Daddy's school life

It was one of those days when one decides to do something different. And the 'great idea' struck me towards the end of my morning walk. I decided to invite my elder son to join me for my final lap of the day. In fact, let me put it this way ... among the multiple reach-out-to-engage-him activities I have been having with him, to get ready for his fast approaching teenage years, and of course instigated (rather, instructed) by Missus to do so, spiced up with statements like "If you don't 'connect' with him now, what will happen during his teenage?", I asked him if he would like to join me for one round around the apartment. Even if he hesitatingly agreed to join me, we had a brief stroll of say 30 minutes. Among other things, we ended up going down my memory lane where I gave him a glimpse of my schooling journey of 15 years.

 

Photo by Markus Spiske from Pexels

Since my father worked his entire professional life in a transferable job, it was imperative that my count of cities and schools would not be limited to a small, single-digit number like many of the privileged folks around me have had. As a matter of fact, my schooling life took me to 5 cities, 6 transfers and 10 schools.

Here are some more fun facts about my schooling days:

• My stays at a single school have ranged from just about 5 months (yes, unbelievable to a few folks I have told about it) to a maximum of 3 years.
• There was a particular span when I attended 3 different schools in 3 different cities over a period of 10 months.
• The classes I have been a part of ranged from a size of 2 students to 60 students.
• My schools have been housed in a first-floor flat of 600 sq. ft. area to a 49 acres campus.
• I have studied in a school which was established in the year 1892, and was also a part of the founding batch of a school established in the year 1981.
• I have attended a school which had the word "mandir" in its name, and at least a couple of schools having a church on campus.
• The modes of transport I used throughout my schooling life include my own cycle, the maid's husband's cycle (with me sitting on the horizontal rod in front, and my sister sitting as pillion), a horse-drawn tonga, my dad's scooter, school bus and of course all the way on foot.

While I have continued to share many anecdotes of my schooling life with him, a few specifics of a particular school that stand out (and instigated an are-you-kidding-me reaction from him) merit a special mention here just because the two years I spent in that school will always remain etched in my memory.

Photo by Dids from Pexels

• The school was 1 of the only English 2 medium schools in the district head-quarters we were staying in. The other school didn't cover education for my class.
• The school had 2 buildings - 1 for classes from Nursery to 3rd / 4th Standard, and the other, around a km down, where remaining classes were conducted in a 3-room flat.
• Other 'facilities' in the second building included a TV Training Institute on the same floor, and a Government office on the ground floor.
• I was 1 of the only 2 students in my class, and hence we shared the 'classroom' with another class across the partition, and an office table for the administrator.
• My 'class' was a Maruti Van seat, with the teacher sitting right across the long desk, just about 15 inches away from us, and of course no black-board.
• We were upset that our class strength went down by 33%, from 3 to 2, in the middle of the academic year, and then were delighted that it increased by 100% the following year.
• When all 4 of us used to be present on the same day, it used to be a logistical nightmare - most of those days, we got a "self-study", which we used to convert into "group-study", spent sprawled across the slides in the adjacent public park.
• The commendable part of the school was that our previous batch, having 5 students in Standard 8th, had as many as 3 merit holders at the state level.

P.S: To bloat the number of schools, I have taken the liberty of counting 1 school twice where I joined back after a gap of seven years. And have also counted another school twice which actually went through a name-change and an address-change while I was still a student. Mercifully, the school which changed its board affiliation from state board to C.B.S.E while I was a student has been counted just once 😈. The number also excludes the "engineering school" and the "business school" I attended. The other exclusion - When I was pursuing my engineering studies and later on my management studies, my father added 2 more new cities, with 3 more transfers in the list.

Bees come visiting

My apartment's proximity to an open army area has multiple positives. While the year-round greenery (well, almost!), accompanied with the myriad bird species (no, this is not limited to the pandemic induced lockdown period only) are certainly great to have, there is no risk of the excellent view of the horizon getting blocked because of any real estate construction. Of course, these positives become more prominent when you stay on the 18th floor of the apartment, as I do. However, one tends to forget all these when, every now and then, the same proximity to the greenery is held responsible for bee hives coming up in one of the buildings. And this gets exacerbated when the society office suddenly decides to get rid of the huge bee hive right below the neighbor's window, typically in the late evenings when you are just about taking the long awaited break. The society office apparently has a very different way of improving the quality of time we spend as a family - they make the bee family visit us.

Being a consultant for almost two decades now (yes, I know I am old), defining a standard operating procedure for anything and everything comes very naturally to me. Having a maturity assessment done for any of the activities comes equally naturally. Since the bee family visits me very frequently, having an SOP and maturity assessment in place to minimize their visit time helps us in extending a consistent level of hospitality to the guests. Well, we do believe in अतिथिदेवो भव, don't we?

 

There are certain variations we can expect to encounter - be it the size of the visiting family (we have seen a number from 1 all the way upto 6), their level of frustration, their plan to manifest their anger or for that matter, their reason for visiting us (it can be as simple as yearning for some artificial light) and the timing of the visit - we seem to have perfected the art of managing these. Their repeat visits, every fortnight or so in the peak season, is a testimony to the quality and consistency of our hospitality. Without further ado, let me share some snippets of our IP (well! don't expect me to share the complete procedure - isn't it a trade secret?).

