“Do you know where I can buy marks?” asked the child to his
cousin. The child was Bhargabh Barman
who studied in class IV in a city school. His cousin Jitu who came from the remote Dhemaji town was there to spend his
vacation at his maternal uncle’s house in Guwahati. Bhargabh was willing to
shell out his accumulated wealth from his piggy bank which was in the shape of
a piglet made out of coconut- the pocket money which he got whenever his mother
didn’t pack his lunch-box to school. Little did his parents know that their
child at times feasted on other’s lunch boxes- devouring on noodles, cakes, rolls,
sandwiches, sweets and whatever satiated his taste-bud.
Bhargabh’s Ma was always after him to study. Study in the
morning, study in the afternoon (if it was a Sunday or any holiday), study in
the evening and still some more study at night. He was curious to know the
location of the Marks Market because the other day he had heard his parents discussing
that the class X board examination’s Mathematics question paper was leaked and he
had also watched in the T.V. about the recent Bihar episode where a girl
student became a state topper who didn’t even know her subjects right.
If his cousin Jitu was not able to help him out then he can
always ask the neighbourhood hero Ron,
few years older than him and who was a storehouse of valuable information. At
the same time he also tried to check the location of Bihar in his Oxford atlas
which he got from the book fair last time. Not far away from Assam, only the
state of West Bengal was sandwiched in between Assam and Bihar. It measured
just his little finger’s breadth. His mind wheeled on a railway coach to Bihar
where he was sure to easily procure good marks without any effort (unaware to
his parents) and which they would show it to their relatives, friends and
neighbours and distribute sweets too if it happened to be the board examination.
Now board had a different meaning to him. He had heard from his seniors about a
CBSE board and his school was under SEBA board and his classmate’s elder
brother went to an ICSE board. Then one of his cousins who was in a boarding
school at Dehradun in Uttarakhand was under IGCSE board. Perhaps it referred to
the different boards wherein a teacher wrote in the class room or so he
thought.
When he went to Beltola market with his father on a Sunday,
he had his eyes and ears wide open for he was in search of a vendor who sold
marks; good marks, many marks or just any marks but passing marks, to any or
many student(s) buyer(s). When his mother took him to Khadim’s in Ganeshguri to
get him a pair of new shoes as the one he had was old and torn out in the
monsoon rains, his searching eyes picked up the tiny new shoes; kept neatly
arranged in racks in the shop, to check if it had marks hidden below or if it
came inside shoe boxes. When the fruit and vegetable vendors or the fish-seller
came to his locality, he hurriedly rushed in front to check if they also sold
marks for money. If only marks flowed like the waters of the river Brahmaputra
which skirted his city or if there was a torrential downpour of marks like the
way it rains in Assam during the monsoon or more still instead of the flood
waters if only it flooded everywhere with marks, how lucky all the students
would be. But alas! He had no such magic wand. When the kabbadiwallah too came for collecting used plastic and glass
bottles and old newspapers and magazines with a weighing machine and his cart
he thought perhaps he was a godsend for him. But no, no such kabbadiwallah ever came to him with a
cartload of marks. Before the approach of winter too when he heard the
strumming of the quilt-maker’s instrument go twang-twang and he saw the soft
fluffy cotton in jute sack, he wondered if it would fluff out marks instead of
the light raw-material. How comforting it would be to sleep in a quilt of good
marks which would keep the cold wintry days at bay!
Sunday through Saturday he had to strut accompanied by his
Mommy to his private tutors houses: first Biren
Tamuli sir’s house every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. On each of those
days he tried his best to store all the mathematical calculations in his small
brain which weighed just a few grams resting on his small head. His one hour
class at Biren Tamuli’s house could best be termed as a mind ‘out-of-class’.
But who cared apart from his parents who had to burn a hole in their pocket by
shelling out Rs 1600 per month for they had a dream to make him an engineer one
day. Engineering without mathematics is like eating one’s favourite meals without
the braces on. Not naturally digestible, quite naturally.
Second, all Tuesdays and Thursdays were meant for English,
two days where he had to listen to Miss Sampson’s
dull and monotonous lectures for an hour without fail. The only attraction at
visiting Miss Sampson’s house was the pet dog who barked at almost anyone who
barged inside the compound. However, Bhargabh being an animal lover knew that Janus, Miss Sampson’s pet dog who was
spotted with black dots on a white milky coat, communicated something else to
him. His bough-wough with a waggy tail was what Bhargabh looked forward to. He loved
to pat Miss Sampson’s pet in as much Janus loved being patted by him. The pet would
at times stand in between Bhargabh’s legs with his tail moving like a pendulum
or would place his forepaw on the child literally standing up or would run away
from him for a minute or so and dash towards him at lightning speed, all this
much to his mother’s annoyance. The rest of his English class would slowly
tick-tock by, his often wandering thoughts diverting from English to what pranks
Janus was up to when he had to read and write his lessons in English prose, English
grammar and English composition. Every time he had to write a few exercises on
the parts of speech- nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, prepositions,
conjunctions, interjections and now articles too, Miss Sampson asked him to
write ‘grammar’ on top followed by the actual heading and at the same time she
ensured that he wrote the dates and drew straight margins with a pointed pencil.
