Ode to the Nightingale. #All Rights Reserved.

23rd August, 2007 was memorable to me for several reasons.
#1. It preceded the 24th
#2. It was the 235th day of the year 2007.
#3. The sun rose from the east.
#4. My mother yelled at me.
#5. [serious stuff, for god's sake!] I met Bhanumathy Madam

To be more descriptive, KV CLRI welcomed me amidst its flock on this bright sunny day[Met Dept. Temp- 43.7 C]. After being stranded in the traffic for nearly an hour, our car[Rolls-Royce!] glided into the once-ok roads[yeah…it wasn't so rock-and-roll type then] of the CLRI campus. My dad busied himself with filling out the forms. He stopped at one question and looked up at me. "What do you mean standing out there?" he asked. "Well…Appa….Wouldn't it be disrespectful if I sat while you were standing?" I innocently enquired[really in-no-cent, INFLATION, what can I do?]. "It would definitely be…Go to your class!" he instructed. "What the…?" my voice trailed away. Surely, he was joking. How on earth was I supposed to walk up to the new class? He was supposed to be escorting me[Hey, those were the rules right?]. Too obedient to disobey, I located Rakesh, one of my long time friends. Incidentally, there was a class going on and here was this brave lad…stretching out his legs right before the Principal's office. Rakesh managed to drop me two classrooms before IX B and went on to resume his adventures. I managed to summon all my guts and introduced myself to the teacher inside, Bhanumathy Madam, and eventually found a seat to sit down.

Bhanumathy Madam, I realized, was the traditional English teacher [as she so often tells us]. The chalk and whatever-it-is-supposed-to-be type[guess board]. However, it relieved me to know that she wasn't exactly the "get-out-of-my-class-if-you-haven't-finished-your-work" type it came to submission of notebooks and projects[ something, which occupies the last priority in my minds]. She was brilliant in the sense she made her lessons sound so simple that they seemed like a piece of cake[needless to write, I never bothered to read them after the class]. And her notes, we always had the option of not writing them down. Madam was exceptional in the sense, she never scolded any student in such a way that it hurt the person. She attempts to put all her displeasure against our irregularities in highly polished and refined English[that I scarcely understood] and never imposed the rule of the cane on us. "Come, let's go and meet the Principal" are some words that never featured in her classes[perhaps, she understood that Principal Madam's schedule is already hectic and didn't want to add to her burden]. One of the greatest feats achieved by Bhanumathy Madam is that, she with all her polite talk actually saw to that I submitted by English notebooks for quite some time[till December!]. Once…yeah…we had a Magazine Article to be written…and I exhausted all the gel pens I had in my house to come up with a 20-page article which she patiently read through and gave a comment "Very, Very Good….Too, Too Long[C'mon it had to be, the Introduction stretched to nearly 8 pages]. Another project worth mentioning is the Radio Show, when we attempted to sneak a MP3 Player[no confiscations, please] into the staff room to record her voice[my devilish idea!] and Mahadevan Sir came and the entire staffroom erupted in laughter[…about something he had said]. I would be doing a great injustice to the title of this page if I failed to mention her exceptional singing talents[she has never matched her songs with English poetry…why?]

In regard to PapyrusClubs, it was Bhanumathy Madam who had initially recommended my name[simple logic…no other English teacher knew me and that[the recommendation] is one blunder she regrets having committed]. She was one teacher who really understood the magnitude of my desire to get out of the class. Just put up a solemn face and tell her "Madam, we have to publish the issue today. Can I go?" and she would be like "Oh, you have to publish it, eh. Fine, you may go. But come back and copy down everything I told the others in the class [she knew I wouldn't do but still for telling's sake she told and for listening’s sake I listened].

When it comes to marking, Bhanumathy Madam is the BEST for she happens to be really philanthropic[how I envy the DGQA guys now!]. It isn’t so easy to find someone who generously gives you 9/10 for something you yourself would have given a mere 6. And, we can always argue with Madam for more marks[how I wish she corrects my Board Papers!] which she'll gladly give provided you write the right answer[or something closer to it!].

In class, she’s always open for comments and humour. Once, she asked us to interpret the last two lines of The Night of the Scorpion, written by Nissim Ezekiel which went like
“My mother only said
Thank God
the scorpion picked on me and
spared my children”
and the class went on THINK mode while someone from the back shouted “It means that the poet had a sibling”. She gave the person a smile[possibly too stunned to reply…can’t see if in her long service, she had ever encountered such a reply] and went on to explain what it actually meant[can’t see it happening in any other period…I mean the joke]. Recently, she asked us to compose an article on the benefits of good health when I decided to employ reverse psychology and wrote an article that went on like “what’s wrong in drinking? I’m going to die…Anyway I’m gonna die…So what’s wrong?” which fetched me a remark “Well written. But write what is expected out of you and not your own will and wish[yaaaaaaaawn] and that which will fetch you marks”.

Change alone is static. And to meet her convenience[a lil’ of flattery…she has always put herself to the betterment of students], Madam has sought a transfer to KV DGQA. Bon voyage, Madam! We’ll always miss you! I wanted to gift her something she has always been asking for…but alas! Sorry…Possibly the next time we meet….[for those blokes who found it Greek and Latin…it refers to my English Notebooks!]

P.S: Initial reports coming in from highly placed sources report a transition from the Gandhian Era to that of Hitler, Mussolini, etc. Hard times ahead, folks!