Ameya stormed into her living room, with a scorn on her face,
ready to complain about the humid hot utterly unlivable weather it was today.
Her cotton white dress sticking to her body and her brow still dripping
constantly as a proof of the complaint she was about to lounge. But that storm
died down in a jiffy when Mickey almost absent mindedly mused “Something smells
good” joined in unison by Rosy, Abhisek, Sanu, Chotu, Vicky and Anu all their
eyes still glued to the pieces in their hands and a gigantic jigsaw puzzle in
front of them.
As always Ameya stood by the door looking adorably at the
children. Anu balancing her oversized spects on that tiny nose of hers, Chotu
scratching his heads, Mickey and Vicky, the sibling duo, comically shifting
their bum as they excitedly joined yet another piece. She waited for some time
then headed back to the oven to bring them each a well-earned glass of
sweetened orange juice.
Still discussing, their moves and celebrating their victory over
finishing yet another jigsaw they went to involuntarily sit by the dinner
table. Ameya served them a glass of milk with freshly baked cinnamon rolls
which they gulped down hungrily. And without being asked, opened their
backpacks and got to their books. Ameya too brought her laptop and sat with
them. And everyone got to business.
It has taken some effort and a lot of patience on both their parts
to get to this place.
Ameya is a IT professional in Bangalore more or less set in her
ways now. Office and her studio apartment. And then these kids, it is a kind of
Creche, but for the house helps in her society. She takes in these kids between
6p.m. to 9 pm while their parents are finishing their evening shifts of
cooking/ cleaning or driving. The kids usually come after finishing their post
school cricket matches. Ameya is no regular tuition teacher. She doesn’t take
to a white board and stick. The kids in the class do their homework on their
own. In the end they have to fill up how many Maths questions they solved,
pages of English reading, pages of Science and give themselves a score out of
10. If they are stuck somewhere, they ask the senior lot in the bunch then go
to Ameya. As for Ameya, she just simply takes interest in their studies while
they are at it. This trust had taken many months to build up among the first
batch, the later ones simply followed.
Until the day Raju came in. Raju, a skinny child in his early
teens enrolled in 6th standard at the local government school. A rebel from
Mumbai, whose parents sent him away because of the ruckus he had been creating
there. Raju loved Mumbai, but he took Bangalore as a challenge. He placed a bet
with his friends to be back within a week. Despite running in full capacity,
Ameya took Raju in on Shobha’s request.
Raju was new, new to the group, new to the culture of a teacher
who wouldn’t call him out and humiliate him in front of the whole class for his
crooked hand-writing or inability to get simple Maths correct. He simply sat on
the table fidgeting, doing nothing, looking around, daydreaming, just like his
days in school. He would give him a perfect score at the end of the day,
honesty is relative from his experience. Also because Ameya never questioned,
he had stuck a jackpot.
On some days, having nothing to do, he would actually try to read.
And scribble a few words in his homework but his pride would kick in soon
enough and he'd simply draw mustaches on the pictures in the book or doodle at
the back of his notebooks, which had begun to fill up more from the backside
than the front. All this while Ameya would serve them hot milk and sweet
delicacies, smile at them, compliment on their accomplishments, even the
tiniest ones, encourage them to help each other out. With her big smile, she
would eagerly ask him what he was learning, did he like the school, ask him
about his parents, his life back home. She, along with the whole bunch would
listen to everything with awed eyes. And when his tales would take flight a
little too high, she would hush them all and lovingly chide them to get back to
their books. 2 months passed just like this. Until one day Ameya asked him to
wait up after everyone left. Terror stuck, but then he told himself he’s dealt
with much scarier gangsters.
What he didn’t know was that the thing scarier than someone making
him do things he didn’t want to do was someone making him do things he actually
did want to.
She simply asked him to make a copy of a letter she had received
on paper while she fixed herself some dinner. Raju tried his best to copy each
alphabet as it was like a skilled forger. Of course, he didn’t understand a
word and honestly the forgery was very poor indeed. Meekly, he took the paper
in the kitchen as she called him out. He stood by the door waiting, watched her
slice onions with teary eyes.
She ushered him in, requesting to read it out aloud while she
cooked her vegetables, making it sound so urgent, that for a second Raju felt
that nothing was more important in the world than for her to hear that letter
right away. Just like in movies when Akshay Kumar has an urgent order he
receives from the headquarters to change his directions to another route as the
one he is currently on is filled with landmines. And he almost did begin in
that very same temperament, till it dawned on him that he couldn’t read a single
word. Red faced he stood there, sweating more from guilt than the already hot
kitchen.
Ameya urged him again, with the same urgency in her voice. But
when she looked at him, the face said it all. She glanced at the piece of paper
in his hand. And understood. Raju could see the broken heart in her eyes.
She asked him to go home now.
Raju was a proud man. He could laugh off scolding, wear the scars
of beating as a badge, even brag about it to his gang, but this? It is not that
he didn’t want to learn. He could never stay in school long enough to do so.
They never had the money. He knew if he didn’t take the crooked road to earn
extra by the side, he’d end up being a rickshaw driver like his father, which
he despised.
He bailed on the classes for the next week, and then a day more,
citing bad health. The idea of starting something which others had mastered
years ago, petrified him. The booing, the shame, the humiliation. Ameya knew.
Her disappointed eyes haunted him, making him sick in his stomach. The books
mocked him, those moustached characters smirked at him, everything made him
guilty. Now slipping into daydreams and passing time while the teacher was
teaching almost choked him. He tried to be vigilant but to no avail, the words
meant nothing, they were like fancy designs to him. It was now that he began to
recognize that he was handicapped.
Excusing himself from Ameya’s classes for the past 2 weeks now, he
finally knocked at her door before anyone else that evening. Ameya opened the
door, let him in and sat by the table as usual, gesturing for him to join as
well. Removing his bag, he took the chair, his eyes fixed on the ground. Ameya
slipped a book in his direction, it was a book of alphabets.
Tears flowed down his eyes, unable to look up to her, he kept
repeating “Sorry Ameya, please teach me”.
