Floating Towel and a Dozen Short Stories by Gautam Maitra
Question Paper
“Twenty-six alphabets of civilization
dress up in various permutations to test the new kid on the lawn”
The bell rang in monosyllables. One
shrill, threatening tone to announce: “Beware – Exam time is….On.” Soon, there
is hustle on the front desk where the gloomy-faced teacher is sitting with a
large sealed envelope containing the question papers. My dad had, just before
leaving home, told me to look down at the writing desk and gave a tough advise
– asking me to concentrate on the Textbook and try to figure out the pages in my
mind – slowly one page after another, then another, yet another and finally I
could just pick up lines from the book verbatim and beautifully place (almost
regurgitate) in the answer book. But how could I tell dad that the only thing
that comes to my blunt, dark, damn memory right now is the glittering image of
mangos hanging from the ripe summer trees - illustrations from the hardbound
cover of my textbook? And in between, a few thoughts – incoherent but
insistent, are bouncing back and forth– of Tolkein's twelve dwarves dancing and
singing in Bilbo Baggin's home – looking at me from the virgin cover of 'The Hobbit' –unused and
unread, waiting and asking – when will your exam be over, little boy?
Soon I kicked that thought out, to
hover back through the questions of history and geography – fifty marks each.
This paper is notorious for being lengthy – a sweat paper we call it, a lot of
perspiration on the temples, wet palms fidgeting, tired fingers that are cold
like a soldier after a day's fight. And in the end result – gloom, gloom and
gloom – no expectations for a shower of marks from the examiner. Teachers' pens
always dry up for mugging papers like History of mankind or for that matter
-Geography- twins in distress that make the students' life hell.
Anyway, as I was thinking all these
things, there was a poke from the back – it was a sharp pencil- head. I first
looked in the front, trying to locate the gloomy miserable face of the examiner
strutting amidst the rows of desks inside the classroom. As she was turned away
towards the door, I quickly looked back – what?
Nervous Mocha made me more nervous with
conspicuously hissing voice – Question five. Humayun is the father of Babar or
someone else? Mocha made me confused – I always have the problem with dates and
lineages.
I made a head gesture sideways towards Mocha
as I watched that gloomy face turning back again to have another round of her
strut.
I try to focus at my page – I am yet to finish
my first page while two boys in the front appear to be in a hundred meters
sprint – a rush of adrenalin and the whole bench is making queer murmurs
following their speed of answer.
The examiner now sat down in the
distant chair near the board. She had finished her quota of strutting. Now she
would watch each and every bench and enjoy a few real-time movies together. For
her, each boy is a story – a floating island of home, dream and despair.
Her gaze, like a Tower-guard, searched each
face – to find out anything happening that is beyond school rules. Here rules
are all the more important.
As I look at the paper, dad's face
flashed and I pushed it back to concentrate on what I have. Twenty-six letters
of Civilization dress up in various permutations. These dressed-up letters
asking a kid of the modern civilization a civilized question and civilized life
is expected to have a reply in his mind – that's the progress of civilization.
A civilization of letters that got stuck in the books and books in shelves and
shelves in mankind's shelters of iron, bricks or wood - and now… now with
technology, even with a changing medium in a small electronic storage disk.
The civilized pupils expected to be
just another storage disk – the muggers. This passing thought ruptured my
concentration, as I tussled with my dilemma of the twin answers – the wrong one
ever clung with the correct and moved like a made-for-each-other couple to
destroy my answer-sheet with answers that would suit more law of probability
than an essay.
The bell rang in mono-syllables, one
shrill, threatening tone to announce: Beware – Exam time half an hour remains
….pull up your socks ….Finish off quickly and keep time for revision.
Suddenly
there is a flurry – sound of flipping pages, song of pens as they fought with the
pages and tried to move just a bit faster, as if the God of death is waiting at
the other end of the exam time to pick them up – its like clinging to the last few
moments of life with a celebration of sound and colour on paper. The teacher's
face now looks gloomier. A few good boys are running down to teacher's table,
asking for extra papers and returning back in a hurry.
Pens are moving. Thoughts are moving
faster. The pen often failing to meet the speed of these thoughts and creating
perpendicular letters bow in a procession out of nerve-racking fear – a few
dots are getting missed, a few verbs of action vanishing: Put the nouns, put
the nouns – that's enough for getting marks – there is NO TIME, NO TIME - Put
the nouns, put the nouns, put the nouns.
The final bell rang in mono-syllables,
one shrill, threatening tone to announce:– Exam time is OVER. Hand over the
paper and leave
Now the teacher is in a haste picking the
answer paper on each one's table with the utmost contempt for any pupil's plea
for “one sentence more!” and “ One word more, ma'am, please”. Now the fight is
over. Answer sheets no more with me. How was the exam? – a few would ask as I
would come out of the room. What would be my reply?
Should I say excellent or say just okay
or should I say, I would like to read in this class of the civilization for one
more year, to capture the nuisances of scoring.
I am always nervous about my exams. And
exam days have always been my worst days in life. But no teacher put up a test
to measure the student's skill by asking which are your worst days in school –
if that had been, I could surely outshine the toppers and the muggers of the
class. Anyways, bad days need to be tolerated in life like tolerating a flying
mosquito too eager to touch any parts of my body as I retire to my cosy bed with
my favourite, Bibhutibhusan's book 'Aranyaak'.
Life always begins after the exam only.
No comments:
Post a Comment