I was an unwelcome entry, who would soon turn to be a questioning and thus irritating inmate for the whole time to come in a Higher Secondary that looked a prototype of our recently opened or, to be crude, upgraded secondary schools. “Unwelcome”, because my entry would mean an immediate end of duties of the Lecturer that had a waging tail attached to its title: Contractual. “It” is a crudely inappropriate pronoun for a Human being! Isn`t it? But does that really matter. That is actually how we treat them; as machines who have been sent for a fixed time to serve us and then finally to be thrown out. And we do the duty in a pretty honest manner, we make them work as much as we can, we don`t recognize their work even if that is better than most of the permanent staff, we don’t allow them any respite because we overburden them with not only work but remarkable disrespect and discomfort. But, what can we do? We can’t do anything. To be a permanent employ in any Govt office is to be an unfettered king who not only enjoy respect and money, but also an unacknowledged right to exploit and show disregard for all others who have the Unfortunate tail. This venomous attitude has passed on to the young students also. They too think that the only teachers “worthy” of their respect and attention are the permanent ones, and they look upon the contractuals with eyes full of honest disregard.
So, out one goes as I entered! Soon, I started my work. I was thrown into the mouth of an overfed room with some eighty unruly students. I wish I could have the magical wand so that I could have stretched the dimensions of the room to make it a bit comfortable for them. The jute mats that received their shining black and white uniforms were well designed with dust, mud and all kinds of dirt. This was in close proximity with the designs on the once upon white washed walls. I saw handmade charcoal paintings that resembled the contempory postmodern art; designs ranging from names of students (ancient and modern) to the some weird (in)human figures staring at me from all sides, in-between were the sparkling phrases like Zakhmi Aabid, Tanha Sameer, Bewafa Basheer .I took out the attendance register and started shouting their names. It was then that I learned that my class has more than one hundred and eighty students. I was puzzled and agitated that had all of them come, where would have we stuffed them. May be our head of the institute knows? But later when I asked him, he nodded his head in an unpredictable and uninterpretable manner that, I think, meant we could or we could not, or both. Perhaps it was sign of helplessness on his part as well. I wondered how an institution can admit students without having even basic infrastructure. Inspired by the archetypal image of Abrahim Linchon who studied under the street lamp posts, used borrowed books and became the pride of American history, our politicians perhaps had this proud example in mind while upgrading these schools without providing them the basic facilities. But how many of these proud men have our history produced! Perhaps we should ask a state historian to cite few proud names.
To return to the class room, I looked for the unborn duster and finally used a handkerchief to restore the black dignity of the raged and aged black/grey board. As I started a formal introduction, the cows that were tied outside my class room (on the side that is a private property) coupled and started mooing, perhaps she was more eager to introduce herself, this made the whole class room uncomfortable till one energetic student got out of the window and somehow put an end to the music, and the school bell joined to end my hour. Before I left the class room, one of the eager students got up and asked, “Sir, tsche kyahaw choe naau”? I was not wonderstruck at the informality of language for I had already witnessed my colleagues calling students in much derogatory and ethically offensive language. If we can’t respect our students, how can we expect them to respect us!
For the next hour I engrossed myself into a book in the lonely corner of the school laboratory. Should I call it a laboratory? Perhaps I should because it had some age old science equipments decorated in mess. Does it matter that it changes roles every hour? I was excited to know that it is used as staff resting room during vacant hours, dining hall during the break time, cooking place, and sometimes as class room when the number of students is low, particularly for the specially privileged science students who don’t really care about the attendance, and take admission just to make sure that they can appear in the final examination as regular students. They are regular at other places: the coaching centres ironically run by the same teachers who teach in the school. How do we justify that, I wonder! Perhaps these privileged students might be getting better laboratory facilities to carry out their experiments there, or do they get good marks in the term tests , or threats of being failed or being fined if they don`t join the academic prostitution centres run my our academic guardian in the name of coaching centres. Or maybe these teachers are divinely inspired in knowledge of their expertise and experience these divine fits during private hours only that makes them able to deliver gold in the private centres and brass in the school. Oh God, why don’t you inspire them while they are on duty?
Afterwards, I talked to my colleagues, and asked them all sorts of unsettling question on issues ranging from lack of basic infrastructure in the school to the lack of student attendance in the classes. I was startled at the swift answer, “you have come from the IIT Karagpur, and it will take you awhile to settle here and be absorbed into this system and this work culture, let’s not waste time, and quickly decide on what special dishes we are going to have for the tomorrow`s lunch here; one of the class IV employs cooks really good, why should we bother about all this? Aase tcha tchech!” I was bewildered by the strange attitude of my new found colleagues to the horrible problems confronting our school. I thought I would request the Education Director to relocate me to a new place, but did against it when three of my friends called in the evening, I learned that it is the same all over. May be soon I will learn the tricks of the trade. Aasei tcha tchech!
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