But he would always write GRAMMER without fail instead of grammar. If the
English words ‘drummer’, ‘hammer’ and ‘stammer’ sounded the same as grammar
then why was it spelled differently towards the end, he couldn’t infer. Saturdays
was again devoted to Hindi because none at home could guide him about the
language. He particularly had to struggle with the gender in Hindi since his
mother-tongue had gender-neutral words. He was fluent in Hindi because he was
constantly glued to the Hindi cartoon channels whenever there were no prying
eyes darting at him. On Sundays he was forced to go to his neighbour’s house
where Miss Jyotika Talukdar taught
him his mother-tongue Assamese. No respite for him even on a Sunday. When he
went for his Assamese classes, as also when he returned back, he saw his mother
(and father too) with eyes all focused on the T.V. watching serials. But when he would try to settle down too with
them, he would be shooed away. Bhargabh was always thankful that there was no
more than seven days in a week else his mother would drag him to yet another
private tutor. He had heard about a
particular day ‘dry day’ it was referred to by his father, probably once or
twice, and he silently wondered what sort of day it was as it was neither
reflected in his school’s time-table nor in the calendar which decorated the
living room of his parents.
Also, the other day his English teacher at school Miss D’souza gave a surprise test on
the lesson ‘Heidi’. When he showed his answer script to Miss Sampson, it seemed
to him that her eyes would pop-out of its socket. After all what he wrote in
his answer to the question “Who was Heidi?” (by Johanna Spyrri) was “Heidi is a
two volume, young village girl”. He knew his answers right and he was sure to
get good marks this time. At times he got confused with the spellings and the
words so when in his social studies question paper the students were asked to
write about the problems of overpopulation in India, he wrote “Overpopulation
leads to storage of food grains”.
(instead of ‘shortage’). In yet another question on ‘What are the
factors which influence the climate of India?’ he remembered his Social Studies
teacher Mr Barua telling something
about the Tropic of Cancer so he wrote about the imaginary line Tropic of
Cancer and added “India has lot of
cancer” to it. He had heard his distant aunt dying of cancer recently as also
his neighbor from the other block. The disease was as alien to him as this
imaginary line called the ‘Tropic of Cancer’ and he wrote down what he only felt.
He thought the question to be wrongly printed as he couldn’t gauge the
correlation between India’s climate and cancer. Then there was another question
on “How is solar energy used in India?” Mr Barua was surprised to read
Bhargabh’s answer “Solar energy is used for hotting and cocking in India
(instead of heating and cooking). Barua Sir couldn’t help sharing this with his
wife before going to bed at night. And just before he slept the only thought
that came to his mind was “O My God! Is this what I have taught my students’!”
Looking at his Hindi copy his Hindi teacher at school Mr Shivbali commented, “Erre, yeah toh
abhisehi doctor jaisa likhne lege hain”. (He has started to write just like a
doctor from now itself). Needless to say everyone in the class started laughing
at Shivbali sir’s joke including the ones whose handwriting resembled nothing
less than a scavenging crow’s filthy feet.
Miss D’souza, their English teacher asked the students to
prepare for the play “The Demon and the Dancer” based on a story of their English
textbook. In the story, Bhasmasura, the demon of ashes was burnt by the Goddess
of Power who came disguised as a dancer. Bhargabh who was selected for the role
of the woman dancer had to ask Bhasmasura if he could dance like her. The way
Bhargabh enacted especially his dancing mudras
tickled everyone’s bones with laughter. Even Miss D’souza’s face saw a curve of
smile followed by laughter. Towards the end of the play the entire class
applauded for the actors for their superb performance especially Bhargabh’s.
