a large number of those) as the trunk. The green marble paper was used to cut out circles whose edges were fringed. Then, two such circles were placed opposite to each other that it looked like two ice-cream cones stuck on the pointed sides. This was then attached to the refill and voila! Our tree was ready! We made eight such trees. In the meantime, few of the others were making beach chairs and lemonade stalls with old match boxes and used matchsticks and ice-cream sticks. A piece of torn jute sack was used as a mat, and two Dumpties were placed on them. Two more Dumpties played volleyball and two more rested on the chairs. The last one sold lemonade. We even put a piece of used lemon that one of the girls had brought on the stall! After we were done, the beach looked beautiful, and I am not saying that because we made it. Even our opponents agreed that ours was the best in class.

Violet House

The other houses had nice ideas as well. Red House depicted a village scene. Green House did a project on the theme ‘Go Green’. Gold House decorated a used pot with chocolate wrappers and coconut shells. They put a dead beetle on the pot (though Heaven alone knows why a dead beetle should be considered waste material!) and put the caption ‘Dariye achho tumi amar harir opore’! We had a good laugh trying to imagine Robi Thakur’s reactions had he seen the latest version of his poem! Some of the other classes had made pretty things too. Among numerous projects, there was one which showed the lost city of Atlantis. One was a submarine whose fans were attached to an electrical circuit and actually moved. There was the Dhamekh Stupa of Sanchi. Somebody even did a presentation of the Harappan civilization! It was amazing how many innovative ideas could come out when minds are forced to work.

Gold House

Green House

Red House

All in all, it was positively one of the best days that I have spent in all these years. The fun and laughter was there,  and add to that the anticipation of winning a competition where so much of hard work and dedication and team spirit has been put in, and your day is made.  

Environmental Education

Every time during the examinations, we students grumble incessantly about E.V.E. Everybody has the same complaint, “This is such a BORING subject! What good does this do to anyone?” Even teachers do not like E.V.E. much. They teach it because they don’t have much of a choice in the matter. For sometime now, I have been wondering about this myself. I have been trying to jot down a few points in my mind that would justify the existence of this subject. But then, I cannot think of any reason other than that it is supposed to make us aware about our environment. 

I suppose this reason would have been good enough if a lot of positive results could be seen since the introduction of this subject in schools. However, I do not see how this subject has been helpful in forming a better environment. There haven’t been many noticeable changes around me whose credit would go to E.V.E. I can vouch for my town in this matter. There are still many unattended garbage dumps, and the students still don’t hesitate before throwing their chocolate wrappers on the road. In almost every E.V.E. class, we learn about the harmful consequences of plastics, but hardly anyone refuses a plastic packet when shopping. Students still forget to switch off fans and lights while leaving a room, and a running tap is a very regular sight everywhere. Even people who score above eighty percent in E.V.E. do not stick to the rules and safety measures that they had learnt up during the examinations. When it comes to practice, those rules can be shot to hell.

Even the teaching of this subject is done in a bland stale manner. In every class, the chapters are read aloud, sometimes by a single girl, and sometimes by the entire class in unison. E.V.E. is one of the most popular classes when it comes to dozing or completing homework of other subjects. Every year, we have the same lessons. Apart from a few new terms, what we learn is the same. There is such a lack of new lessons. We do not do much of practical work in this subject. The best that we do is make clay models of ecosystems, or write about the types of pollutions and the ways of reducing them. In our school, we have a ‘Spice Club’. Only girls of classes nine and ten are allowed to be its member. It is supposed to be an environment awareness club, but we never seem to see what they do. Nothing noticeable happens, or at least we never come to know of anything done by them.

If the board removed this subject all of a sudden, there would be quite a lot of celebration among the students and the teachers alike. I suppose there was a very noble idea behind the introduction of this subject, but the idea doesn’t seem to be working out. It has just become a useless load for the students and teachers. In any case, I believe that the most important environmental awareness lessons are learnt at home. If the parents do not bother about keeping the environment clean, and if they are not keen on making sure that their children do the same, no amount of E.V.E. at school could make significant changes in the child’s character. How can anyone expect a child whose parents regularly waste water, paper and electricity to be an environment-friendly person?

