My Not So Favorite Pupil

Teaching Surinder English was a nightmare. His handwriting was like ants doing a cabaret, pronunciation was a mystery since he avoided speaking to me in English and his marks were stagnant, like the puddle of rainwater, that never dried up.

I dreaded correcting his test papers. His spellings, lack of structure in the sentence and the empty words filling up the page was no less than a horror movie. I was more than just worried and worried for myself, more than him. If he did not score well in the mid-term exams this year, the principal was going to be upset with me again. I would be beyond upset, not able to forgive myself for not being a good teacher.

Honestly, I was doing my best. He was an average student, scoring fairly well in all subjects, except the horrifying ENGLISH. I stayed back after school hours, trying to make him read story books meant for younger kids, encouraging him to watch cartoons with English dialogue and sweated over translating every word in English from the Hindi version of Chacha Choudhary’s comics. I asked him to write the story in Hindi and narrate it in English. He wrote in Hindi and narrated it beautifully in Hindi. No progress with English. None whatsoever. We were at a dead end, all the time. Surinder exhausted me and I assumed I had the same effect on him.

Strangely, Surinder was not half as frustrated as I was. He was trying his best too. His parents told me that he worked on his English lessons, late into the night, trying to memorize the spellings.
He tried to read the Chacha Choudhary’s comics in English and narrated the story to them in Hindi. He tried speaking in English at home and watched his Hindi speaking parents beam with pride since they had no idea about what he was saying. They did not speak English nor understand it.

Sometimes learning a language is not your biggest asset, accepting your limitations is!  
Surinder was more realistic than I was. He was aware that learning English was not his cup of tea.
Perhaps, that frustrated me more. But he had another gift. The art of smiling under duress. Even when I was fuming with anger, my head looking like a volcano with fresh black fumes escaping from it, he smiled like an angel. The gift almost made me jealous of him. His smile was a strange mixture of innocence and helplessness, like a cute mouse caught in a trap and yet happily nibbling on the cheese!

A few years later, I landed in my dream job in the city. I was both guilty and relieved at leaving Surinder behind in the village. I continued to assume that he also felt the same way.
Nearly two decades later, I received an email from Surinder. The email said “Thank You” in the subject line. My eyes grew moist as I read the rest of it, more than once. Surinder had written,  “Thank you for inspiring me to read and encouraging me to read different kinds of books and magazines, in my growing years. I know I was a terrible student with English, but you made a positive impact on my life. In your effort to teach me, you made me feel the words, even when I could not speak or write them. I seek your blessings for my blog.”

I clicked on the link to his blog. The blog was in Hindi. It was a collection of his short stories and poems. Although I can read Hindi and love to speak the language, I am slow as a snail when I read.
 I mentally translated each word into English, struggling to focus and pick up pace. For once, I knew how it felt to be in Surinder’s shoes. A fuzzy feeling made its way into my heart. Tears trickled down my sagging cheeks. An adrenaline rush, piping with pride and gratitude settled in slowly.

 

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