Sometimes...when you're a kid... You lie awake at night and ponder the kinds of questions that grown ups have long since stopped asking. Questions like - What did it feel like to be dead? Are times and space really infinite? What was there before the universe began? Why are there people like Rosanna Balford? My very own 8th Grade horror story. Sorry Class Teacher.
She always had the 1st period. Which means I always got to start my day with her. To make things worse she was always accompanied by Grammar. Did Tom Cruise speak in the correct Grammar? Did Stallone ever consider his Past Perfects? And it was a hormonal thing or adolescent anxiety or whatever I always forgot the text book. And here she was the beef of a woman towering over me for my folly.. Some of the more health bent guys secretly desired to have wrists like hers. And to make it worse she wore a saree in a manner that was totally un-saree like. Seeing her I was always overwhelmed by a sudden panic. Things hadn't been going that well so far but if this wasn't what I had imagined, “grammar test” I was in bigger trouble than I thought.
Of course, we didn't realize it at the time, but this lady had the biggest inferiority complex since Napoleon. And she would invariably look at me after the roll call. Deepanjan! This was it. I felt like a fighter pilot under heavy enemy fire. Her most delivered dialogue to me was “I think we have a problem.” How in the world she came up with “We”. There was no we, no love, no marriage, no togetherness just a test answer sheet. She was right, there was a problem. We needed another Class Teacher. Someone like Ms Neogy. She was discussing my grades, my attitude, my behavior, my inadequacy, my life - in front of 50 onlookers! Conversation was getting stale. I asked myself "Now, what would a guy like Amir Khan do in this situation?"
As 8th grade wore on, I began to have nightmares. I'm walking into a sort of a - a cave. A long dark tunnel. I'm all alone. I don't even want to go into the cave - I'm, I'm terrified. But I just know that I have to keep going - deeper, and deeper. So deep, it's like I can't even remember what the daylight is like anymore and suddenly I'm in 1st period Grammar class. In pajamas. With Winnie the Pooh on them. Ms Balford towering over me and in leather suit swishing a whip. This was almost regular. I guess I was under a lot of stress. To make things worse things happened that summer which couldn’t be avoided. Bunking School, Playing Holi outside the school gate, first cigarette at Mayuri’s house, 1st Beer with Hirakendu Anando and Raj (in School uniform), refusing to divulge the names of participants of the aforesaid acitivities, wearing baggy trousers (a fad those days), wearing ear rings, forgetting the grammar book periodically - intentionally and naturally choosing to sit in the classroom Business Class (the last bench). What she hated the most was the direct refute of authority figure that I had.
There are a lot of things about junior high life that might seem simple to an outsider. But they're not. They can be best understood by being a part of 8F (1988). It was about being cool. Being acceptable, on my part. I couldn’t help it as I had 50 pairs of hopeful eyes boring down on me to liberate them, to lead them on to salvation, to freedom, to History Class.
It was a overwhelming feeling of insurgency that I felt. What you do with those initial minutes with Ms Balford says pretty much of everything there is to say about you as a human being. If you were cool. You had places to go, people to see. And now she is there asking me “if I had a problem?” OK, steady, boy. Steady. Hold on. And that's when it hit me. This thing was bigger than Ms Balford. Bigger than my gang. My future. It was my reputation. It was the Conduct Book. A ledger of sorts accounting my various movements across periods. A testimonial of sorts by various teachers. The news of this achievement reached home. And naturally at home I was grounded.
That night I had another nightmare. I'm back in the cave. I can't see a thing - it's total blackness. I take a step - and then suddenly - I'm falling! I try - I try to grab on to anything I can, but there's nothing there - I just keep falling and falling, and then finally –Grammar Class again. In my underwear. There she was laughing at me. So I did the easiest thing I told her I don’t think Grammar is important. Huh, well, let's face it - kids in those days just weren't as smart as kids of today. There was this silence. Then my parents were called. Those days there was totalitarian military everywhere, Russia, Iran, Cuba. South Point High School was no different. Of course, we in the free world need not worry about a totalitarian military... Because all our totalitarians are busy teaching junior high school.
Unfortunately for Mrs Balford, our spirits were not yet completely crushed. Well such was the divide between me and the High School authorities. Bigger than US and Iran, bigger than Amitabh and Social Studies, bigger than QSQT and getting a bike. But it all dissolved in time. What remained was the faces, phone numbers and face book profiles of the guys who were there in 1988. And a sense of “Yess I did it! And a loss of being sent off from school” But those as I said before were changing times
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