“Shriya, have you
completed the homework?” asked Maya to Shriya hurriedly. By being a sincere
student of the class, Shriya would never avoid home works. Rather she completes all the tasks assigned
to her enthusiastically.
“Aww, actually…..I had
attended a party yesterday, so I could not find any time to complete that”.
Said Shriya in a low voice. From her body gesture, it was quite visible that
she was lying.
“But, you told me that
you had returned from that party quite early. Still you haven’t done. It’s strange.” She knew that Shriya was lying
but she never did that for homework.
“I fear that you are
hiding something to me. I’m just guessing any reasons out.” She raised her
eyebrows high.
“The thing is that I
have tried many times but failed everytime. New madam is very strict and since
morning I had been giving a lot of excuses to bunk the classes. But she did not
agree and………….”.Suddenly she paused.
Their conversation was
interrupted by ringing of the school bell and it was the prayer time. All the students
had to assemble at the playground of the school.
All the students along
with Maya and Shriya marched towards the school ground but Shriya was very
tensed. Their topic of discussion was completely based on the homework assigned
by the new teacher, who had started taking classes a few days back.
This teacher had been
very strict from the day she had joined the school. Everyone was afraid of her
because of her behavior. Shriya was the one being constantly targeted by her in
class because of her poor performance in Hindi subject. The teacher would assign extra home works to
her than other students.
This behavior had
annoyed Shriya a lot. She was a very good student but lagged in Hindi subject.
For her, the new teacher was paying extra attention. She would never appreciate
her.
Prayer leaders stepped
on the stage and prayer began with these lines accompanied by tune played on
synthesizer “
“All things bright and
beautiful and
All creatures great and
small.
All things wise and
wonderful
The Lord God made them
all”
A large number of
students hummed this prayer and it got echoed throughout. Prayer makes morning
beautiful and that’s why it is an integral part of each day. Even a two-minutes-prayer
provides peace and satisfaction.
Each lip of students got
engaged in singing the prayer while Shriya’s eyes were busy in catching the
faces of teachers present there.
She lost her
concentration in prayer because of her homework. She prayed God to make her
Hindi madam absent for this day only, as the first period was allotted to the
new Hindi teacher. She did not want this day to go in vain due to homework. All
kinds of thoughts terrorized her. She felt horrible and kept thinking of the
consequences of not completing homework until she entered the class 5-G.
First period began with
ringing of the school bell , class monitor started filling all the details
mentioned on the class blackboard like date, period, subject and name of the
teacher.
While seeing the name
of the teacher being written on the blackboard, Shriya stood up from her seat
and asked abruptly “Is Meeta ma’am present today?”
“Yes.” Gautam replied
in a grave tone. Gautam was the class monitor and favorite student of Meeta
madam because of his proficiency in Hindi.
“But I did not find her
in assembly.” She uttered just after the class monitor finished his statement.
“She is supposed to
check your homework first and you are asking whether she is present or not!” He
mocked at Shriya which was one of his habits.
Meeta madam entered the
class with an attendance sheet and a Hindi poetry book in hand and each student
rose up from his seat to wish her good morning. She started taking the
attendance by calling out roll numbers of the students.
“Roll 36……”She called
out loudly. She waited for the response and the sequence of calling out the
roll number of students broke in between.
Pin-dropped silence was
observed in the class and madam called the roll number 36 twice and louder this
time.
“Pr……Present ma’m.”
Said Shriya in a trembling voice.
“What were you doing
before when I called out your roll number thrice??...Perhaps busy in talking.
Just keep standing until the attendance gets over.” She was crossed by the
attitude of this girl. She usually warned students to be attentive while she
took attendance so that she would finish that within less time and proceed to
the teaching.
Shriya wanted to hide
herself by not responding to her roll call. At the same time, she wanted to
bunk the very first period of the day.
“Today students will
come to the front one by one and read out the poem given in chapter 3 of
‘Umang’(Hindi poetry book). Take out your books as I have already ordered you
to practice it beforehand. Wait, from today onwards I will call out the names
randomly. So, don’t raise your hands.” She clarified. “Calling out the names in
order: Shriya, Satish, Medha, Mrinal, Karan……Please come to the front one by
one.”
Shriya went to the
front holding the Hindi book and browsed the content. She started reading in a
not-so-confident voice. It was quite apparent from her style of reading that
she had not practiced. After finishing
the poem she rushed towards her seat without much delay.
“Your performance is
not at all satisfactory, rather it is poor and it shows that you have not
prepared well.” Commented ma’am in a harsh manner. Other four students came to
the front one by one and recited the poem. In the end, ma’am appreciated Medha.
