My schooling years were mostly unremarkable. I never particularly liked or disliked school. ( Correction - there were times when I really disliked school :) My one and only truly enjoyable educational experience was during my Masters when I found myself surrounded by a bunch of equally electronics-crazed kids, as we set out exploring our new-found freedom by engaging in numerous silly antics ;)
My schooling years were unremarkable primarily because they were filled with sorry stories... miniature tragedies... unfilled dreams.. and many more things of that sort :) Adding to the misery were some fond hopes I nurtured then of being a hero by bringing glory to my school through some magical act of awesomeness.. Between the ages of 10 and 12, my mind had invented atleast 50 different ways in which I would become a hero, of which sadly none came true :D .. I narrate one such below...
My father had recently bought for us a beautiful illustrated book on the 'Life and Times of Tutankhamun', the Egyptian Pharaoh. To me it represented a strange new land, strange new traditions, esoteric information of the sort I hadn't encountered up to that point, and fascinated by the customs and dress-code that filled up the pages, I devoured the book.. I was absolutely mesmerized by it.
So much so that I had a dream the following night, which went as follows - 'Right in the middle of a History lecture, our Principal would burst into the class and announce 'Students, It is with the last shred of hope that I enter this class, having encountered no success in all the preceding ones. Our dear school finds itself in a tight spot..in dire straits and stands at the risk of facing humiliation. There is an Interschool quiz happening on the Life and Times of Tutankhamun later this afternoon. Does any student know about this Pharaoh, so that we can enter this contest and salvage the school's pride ? Do we have a saviour in this class? '
At that point, I would solemnly raise my hand, and quietly announce with gravity- 'Yes Miss. I do know about Tutankhamun' ( a la 'Main Hoon Naa ' ;) . The Principal would then grant me a super-wide appreciative smile, and express her relief at having found a hero, and I would then be escorted to the venue in an AC-car;) Incidentally,the Quizmaster would have set all the quiz questions from that same wonderful book I had read, and needless to say, I would ace all the questions and bring great glory to school !
Wow , what a wonderful dream... :)
Being a student who had attended enough moral science classes , I had internalized some of the lessons on the virtue of patience ( only some because I had slept through the rest:) . Now, I had come to the conclusion that my dream was reasonable, but decided that I needed to give the universe some time and space to work on it. I wasn't the incorrigible manager who always demanded immediate results afterall..
So I decided I would wait for 2 weeks, with my anticipation ,impatience and resentment growing steadily with each passing day.. 'Why isn't the Princi here, yet?' was the all-consuming question on my mind.
By the end of 2 weeks, I was totally irritated with Tutankhamun. Of what use was a life that could not even inspire a quiz at the right time? :D
All this comes to my mind since I will be giving a short talk to the school students in a career counselling program that's being organized. And no, I don't plan to tell this story there ;)
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