In school she used to be just a roll number ahead of me. I was or may be both of us had grown a habit of it over the classes. She was an amazing dancer, spoke very little. Unlike her I spoke a lot and danced average. Roll friends – you know how these kind of friendships grow? It is important that we have exams in schools or else this kind of friendships would become obsolete.
Every terminal (semester) exams I had to follow the chair just behind hers. We had 3 big fat exams out of which one was the final one for promotion. We used to dump all our school bags on the corridor outside the exam room. She invariably wished me – ‘All the Best’ turning her back. That used to be generally the final good wish in my school exams days before the class teacher handed over the cyclostyle question papers. Once in a while I have pushed her on my way to collect extra paper or she had turned back very artistically showing me the question number to cross check on the answers, mostly numeric. We were partners of small vices.
We were in seventh standard. That day we had geography exam. I had just completed the GMT problem. Mrs. Iyengar (I mistook the Sur name as Anger and referred her as Anger Miss for long!) has stepped in as a floating invigilator. We had long and short extra pages available. The last five – six minutes of the exams where mostly into punching the right hand corner of the answer sheets and roping them into one with the four inches thread.
It all happened very quickly. Thirty more minutes for the exam were left when Mrs. Iyengar stood between me and my roll friend and watched us. I still had to write an essay type question on Australia.
My roll friend was caught red handed with a short extra sheet which had complete Australia compressed. My ‘Anger Miss’, was responsible for exam logistic that day and she had not issued any short extra page to room invigilators for the day. She was interrogated and taken out of the exam room. I could not write much on Australia. Till date was not sure why she chose the option, even without Australia, I scored 65.
The last but one time I saw her was in our Principal room that afternoon. Our principal was a patron of her classical dance and I know how much she loved her. Next day I gave the exam with a blank chair in front of me. It gave me a sensation of standing beside a crime spot. Time passed by, I learnt a word called ‘Rusticate’. Final exam was over and with promotion my Roll Friend changed. With time I got used to new faces but stopped pushing roll friends to cross check answers. The joy of committing small vices, are interesting with a few.
I met her once more in a railway station – all by a chance, a decade after the event. I was a struggling engineer then, she was a happy woman with her family. Feebly asked her- “What do you do?” She boldly said she is a lawyer. She probably had a free mind, mine was overloaded with memories.
Gyan #15 – Recycle bad memories to revive small joy of relationship
Every terminal (semester) exams I had to follow the chair just behind hers. We had 3 big fat exams out of which one was the final one for promotion. We used to dump all our school bags on the corridor outside the exam room. She invariably wished me – ‘All the Best’ turning her back. That used to be generally the final good wish in my school exams days before the class teacher handed over the cyclostyle question papers. Once in a while I have pushed her on my way to collect extra paper or she had turned back very artistically showing me the question number to cross check on the answers, mostly numeric. We were partners of small vices.
We were in seventh standard. That day we had geography exam. I had just completed the GMT problem. Mrs. Iyengar (I mistook the Sur name as Anger and referred her as Anger Miss for long!) has stepped in as a floating invigilator. We had long and short extra pages available. The last five – six minutes of the exams where mostly into punching the right hand corner of the answer sheets and roping them into one with the four inches thread.
It all happened very quickly. Thirty more minutes for the exam were left when Mrs. Iyengar stood between me and my roll friend and watched us. I still had to write an essay type question on Australia.
My roll friend was caught red handed with a short extra sheet which had complete Australia compressed. My ‘Anger Miss’, was responsible for exam logistic that day and she had not issued any short extra page to room invigilators for the day. She was interrogated and taken out of the exam room. I could not write much on Australia. Till date was not sure why she chose the option, even without Australia, I scored 65.
The last but one time I saw her was in our Principal room that afternoon. Our principal was a patron of her classical dance and I know how much she loved her. Next day I gave the exam with a blank chair in front of me. It gave me a sensation of standing beside a crime spot. Time passed by, I learnt a word called ‘Rusticate’. Final exam was over and with promotion my Roll Friend changed. With time I got used to new faces but stopped pushing roll friends to cross check answers. The joy of committing small vices, are interesting with a few.
I met her once more in a railway station – all by a chance, a decade after the event. I was a struggling engineer then, she was a happy woman with her family. Feebly asked her- “What do you do?” She boldly said she is a lawyer. She probably had a free mind, mine was overloaded with memories.
Gyan #15 – Recycle bad memories to revive small joy of relationship
Nice story.
ReplyDeleteeta ki true story naki fiction? ......anek mone korar chesta korlam...cannot remember this person or the incident. BTW, Sohini posted Mrs Iyengar's class photo in facebook, check it out!
ReplyDelete-Gargi
Naam ta liklum na for obvious reasons.. But sharing clues - She had an elder sister and a younger brother. She was very good Bharatnatnam dancer! O amather songe r high school e ase ni :)
ReplyDelete