Then arrived the most
crucial period-homework checking. She glanced through the list of the students
whose performance were going to be judged through their homework.
“How shameful!! In spite of doing it for the
fourth time, I still can find a number of errors this homework. ” She was very
angry. She tore the pages from her notebook harshly and threw that away.
Out of embarrassment,
Shriya could not lift her eyes up. She felt miserable and tears rolled down her
cheek. She had never imagined that Meeta ma’am would do something like that.
This was not just a punishment but more
than that.
The same behavior of
ma’am continued for next two months. Daily, she used to tear the pages from
homework notebook of Shriya until she corrected her mistakes. According to
Shriya, it was gradually turning out to be one of the habits of Meeta ma’am.
“Good Morning to all students
present over here. I am here to announce that our school is going to celebrate
“Hindi Pakhwada” from next week. There would be several events such as poetry
writing, debate, extempore, article writing, essay. The students who are
interested to take part in these competitions, kindly submit their names to
their respective class monitors. I request the students to participate in a huge
number because lots of exciting prizes are awaiting.” Announced vice principle
madam from the dais in morning assembly.
While returning to
their respective classes, students kept on discussing about the forthcoming
events. Shriya was not seem to be interested at all.
“I am gonna participate
in two events, what about you, Shriya??” Enquired Maya with a sweet smile in
her face.
“Definitely not,
because it’s in Hindi. I do not want to embarrass myself once again.” Shriya
showed her discontentment.
“At least, you can
participate in any one of the events. It would just be fun. Please don’t deny.
Just try once, take it easy.” Maya suggested and encouraged her to participate
in the competition.
Gautam overheard their
conversation and wrote Shriya’s name without her consent in a piece of paper
and submitted the paper. On the day of competition, Gautam announced the name
of the students in the class who had already given their names to him in
addition to Shriya. This annoyed Shriya very much. In order to trouble Shriya,
Gautam clarified that the names once submitted could not be omitted from the
list. All the students had to assemble at the meeting hall.
She entered the hall
and occupied the positions. The head boy entered the room and announced the
topic of the article and the duration of the competition was 45 minutes.
All the students
started scribbling on a piece of paper. Shriya kept on writing the article with
a high speed without caring for the outcome. This event was followed by
extempore and debate competition. The writing competition got over. All the
students had to wait for the announcement of result after the completion of the
following two events.
In a short span of
time, other competitions commenced. Everyone was eagerly waiting for the
performance of their friends. The two programs got over and name of the winners
were declared by Vice Principle ma’am. Next was the declaration of the result
of the article writing competition. The head boy stepped towards the stage and
requested the panel of judges announce the result and hand over the prizes. It
was just shocking news for Shriya to know that the panel was consisted of Meeta
Ma’am, Singh sir and Vice principle ma’am. She had already developed a negative
place for her Hindi ma’am for assigning her Homework daily.
Head boy handed over
the microphone to vice principle ma’am for the announcement of the result.
“Good morning students,
you have been waiting for this moment for long. It was very tough for us to
choose the winners because everyone performed very well. It’s very glad to know
that students have a lot interest in national language of our country. As per
the design of the curriculum, only one subject is studied in Hindi. Their
respect for the national language had got reflected in their writings too.
Without delay, I’m declaring the
names…….3rd prize goes to Gautam, 2nd prize is a tie
among two students Maya and Ketan, 1st prize goes to…………………… and 1st
prize goes to “Shriya”, it was an exceptional article. Students please come to
the stage for collecting prizes.”
Shriya headed towards
the stage with a sense of derilium and vice principle ma’am presented her a
certificate and Meeta ma’am handed her a story book of collected stories of
Ruskin Bond. Other friends congratulated her and Maya and Shriya exchanged the
books with each other to review the content. Maya found a sticky note pasted
inside the book addressed to Shriya from Meeta ma’am, she could not resist
herself from reading “I am extremely happy today for your success, for a moment
I could not believe that you are the one who was so much afraid of making
mistakes in Hindi. I’m proud to say that you are among my favourite students.”
Read Maya who was amazed and remained dumbstruck for few minutes.
Shriya was thrilled and
her conception about ma’am had changed. She had preconception that Ma’am
disliked her for her poor performance in Hindi. For sure, it was possible only
because of the Homework that had assigned to her daily. She had subconsciously
developed interest in Hindi by completing the Homework. Homework had opened up
all the doors for improvement and created a unique space for Hindi in her heart.
She read the note
again to make sure that, it was from Meeta ma’am only. She felt contended and
smiled a little. She wished that may the first period be allotted to the new
Hindi teacher forever.
Sweta Sarangi
4.11.2014