On Teachers’ Day

Today is the fifth of September, an important day for teachers of India. Teachers’ Day, celebrated on the birthday of Doctor Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan is a day when students are supposed to show their respect and love to their teachers. Most schools celebrate this occasion with a nice blend of cultural programs and speeches by the teachers. Our school is no exception. Teachers’ Day is one day we look forward to with excitement. About three weeks before the occasion, the girls from class ten get allotted to different classes and take the responsibility to stage some kind of a program with the girls of that class. Those three weeks are invariably great fun for us. We skip classes and run for practice, and hide when the principal comes to look for us, and then go stealthily back to class and make up all kinds of cock and bull excuses, and have a whale of a time! The day of the program is usually a mixed bag of anxiety, excitement, happiness and sadness about the fact that the day will pass very soon. Undoubtedly Teachers’ Day is the best celebration we have in school, and only Children’s Day comes anywhere near it.

However, something else has been going on in my head. In spite of all the dancing and frolicking around that we do on Teacher’s Day, how many of us feel any real respect and gratitude for the teachers? Like any other occasion, isn’t Teachers’ Day a mere excuse to avoid work? While staging the programs, how many of us really think about whether the teachers will like it? The truth is, teachers are usually bottom of the priority list when a program is planned. And this is not something happening just in our school. I have friends, both boys and girls, from various schools around the town. When I mentioned Teachers’ Day to them, all of them started talking about the dance or play they were going to stage, because they themselves had liked it best, and the picnic they were going to have, and the various ways they had planned to entertain themselves. Not one of them told me that they were putting up something that they hoped the teachers will enjoy. I must admit, even when I was planning my class program with the girls of class ten, we decided to do something that the students were going to enjoy the most. We did not spare much thought about what the teachers were likely to feel about it.

The same thing goes on when it comes to giving presents to teachers. Most of the students who give anything to their school teachers or other tutors do it just because it is the tradition to do so, and not because they really like that teacher. Students are more bothered about what their friends will say if they give, or don’t give a present to a certain teacher. I have seen girls in my school competing each other about how many teachers they had given gifts to. It is all about winning and losing such competitions, and not about real affection or gratitude.

All said and done, however, can we put the entire blame of such behaviour on the students? Aren’t teachers partly to be blamed too? After all, teachers play a major role in forming one's character, and maybe the children are just learning from how teachers and other elders behave?   

Basketball

There is going to be a basketball match in our school this year, in December most probably. It is going to be an inter-house game. Girls from classes eight through ten will take part. There might be girls from classes six and seven too, but chances are slim. Selections from class eight A was held the day before yesterday. Our P.T. teacher saw some of the girls play, and selected some of the girls. I was selected. It was a dream coming true!

The first basketball matches in our school had been held two years ago, when I was in class six. At that time, I was just beginning to learn the game, so I was not selected for the team. I practiced the entire year so that I could take part next year. There was no match in class seven. I practiced another whole year. In the meantime, I kept growing taller, one big advantage for a basketball player. So this year, when I heard that there is going to be a match, I was one of the first people to enlist as an interested candidate. The entire month of April, and some of the days of May before the summer vacation, we practiced every single day. There were, I was quite surprised to find, many girls from my class. I was surprised because many of the girls were those who had never before shown any interest in sports. I guessed that they were the kind who had just come with the herd. I was right. The number went down drastically in about a week. That was better. Those girls didn’t want to do anything that needs hard work, and were just proving themselves to be nuisances. After school reopened in May, we started again with double vigour. We were now carrying sports shoes and shorts with us, and those of us who have basketballs were taking them as well. Our teacher kept giving us useful tips every now and then. The few girls who have learnt the game earlier in some club (and I’m pleased to say most of them are in Violet House, my House!) helped us with the rules. So by the time selections day came, we ourselves had a rough idea about who would be selected and who won’t. Nothing came as too big a surprise. Now that we are quite certain about our team members, we are concentrating on team strategies. Regular practice will go on as usual. 

There is going to be some competition, and some spitefulness in the air. I am rather ashamed to say that games in our school are not played fairly. The last time we had basketball and kho-kho matches, one particular house had got itself known as the house of cheats. Of course, many of the girls who had played at that time have passed their ICSEs already. We have new players now. I am hoping this year’s match is going to be more enjoyable. My best friend is going to play against me (she is in Gold House), but we have promised to each other that we are not going to let any enmity on the field ruin our friendship. Of course, I will be very glad if we win, but then, winning is not the only reason I am going to play for. I will play because I enjoy playing. I am looking forward to a very nice first experience.