First and foremost, you need to be adept at confirming the arrival of the guests. The distinct sound of either the guests hitting the glass door, in an identifiable pattern, or if they have already entered, then the obvious buzzing sound coming from even the remotest corner of the house - it needs experience and minute observation to develop this skill. Key here is to get in an action mode before the guests start hitting the tube-light in the room you are sitting in, and of course much before the guests decide to leave a mark of their love on one of the family members. You will be considered having reached the expert level of maturity when you have anticipated their arrival a couple of minutes in advance. Your family is defining industry leading practices if the kids have noticed some 'untoward movement' in the society in the evening, and have informed you well on time.

Once the status of the arriving party is confirmed, the next course of action is to stop them from entering, in case of higher levels of expertise on the previous step, or stop further additions to the visiting party, if you are not as good. In the former case, the next step is very obvious - close all the slightly open (or the widely open) doors and windows. A minor variation to this is when there is a visiting marriage party, with scores of members - you just need to switch off all the lights and sit tight! If the guests have still managed to enter, making fun of your ineptitude, the first reaction is to curse the family member for keeping something open (the culprit usually is yours truly or the elder son), then plug the gap. Following the sequence - curse, then plug - is critical, else a favorable outcome of the exercise cannot be guaranteed because of the inefficiency induced by the remaining "pressure in the system" (read - Missus' disappointment). This gap is usually the window in my work room, remaining open "accidentally" (well there have been instances when Missus left the kitchen window open, after finishing her hour long conversation with her friend whose kitchen window is right in front of ours - but you know, the bees don't like to take the kitchen route to enter, right?).

 

After you have successfully limited the size of the visiting party, you need to identify the exact location of the guests and restrict further movement. The location will define whether you restrict the movement by closing the door of the room, or switching off the lights in the nearby rooms, so that the merry making of the guests is restricted to the one source of light they are closest to.

 

Current location of the guests and the size of the visiting party, along with the current location and ongoing activity of the family members, decides the final action - a mortal combat or a simple chasing away of the visitors. The former option works well when the size of the visiting party is small and the location is deep inside our fortress. Movement of the location towards the outer periphery of the rooms shifts the preference to the chase. If it is dinner time, and the younger one has somehow sensed the urgency of the situation (which most of the time, he does), he would have already ensconced deep inside the farthest room, knowing very well how even a minor error will lead to a sting, either from the visiting bee or from the "resident bee". If this has happened, the combat party is free to use both the options. If not, the much gentler, and slower, second option needs to be executed.

 

It has taken many hosting experiences over last several years to identify the best weapon of bee destruction to be used in the mortal combat. A rolled up newspaper, while effective in most of the cases, is not very helpful when the target decides to leverage the height of its resting place. Further points are lost when the size of the visiting party is slightly big. The distance is too less for the combat party's comfort level. The easiest and nearest available weapon is the footwear - but to use this, one needs to have a very accurate aim and also needs to ensure that the throw doesn't leave a mark on the wall. Since both are highly unlikely in my family, with past instances of beautiful designs on the wall, this weapon is no longer used. The height problem gets easily resolved if one decides to use the broom - the ease of locating it in exactly the same location every time helps the cause immensely. This was the most preferred weapon till April 2020, when the only broom in the house was used for this purpose, with the end result being all the fibers irretrievably coming out of the clutch. Subsequent repercussions need no imagination - a stopgap arrangement to clean the house, right in the middle of the lockdown since you cannot venture out to get a new one. A badminton racket was used on a couple of occasions, but to no avail for obvious reasons. But we have finally found THE weapon - by far the most effective option, with no repercussions, the owner having no interest whatsoever in preserving it, allowing the best angle to hit, with the right speed, from a right distance - everything so perfect, and made for each other. It is none other than the all-so-humble plastic cricket bat. In cases where the bee party has decided to rest behind the tube light frame, the broom (old one) comes handy in forcing some movement, followed deftly by THE weapon. This also comes handy as a temporary weapon, when THE weapon has mysteriously found its way towards the bottom of the container which has 4 wooden cricket bats, 6 wooden stumps, 2 badminton rackets, the rolled up yoga mat, and a couple of long-handle umbrellas.

 

When it comes to chasing the party away, it is very important to define the path of movement. Here, we leverage our superior understanding of our enemy's reaction to light, and use it against them. Depending upon the location of the party, the path helps us determine the sequence in which the lights need to be switched off and the multitudes of screens (TV, laptop, cellphone, iPad) need to be turned down or away, as the case may be. Once this is in place, and the soldiers have taken their positions, the plan is executed, with the final step being the door opening ceremony. The visitor making its way towards the light in the lift lobby means the final frontier has been conquered. Before the victory bugle is blown, one final visit to the first step of the exercise is conducted to check and confirm there are no signs of any left over companions of the visiting party.