I have had very tough early school years. Behind this “Bright” kid, is a long struggling success story.
Most of you know by now that my sister and I were problem kids. It wasn’t always our mistake that our mother got called to the school often. Like that time when the teacher asked me that dogs question.
She said: “Deepali, if I give you two dogs and then give you two more dogs…how many dogs would you have?”
I said: “Five Dogs.”
The teacher asked this question many times and every time my answer was five. I think after the seventh attempt, she lost her cool and called in my mother. My mother’s answer was ‘Four Dogs’ and even after I reminded her that we already had a dog at home, and the correct answer was ‘Five Dogs’, she only gave me a stare.
But the best part about my growing up years was, that we never had to stay put at one school for more than a year. Thanks to my dad’s profession, we shifted cities so often that we didn’t really have to care about creating a positive impression on our teachers.
In Pathankot, we were admitted in a Convent school. The first day changed everything – they took me to a hall where they had publicly nailed one student on a giant plus sign.
Just to confirm, I asked the girl sitting next to me(who in later years grew to be my BFF ) : “Why do you think that guy has been nailed to a big plus and hanged on the wall?”
Priyanka replied: “Maybe, he failed maths. Why else, would they nail him on a big plus.”
I thanked God, he hadn’t failed English…imagine being nailed to an ‘A’ – a nail through the head for sure.
I didn’t want to meet the same fate….and ended up becoming the best student the school had ever seen.
Now, I could get my report card signed on the same day it was given to me by my teachers – not because I was getting good marks, but because now my classmates had stopped borrowing it to scare their parents.
Soon I became the pet of my teachers. To avoid sitting in classes, I would simply stand outside staff room to remain in sight of teachers who would always have some task for me. This way, I got away with classes, didn’t fall short of attendance and also became everyone’s favorite.
But unfortunately, we left school after another year. And I had to start all over again in the new school. By now, I was an expert :)
