Tuesday, July 31, 2007

The grass is always greener....

Warning: The text colors are done deliberately. Read and you will understand :-)

"AmarPratap"

"Present Sir."

"Anand"

"Present Sir."


The attendance is over. Now I can go back to my primary activity...day dreaming in the class room. The advantage of your name starting with A is that you will be called first on the roll call and can sleep for the rest of the 5 to 10 minutes while the teacher wakes up the rest of the class. Disadvantage is....you do not have much luxury of time to realize that the attendance is on. God knows who invented class room, practical, exam and all this shit. Can’t they teach stuff in a way that students love and will remember for long? Even a person like me who is in Class 11 can realize this, then why cant these jerks who control education and are donkey years old can’t understand this plain simple fact? All they care is that students score marks. We score not because we love it you morons. It is due to the simple fact....that we are afraid.


Any mission is worthwhile when carried out with an aim to win, but look how parents instruct their kids. "You fail in this exam and I will break your bones." You slip and you will be reminded that you are on the verge of joining the bandwagon of losers in the family. How convenient!!!! Somehow I managed good marks in 10th standard, now I got to repeat the same bloody shit (worse excel it) in 12th. Hmmm...added misery is this mustache wont grow. The 10th standard girl Abhirami who lives next door said that she that she likes men with mustache. I have been shaving daily and still its growing as slow as Dravid's test innings. Damn hormones!!!!


"Anand. Can you collect the test papers?" said Mr. Paneerselvam

Oops...time for duty. I am the class representative. I so much envy our Maths teacher Mr. PannerSelvam or Paneer as we call him. He teaches Maths, looks smart, earns decent money, rides a Black Bullet (I love it), has a beautiful wife (my friend Avinash joined his tuition class to just catch her glimpse), a cute kid, will become Assistant HM by next year. Man...what else can someone want in life. He is like the complete man as they say in Raymonds. Hmmm...lucky guy!!!!!


"Here you go Sir." I handed him the answer sheets. Mission accomplished!!!!

"Thanks."


Hmmm...56 papers. This means 56 different answers and approach to one problem. You give a problem from the book and they declare that SIR is so great and if you give them something out of syllabus for the grey cells, you are branded Mr Mogambo. I joined this profession for the love of teaching and imparting knowledge among my fellow men and look what they did to me? I have to be aggressive and aim for the Assistant HM post for next year. It means more money, perks and name. I am supposed to lobby for the system and not go outside it. Else I become an outlaw. I can survive as an outlaw if I was single, but what can a family man do? Maybe marriages are done with the purpose of mellowing a human down.


It is easy to solve a 3*3 matrix or a traveling salesman problem. What is hard?

1. To understand what a woman wants.

2. To change diapers for your kid.

Why do women always want men to explore and understand them and give them what they want rather than TELLING them what they want? They won’t. Why? Because they are women and they ought to be complex. The wedding anniversary date is a month away. I got to get her something surprising, wonderful, unique and costly. Added to this is the referee work I need to do between her and my mom. No wonder the Greek mathematicians and philosophers were gay. Had they been straight they would wasted at least half their lives understanding women.


"Can I have a minute with you Mr Selvam?" asked the headmaster Mr Raj.

"Sure. Go ahead."


Lucky fella our HM. Started his career here as Maths teacher and became HM 5 years before. He has made nice money and name out of this. He got a Central Government award from Delhi 1 month before. He has a college going daughter and a 12th standard studying boy. Wife has lot of property which means he can retire in peace next year. Either way he can earn always by taking tuitions. What a man!!!!


"Can you submit your part for the Annual school report by next week?"

"Sure Sir." I better hurry. Its time to rush to the 12th standard classroom.


One horseshit report after the other. Basically it means we are going to blow our trumpets to everyone that we are this blah blah that and so on. When the teachers and parents drive their kids so wild in this high pressure world, how can they not study? Where is the room for creativity? We all want Kalams, Verghese Kuriens and Amartya Sens. If we choke them with so much bookish knowledge how will they learn to think on their own? I can’t even talk about this as I also have been reduced to low levels as these scumbags. Somehow my wife's nephew in Delhi lobbied and got me the award. It means a career even after I retire from school.


They always say that "A scholar's child is idiot." They got it right at least when it came to the sons. Look at my daughter. She has graduated with top honors from her university and has got grants to study abroad. And look at my son. One reckless fella. Barely crossed 75% in 10th standard. I would have been happy if he were differently talented in any other way. Worse, he drinks, smokes and wastes my hard earned money. Being the only son he qualifies to be the apple of his mom’s eye and chillis in mine. Wonder what I am going to do to his life.


"Sir, May I have a minute"

"Yes"

"The attendance sheet Sir. Need your signature on it."

Look at this young man. He is also my son's age and so responsible. Hmmm...life was so simple being a student. All you needed to do was to study and get marks. Needn’t worry about any award, money, relatives, kids....so on. How good it would be to switch places???


"Anything else young man"

"No Sir"

For time being at least forgetting the useless report would do.


P.S: Inspired from a Jeffery Archer short story

35 comments:

dakaltiz said...

wow nice one da...lifez a circle rite? u tend to yearn for something forgetting ur present state... How good it would be if every 1 luvs the current state...which i guess is an ideal scneario...

Yes, Grass is Ever Green :)

Aditi said...

ohh beautifully written...

