52 - Punishments in School
During my
childhood, punishments, either in school or at home, were very common and I
have received quite a number of them during my school-going days. With the kind of rage that is spread
nowadays, whenever there is a news of a teacher having hit a student, I am
wondering as to how as a society we have stooped to such a level that out
future generations are going to be bratty and having a false sense of
entitlement.
In the earlier
days, whenever we used to complain about our teachers at home, the first question
asked was what we did to get the punishment.
It was a given that the teacher will hit a student only when the student
had done something wrong. Of course,
there were some sports teachers for whom hitting a student was time-pass. But as long as you did what was expected of
you, you could even escape from such teachers too.
I remember one incident
from my school days when I was punished. It was after the Sanskrit half-yearly exam
in my 8th standard. There was
this Sanskrit teacher, Mr Vikram Deva, who also went on to become the principal
of the school. He never called me by
name. If he had to call me, he used to
say “Panditji”. I don’t know if it was
due to my “supposed-expertise” in Sanskrit or for some other reason. One day after the exams, he was distributing
the Sanskrit answer papers with marks, in the class. He would tell the marks loudly in the class, call
out the guy or girl and admonish him/her with the kind of marks they would have
got. I was sitting in the first bench
and his table was very near to where I was sitting. Whenever he would pick up an answer paper, I
was able to see the next guy/girl’s answer paper where the marks would be
prominently displayed. Apart from me,
there was one other girl who used to get good marks in Sanskrit. Out of total marks of 75, she got around 50-51. When I saw my paper, I saw 57 out of 75. Immediately I was over the moon and waited
for Mr Vikram Deva to call my name. Then
he said, “Aah Panditji”!! Since I had
seen my marks and knew that no one else in the class would have scored more
than this, I got up from my seat and then approached him to take the paper, showing
the entire class, my 32-teeth😊
He said 57 marks. He browsed
through my answer sheet and when I reached near him, he simply slapped me on my
left cheek with all his force, leaving some imprint of his fingers on my face!! I was dumbstruck and so was the entire
class. I remember, there was a girl
called Kokila who was sitting in the 1st or 2nd bench in
the class, on the girls’ side and her mouth was open in shock and she was in
the same pose for some 5-10 seconds. I
told Deva Sir that it was the highest marks in the class. He said “Silent!! I will give you one more
slap. Are these good marks? Go to your seat and sit down. You should score full in Sanskrit.” After that incident I made sure that I got
good marks in Sanskrit to escape from his punishment!!
Maybe because of
teachers like him in those days, even when we were mischievous, we still had the
respect and fear of the teachers.
Nowadays, as I see in the newspapers, teachers are sparing the rod so
that they can escape the negative press that accompanies it. I think this is also making the current lot
of students getting emboldened with this and sometimes they are even
threatening the teachers of wrong complaints.
The parents nowadays are also of the opinion that their kids are the
God’s gift to mankind and can never do anything wrong.
Hopefully this
will get sorted out in some time before we end up with a spoilt generation.
Cheers!!
Today’s Daffy
Definition
Dictionary – A
book in which Divorce comes before Marriage!!
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