History Repeats…

I was in 9th grade, an above average student,loved Mathematics and Cricket. If Math was fun, Social Studies was more fun because of my favorite and sabka favorite teacher. I loved history, found geography and economics interesting and hated civics from the bottom of my heart. I was fortunate to have Sir “B” (the Biggest & Greatest B) as my Social  Science Studies(SST) teacher for 2 years(Let’s call him just Sir as I don’t want to take names. My school friends know exactly whom I am talking about).In short,it was an epic encounter. Ours was a silver jubilee batch(25th batch) and our History Sir had served the school as much as the history of our school lasted.He was a gold medalist and didn’t show off an inch when he was teaching us 😛 (My school friends will better understand what does this exactly means).

Lets plunge into epic encounters we had with him.

-I write a lot of fictional stuff these days and I was first introduced to fiction by Sir.While teaching us about life in Thar Desert or for that matter in India Pakistan border, Sir used to start like this-When I went to India Pakistan Border….. eh, really? and we used to laugh abruptly which would make him shout.Even though he said a plain lie,he would convince us by his stories and we used to lol and rofl. Once he told he went to South Africa. Everyone shouted ho ho ho… Then he quickly changed his statement that his friend had visited SA.

-He wore spectacles and to maintain it, he had to clean it daily in the class.To save time & to make efficient usage of available resources, he used to clean his nose too. He had a very unique way to clean his nose and mouth with the same handkerchief- Yuck!! Another lol moment..

-Ours being a Christian school,we had lot of fathers,sisters and brothers. One such father was our English teacher who was our Principal too. When he used to roam around verandah and if he passed by our class and if SST was going on, Sir would sense that much before anyone else and stretch the words in his speech whatever he was saying and make it look more convincing. On first instance we didn’t get the reason for this change in his accent but later we realized it.(Talk of Impression? We learned a lesson here. Hehe)

-When he was teaching, suddenly if he found anything interesting outside the window,he used to stare it for so long that everybody in the class would look towards the window and then knowing that we were also staring,he used to shout ‘Don’t fool around’ (his punch dialogue) and we used to laugh.

– For whole of 9th/10th grade,no one read SST from standard book. We had a standard guide book- Diamond Guide!! I can picture that right away and smell the pages. Even though we didn’t read anything it would be difficult to pass in other subjects but not with SST. Here a below average student could also score well provided you wrote stories well. In our school days, Kaho Na Pyar Hai was a massive hit and everyone had seen it multiple times. So here was the funda everyone applied without copying in the exam. Read the question multiple times, Stretch your mind to understand it and write something about it in first two lines by trying to be relevant, save some of the stuff in last two lines and sandwich Kaho Na Pyar Hai or any other movie story in between first and last two lines. Believe me it would work like a charm, Every Time. (You know, we were innovative with our stories, a serious relevant topic would suddenly turn romantic,some coherent stories would make a good film 😛 Lesson on Business storytelling here. Mind your own business & convey your message with your own creative narrative. LOL)

-Sometimes if we were lucky we would get the questions before the exams too. Sir used to set question paper in the class. We had a monitor who had to write name of the students who were talking in the class wen Sir was resting on his desk. When Sir used to set the paper from diamond guide, monitor used to go beside the desk and secretly note down the page number pretending he is monitoring the class. Others had only one job, to turn the pages and quickly note down the questions.Everyone had personal copy of diamond guide and when monitor used to signal us the page number we used to mark the questions.We turned the pages of the guide in sync with that of Sir’s as we believed a guru and shishya should be on same page while conversing 😛

– If you forgot homework of other subjects, SST was the class to be. On one such class,someone had borrowed my Math notes and was completing his homework in SST class. Someone complained this to Sir upon which he got angry and took only my notes to the staff room. I went behind him to get it. He knew we used to make fun of him so he told me to say sorry to every teacher present in the staff room. My math teacher saved me by borrowing my notes from his hand and handing it to me.(Yeah,you guessed it right-We had great grasping power. Could do SST and Math simultaneously :P)

-If anyone was made to read a new lesson aloud in front of class it was understood that the lesson was taught.(Yeah u read it right.We were fast learners :P)

-He had some favorites (read bakras) in the class who were made scapegoats more often. If class sounded like a fish market(along with bakras :P) he used to shout taking that fav. student’s name. One day, that student was absent in the class but our Sir didn’t fail to shout his name when the class was loud 😛 That’s called making noise in the class, making your presence felt even though you are absent…

– He had a habit of removing his footwear when he was seated on his desk. Guys from first bench would stretch their leg to get his footwear and pass it on till last bench and the next scene when he gets up from his slumber was never to be missed 😛

– In Grade 10, he was our class teacher. We had a ball as the day started with his class. One fine day, he said open page number 40 from the text book. Everyone shouted page 45 Sirrrrrr……. to which he got very angry and hit the person sitting on the first bench 😛

-If he remembered by any chance, he used to suddenly announce in the class to complete all Q&A from SST in our ‘to be made’ notebook. We used to avoid it and on last resort used to complete all Q&A with answers not more than 2 lines.(You know, we were smart)

PS: NOM to any person involved. It’s just my version of the story. It’s not that we always made fun,we did study during our boards seriously. Learning should be fun and that was my biggest learning.

Thank You SIR!!

Keep Smiling 🙂