An odd teacher

 

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”.