Anonymous said...

nice one harish ! one is seldom happy with what he has.

Anonymous said...

Good one! Seems as though you entered the minds of the characters and recorded their thoughts ;)

"Disadvantage is....you do not have much luxury of time to realize that the attendance is on."
I have gone through this so many times! My name had to be called 2-3 times when my name was the first in the list :)

Anonymous said...

Btw, nice to see a post having the Harish-factor after a long time :)

PriPat said...

gr88 write uppp ...very well writen ..felt as if i was witnessin the incidents!


(came across ur blog thoru blog hopppin count help commentin)

Dreamzz said...

hmm! again a nice one!

Dreamzz said...

//This means 56 different answers and approach to one problem. You give a problem from the book and they declare that SIR is so great and if you give them something out of syllabus for the grey cells, you are branded Mr Mogambo.//

hmm!

Ponnarasi Kothandaraman said...

My name was the last so I always had the advantage to come late from canteen during 10min break and still get attendance :D

Very true :( Manam oru Kurangu :(

Ponnarasi Kothandaraman said...

Bytheway Color difference'ku reason enna? I didnt get that in the entire post??

Ambika yarrrrrrru :D

Priya said...

Attendance hmm never escaped but sometimes giving few reasons and then coming late.

Anonymous said...

Thats a nice one!!ppl fail to understand what they want in life sometimes..whining is common nowadays

Anonymous said...

Thats a nice one!!ppl fail to understand what they want in life sometimes..whining is common nowadays

-- Hell's Angel

Lavs said...

Which Jeffery archer book inspired you? The colour concept was very apt. Clap, clap. How do you come up with such ideas? Have you given publishing some thought yet?

Keshi said...

very well written...

Keshi.

N!kh!l said...

Your color coding was good but what beats my understanding is " DId u change the color of ur template just for this post?" Man i liked ur template a lot.

Gayathri said...

Colour coding was nice. But, it would have been better if you had left it for the readers to recognize it. :-)
Nice writeup after the previous let-down.

Heidi Kris said...

pls change ur template!

Anu said...

Sure thing dude!

The grass is always greener on the other side...

loved your innovative idea of changing colors!!

kudos!

Raz said...

1. excellent post!
2. i sometimes tend to think from each persons shoe too!
3. i usually love the bkgrd u ve in ur blogs. this sucks!
black isnt ur colour harish! :P blue is!

prithz said...

I loved this style. Good you coloured those thoughts in separate colours. You can try writing as a small kid whose mind wavers from one thought to another without possibly any link. Good work! Kudos! :)

Padma said...

ha ha..
absolutely true everybody has got their problems:).. nicely said...

Nivi said...

loved it!!!
The grass is always greener the oter side. How beautifully woven in to a tale. great Harish!
Yes yes how can i miss reading your posts however far off and in accessible to systems i am ;-)

golmaalgopal said...

annatha... me the bak :))

chancae illa...soober..

yeah..grass is always greener over the othr side :)

Anonymous said...

very well said Harish..
always the other side is green!!!

btw., it reminded me a Hindi album.. its something like a cycle luv..
phoolwali --> college guy
college guy --> college gal
college gal --> a professor
professor --> opp. house lady
and so on.. actually forgot :)

Anonymous said...

@Pons,
//Bytheway Color difference'ku reason enna? I didnt get that in the entire post?? //

blue - student's thot
red - Sir's
green - HM

does it mean anything else Harish?

Unknown said...

super.

Priya Iyer said...

good one! :-) isn't this what all of us are doing??? imagining that the grass is greener on the other side,not bothering to look at the grass in our garden? :-)

Harish said...

@Dakaltiz
haa haa...I guess its the same case everywhere :-)

@Aditi
Thanks yaar

@Sangs
EVERYONE is seldom happy I guess :D

@Aparna
Thats the beauty of a story when U get into the skin of a character. hee hee....thats a bloody problem.

Harish said...

@Pripat
Thanks yaar. Its an honor :-)

@Dreamzz
hee hee...aint it always like that

@Pons
Unakku vaazhvu. And yes...manam oru veena pona kurangu :(

@Priya
Enna koduma Priya idu :P

Harish said...

@Brindha
Wait till u finish one year in professional life :P

@Shree
Thanks yaar :)

@Lavs
It was a story with the same title in his short story book Twelve red herrings. The color idea was just to do something different :-)
Who would publish this yaar?????

Harish said...

@Keshi
Thanks yaar

@Nikhil
I wanted to change the template for quite sometime. BLACK rules buddy :D

@Gayathri
I thought abt that...but it was just for some fun U see. Glad u liked this one :-)

@Heidi
Sorry dear....I like BLACK :-)

Harish said...

@Anu
Always....greener on the other side :-)

@Raz
Sorry pa. This is my space and my place. This gotta have the color as I like. And black its gonna be :-)

@Prithz
I try my best :-)

@Padma
Enna panna....sila neram life apdi aaidradu :-)

Harish said...

@Nivi
Thats the way the mind functions. Hee hee....as long as I can entertain U :-)

@Gopal
Ennaya...romba naala kadai pakkam kaanum :P

@Padmapriya
Enna album nu teriyalapa
Yeah...the color reason is correct :-)

Harish said...

@BSK
Thanks man :-)

@Priya
Touche :-)