Life without studies was easy going. In school he was branded
as the naughtiest boy in his class. His teachers found it hard to force him to
write, which only meant copying down directly from the blackboard. However,
naughty Bhargabh would like a wandering satellite, turn back and hit Jumon, the one who had a rich
eye-bladder and who would also keep moving his body at varying angles even
while class was in progress and at times standing up for no reason or Manash who was the second naughtiest in
his class or Pratik who was the most
talkative or Manav who was the
loudest among all 66 students. Bharghab would saunter as soon as the teacher
turned back to write on the blackboard and he snatched either a pen or a pencil
or an eraser or a ruler or a sharpener from his classmates or in the worst
possible case tease a girl of his class. His class teacher Mr. Ramesh Paswan (also from Bihar), who was new to the school had
a tough time controlling him and the bunch of pesky in his class. Paswan sir could
never forget the day when in the very first period and this is before the
students wished him good morning, a boy Samir
by name, shouted loud and clear and complained- “Sir, tomorrow (meaning
yesterday) Bhargabh told me sexy”. Paswan sir didn’t know whether to blush in
embarrassment or to scold the child, who used that word tomorrow, err . . .
yesterday, uff . . . today as well or to ignore his comments altogether like an
ostrich with its head buried under the sand. Children as young as a class IV
student, few of them if not all, knew a few slangs- words they might have
either picked up at home, in their locality or elsewhere.
Bhargabh was not only active in games and sports but would
always bag a prize in whichever games he participated in. Winning in sports
competition was in his blood, something he inherited from his father Ramen Barman who worked in Assam Sachibalaya.
His father had got the government job on sports quota and Bhargabh was also
destined to do so, necessary terms and conditions applicable herein- if there is
no intervention from his parents. They knew of their son’s interest in games
and sports particularly in athletics but ignored it straightaway like a
sweet-meat seller who ignores flies settling down on the sugary- syrupy- sweet mithais. How many can become Tendukars
and pehelwans and emulate our very
own Shiv Thappa?
His mother would always take him to the nearby temple on
Saturdays since it was a holiday at school. His prayers to the idol was to make
him pass in the school examination especially Mathematics and English, the two
subjects in which he got a red line in his progress report. In order to pass
the school’s promotion examination without getting a red line he was even ready
to sacrifice the much forbidden bite from the unripe berries which he and his
friends saw growing in the berry tree which stood in the corner of the
playground where children played cricket. It was a commonly held belief amongst
children of his age that one bite from the unripe berry and the student would invariably
flunk in the examination. How he wished if one day instead of berries, marks,
eh, mind you, good marks . . . showered from its bountiful boughs and he would
stand right below the berry tree waiting to pick it up from the ground;
slightly bad marks he would discard it like the unripe or rotten berries and
collect only the best of the best in his shirt and pant pockets. If need be, he
was only too willing to be like the actor Salman Khan, to bare out his chest
and be clad only in his white vest in his mission on amassing marks. On
Saraswati Puja- the Goddess of knowledge, learning and wisdom, Bhargabh would
never take non-veg. even though chicken was his all time favourite. If he can
sacrifice non-veg. just for a single day, Goddess Saraswati can never ignore
such a devout bhakt and may perhaps
bless him with at least passing marks.
During Durga Puja, on the day when Ma Durga is just about to
be taken for immersion, he and his battalion of neighbourhood gang of boys
could be seen carrying various academic books- some carrying Science text books,
others with Hindi on their hands, some others loaded with Assamese and some
like him, almost the entire wooden table of books minus the table of course, as
they chanted to Ma Durga to bless them with a promotion to the next class.
A few days back, Bipin
borta- his paternal uncle who worked
in the Digboi refinery came to his house and over a cup of tea informed his
family about his possible transfer to Barauni Refinery in Bihar. Bihar once again rang a bell to him as did
Barua Sir, his Social Studies teacher at school while explaining the chapter on
‘Our Valuable Resources’. “Children, there is a pipeline which transports oil
from Assam to Barauni refinery in Bihar” as Barua sir pointed to the India map
which stood next to the blackboard hung on the ply-board partition which
separated classroom IV and V. And he imagined he was floating in a bed of oil
inside the pipeline which transports Assam’s oil to the state where there was a
market for marks. His vision of scoring high marks was about to come true with
Bipin borta’s transfer. There were two classmates who originally hailed from
Bihar- Sunny and Sunil. He knew about their native place
because both had reported late to school when it reopened after the summer
vacation. Sunil came back with a tonsured head as his paternal grandfather had
passed away during the holidays and all the boys had made fun of Sunil since
only a tiny pony tail, resembling his piggy-bank’s tail, appeared on his almost
empty head protruding like a barren island in a sea. He would remember to ask
Sunny and Sunil about the marks market in their native place. Perhaps they
would be able to provide some vital clues.
