Keeping the Faith
Arjun Rao

My mother totally freaked out when it was time for me to sit my first Board exams (I found out much later that she thought I was going to fail!). And once my December exam results reached home, she decided that she had had enough, that she was too young for all that tension (she wanted to live to see her grandchildren. She’s never said it, but I know!) and she decided to find a tutor for me.
She got onto MSN - Mother’s Secret Network. An insider told me that they discuss the problems with children’s fashion and morals, the food that their kids are served at school, how someone needs to develop pasta that will not go soggy by tiffin-time and other such dangerous threats to their children. My mother was an honorary member as I went to a boarding school and daily problems were just not applicable. In record time someone highly recommended was decided upon.
On my first meeting, December 6, (90 days left for the exams), my tutor-to be asked me – Mathematician banna hai?
Me (taken aback, but trying to hide it) – No, Sir.
Him – Scientist banna hai?
Me – No, Sir.
Him – Achhi baat hai. Tum na, (and here he squinted at me) Eco karna college mein.
I nearly burst out laughing. Eco?! However, my mother’s look silenced me and all that came out was a whimpering, ‘Okay, Sir’.
He then proceeded to berate my teachers and told my mum that school teachers think they are giving their students gyan but are actually burdening the kids with knowledge that will get them nowhere.
Since I had missed much of the year’s classes, at a discount of Rs. 1000 per session, he agreed to five-hour sessions a day with me. Five hours!
That December was the worst, yet most enlightening month of my life. My day began at six in the morning with Math and Science homework, followed by Math and Science classes from nine to two, lunch at half-past two (brain food that consisted of spinach, broccoli and sprouts!), study from four to six, French tuition at six, dinner at eight (normal food – my father refused to eat brain food after two days), further study till midnight, and fast asleep a minute later. I had never studied so much in my life and yet, as I understood the difference between a bio-gas plant and a compost pit, I felt that something was missing. But what this was I could not quite figure out.
A month and a half later I went back to school, much against my tutor’s protestations (Ek aur mahina hota, to main 90 nikaal deta) and shocked everyone as my marks doubled and then tripled. The Boards came and went and surprisingly enough, my mother’s nerves survived. As we headed into May, the temperature outside, and the tension inside the house, rose. And suddenly, the papers declared: CBSE announces results.
Everyone stayed home from work and Mum screamed at us all for dialling the wrong numbers for the school. I finally finished 11th in my class (or thereabouts) out of a class of around 90. My tutor became God, my mother convinced herself that her son could study Science (a story for another day), that her husband’s genes had been overpowered by hers, and never asked me to study again.
Today, nearly ten years later, I am faced with a huge dilemma when anyone asks me whether they should send their child for tuition during the holidays. Since I am probably the only teacher who went to a tuition centre and knows how it feels to go from 36.3% to 79% in a month and a half, I am sorely tempted to say yes. School is for fun – theatre and sports – who cares about class?
But then I look around me and realize that no teacher will ever tell a student to vomit the textbook out in an exam. No teacher will ever tell a student that the Holocaust is just a question that comes for four marks and must be written in ‘upto 150 words’ with the words Hitler, Jews, concentration camps and Auschwitz underlined. No teacher will ever tell a student that Galileo’s blindness is irrelevant. No teacher will ever tell a student that it is unimportant that Othello killed Desdemona because he loved her with a passion that he could not control.
And then I look at the parents and their child (who is looking at me so helplessly and, like me, cannot wait for this day to be over), and say very confidently, “Have a little faith. Do you think that we (their son gets included in this, much against his will to be held accountable for anything) will let you down?”
And as we head for that hated time of the year, mid-May, I silently thank everyone for the faith they have shown. In their children. And in me.

JEDSpeak
Bharat Ganju recalls his participation in the Inter-House Junior English Debate – 2006

It was 4:15 in the evening on April 30, 2006. Four House teams had arrived at the Kilachand Library. The team from Hyderabad House was absent. Six topics were given to us by DEB, four of which were vetoed and out of the other two, a toss of the coin decided which one was to be discarded. The motion for the debate read: “High competition spells doom for the sporting spirit.” The teams were now to prepare their debates and the team members had to decide which stand they were going to take. The teams then retired to different corners of the library and utilized its resources to the fullest. Over the next two hours, the participants undertook the strenuous task of writing a perfect debate which would, ideally, break all the arguments of the opposition. They walked around with sweating foreheads and trembling legs. Their nervousness could be gauged by their body language.
At 6:15, everyone moved to the AV Room. The judges for the evening were PCH, NRK and STB, while the chairperson for the debate was Saurav Sethia, ex-secretary of the Junior English Debating Society. The debate was to be held in the Oxford format with a three minute debate and one minute rebuttal. The debaters presented substantial points. The standard of debating last year at this comptition may have been higher, but expectations were met this year too. All the speakers spoke with a lot of zeal and passion. Their animated debates won the hearts of the audience and of the judges. The H House team finally arrived and did well on short notice. They were given only fifteen minutes to prepare. Although the confidence of the team might have been low, their points were persuasive and the courage they displayed was greatly appreciated.
Finally, the eagerly-awaited results were announced. Jaipur House emerged victorious and I was adjudged the Best Speaker of the debate while Subhro Jyoti Ganguly was awarded the Most Promising Speaker of the debate. A learning experience, indeed!