Times @ Maddy Kripa-III

It is really an awesome feeling to be recalling all the old memories and it just takes you deeper and deeper into it, bringing out new dimensions to the already fixed memory. I was completely blank when I started with this series but now the images are clearing…

Year 99-2000

We had Janet teacher as our class teacher. I still remember her birthday ka din, when we had all planned to wish her and give her a surprise. We had prepared a card for her and kept it on the table. But when the period started and she dint come, everything went out of way. Soon everybody in the class started shouting and it was like a market place come alive. She came about fifteen to twenty minutes late and she was all fumed up while coming as the noise created by our class could have been heard until the staff room. We could see her coming down the corridor. Seeing her temper we got scared and took back the card kept on the table, rubbed the happy birthday written on the board.. As soon as she got in everybody got a solid lecture!! We planned to surprise her.. But she gave us one… Her voice had the ability to keep anybody listening and the power to induce fear to anybody who was being shouted at. Actually even if you weren’t the one being shouted at, you felt the fear going down your veins..

The moment every student feared in her class would be when our answer books were given back after a test was conducted. One never knew which way she attacked. Once a few days after a class test, she called a few students and got all the books brought to class from the staff room. Once she came to the class she asked everybody to stand up. We had to catch our books as she threw it from the table.. It was a moment when the student who hadn’t done well just knew what he was going to face… In fact, hearing her, you would get a doubt about your performance, even if you thought you were sure about it a moment ago. But then she always appreciated those who did well. I guess that was one reason she never lost her temper at me. If you were good, she would be gentle with you, else you just had it…

Annanu madida galipata
bannada haleya galipata
neeliya banali teluta sundara
balangoshiya nanna pata

Bidirina bettiya galipata
bedarada bettada galipata…

…dharava jaggi
dhooradi baggi
balangoshiya nanna pata

It was the first poem we learnt and I used to keep telling it very often. Soon our test arrived and we had to write the poem by heart and the practice was the teacher used to write the questions on the board and we wrote the answers in our answer book. Of all things, I failed to notice the question on the poem. I donno how I missed it, but I dint notice it and realised it only after I had submitted my paper. I got B+ in that particular test as I hadn’t written the poem. After that incident I always watch out for the question on poem first. Its been about 9 years now, but I still remember a little of the poem as a memory of the incident…

Year 2000-01

Padmavathi teacher was our class teacher. She was a very stern teacher and just her presence kept a class under pin drop silence. She had squint eyes and that increased to her sternness coz one never knew where she was seeing. You thought she was seeing the other way but oh! no.. she was looking at you. From three years I was watchful enough to escape from her but escaping from your class teacher was going to be a tough job… Anyways there was also the gentle side of her. She had a very good practice of teaching poems. She took up Kannada and since we had to by heart poems, before starting a poem she would first tell each line and make us repeat it. Once that was done she would put in a tune for it and then repeat the process again. That way we knew the poem and wouldn’t forget it easily.. Then she used to explain it.. I still remember the poem classes of hers. They were so much fun.

The year also marked another memorable event for me when I was selected for a state level drawing competition to be held at Manglore. One fine afternoon, I was called from the class and was told about the competition. It was first of its kind for me back then and that itself was a great sense of achievement… The competition was conducted by, “The Hindu” and I was proud to be among the few, representing our school. Two were to be selected from senior group and one from junior. So that was one of the reasons to be happy about. I was also happy coz I was among the likes of Uttam Bhat and Swathi C Prabhu who were the top artists in our school, back then. I still have the participation certificate with me, serving as a witness to this memory…