But he had to first find out how much money he had saved up
until then in his piggy bank. Bhargabh, unlike other students, didn’t know the
art of cheating directly in the examination. His classmate Aniruddha was caught red-handed by another English teacher Mrs Chatterjee who taught English in
the senior classes. Mrs Chatterjee does chatter like a chattering Magpie and
also makes others laugh with her chatter and there’s no full-stop to her
constant chatter and the accompanying laughter). Miss D’souza was called to the
examination hall to check if the answers handwritten in small and short chits tallied
with any of the examination questions. One question sure did, the one on “How
Tenali Raman was able to bag the award of a thousand gold coins from the king?”
While Miss D’souza checked the notes written by Aniruddha and cross-checked his
handwriting written in his English copy it was found that the way he wrote the letters
particularly the ‘s’, ‘h’, ‘i’ and ‘t’ matched ditto as in those chits. Five
solid marks Aniruddha lost. Bhargabh who was Roll No. 6 and came right after Aniruddha
Borthakur (Roll No. 5) got all the running commentary from the two English
teachers (sans Mrs Chatterjee’s laughter this time). This happened last year
but the incident was still fresh in his mind. Anirudha who was weak in English
just like him was promoted on consideration. Bhargabh could never imagine getting
a good hiding from his father for cheating in the examination.
The school’s annual examination was round the corner.
Bhargabh would very often dream that he is unable to write as a teacher- his
Mathematics or English teacher, yelling at him to write fast as the bell will
ring in no time. And he would wake up from his sleep with a start with his
forehead laced with beads of warm sweat.
Then, one day while going for his private tuition to Miss
Sampson’s house, Janus whispered something in Bhargabh’s ear when he went to
greet him still wagging his tail and emitting a low ‘bouuuuugh’- “Watch my
shadow”. Janus knew a few tricks like pawing when asked to shake hands with
others or to run away when the chain was brought to tie him in the garage. At
times Bhargabh also saw him playing with a ball or chasing his own shadow or
going round and round in circles holding his tail firmly with his sharp canine teeth.
Just when Bhargabh thought he had
heard Janus communicate something to him, he ran away towards the house
responding to the call of Naini,
Miss Sampson’s helper. And as he ran so did his shadow. He saw the image of Ma
Saraswati in Janus’s shadow who told him these lines- “Child, don’t run after
marks. The ultimate aim of education is to gain knowledge and not to adorn your
report card with marks.” His mother who was standing next to him saw Janus
running free and Bhargabh too could sense that what he saw was perceived by his
mother too. A shadow falls only when there is light. Let every child’s life be
candled by the light of knowledge. Marks would follow automatically, like a
shadow, if a student is passionate about learning and develops an interest in
the subject. Why go for only marks without having an understanding? The world
is your oyster and it is for you to find the pearl hidden inside it. If you
don’t use your brain it will rust and very soon it will stop functioning like a
rusted machine. The son and mother saw Janus running all around the compound
like a child left free. Bhargabh’s mother had a vague montage of her child
drowning in the oil pipeline, with him asphyxiated by his school bag which
weighs more than him as also by his more than dozen books and copies bulldozing
him under its pressure. His mother pinched herself as Janus, the gate-keeper of
Miss Sampson’s house, awoke the mother in her and hugging Bhargabh once, she
let her child run after the dog, to chase his own dreams and aspirations. The
very next day she took her child to the nearest stadium for his admission in the
sports of his interest.
Dear parents, would you want your child to grow and learn by
sinking in a quagmire of marks or would you love to let your child grow
naturally like a sapling, nurtured and nourished by parents and teachers alike,
where there is no rat-race for getting marks, marks set much above expectation?
There is edutainment in the process of learning. There are students who cheat
in the examination hall by adopting unfair means, both verbal and written, with
the sole aim of gaining a few extra marks. What purpose will it serve if a
student doesn’t even know the answer? S/he will only be marks rich but knowledge
poor. If only every family, every parents encourage their children not to read
and learn by rote, if nobody pressurized anybody (if you know what I mean?), won’t
there be a greater percentage of passed students than failed? Parrot learning,
learning by rote, mugging up answers may be the shortest route but such
short-cuts in the highway to gaining marks by a few notch is never the surest
way of easy access but is an cul-de-sac as it can only lead to long delays in storing
our granary of knowledge and ameliorating our skills which comes with learning
and understanding.
While hand-holding is required, parental helicopteering must
be avoided. It is the parents who build up undue pressure on their child to
scale the peak of ‘Mountain of Marks’ not realizing that there could be an avalanche
or the child could be trapped in a crevice. Let the child scale such a height
on his or her own. Like the beautiful and sweet-scented wildflowers which grow with
the right amount of sunshine and rain on the high valleys and mountain sides,
let your child also grow, in quite the natural way.
(All characters are fictitious.)
