By Savitri Narayanan
“Let’s go home, it’s getting late,” said Jessie, “Mummy will shout if I get home late!”
“Mine too,” said Roshni, “She would be waiting at the gate to shout!”
“When I go home and ring the doorbell, Mummy opens the door and shouts at me,” said Neha.
As they walked back home, they imagined the scene and laughed.
They went to the same school and were in different classes, but they lived not very far from each other. Jessie’s housing society’s garden was where they met in the evenings to exchange news and play.
“See you tomorrow,” they parted ways at Jessie’s gate. Neha’s house was beside the flour mill, about ten minutes’ walk.
“What’s the matter, have you been up to any mischief in school?” asked Neha’s mother as she opened the front door.
“Of course not, Mummyji,” Neha was taken aback, “Why?”
“Failed in any test?”
“No tests this week, Mummyji. What happened?”
Papaji was there on his favourite chair watching TV.
“Why are you shouting at that girl?” he laughed, “What a way to welcome!”
“Neha’s teacher called this evening, asked if I could be in the school tomorrow morning!”
“Why?” The question came simultaneously from Neha and her father.
“She didn’t give any reason; just said, ‘Wait till tomorrow’.”
Neha thought hard but couldn’t think of any incident that asked for the mother to be called to the school. She was an average student. Poor in Maths but passed in all subjects, got about fifty percent average marks. Neha liked Hindi and English but had difficulty with spellings. While reading the textbooks, the letters on the page often seemed to dance around. Even when she thought she spelt correctly in dictation she got low marks. Her English notebook was full of corrections in red ink!
Mummyji used to sit with her in the evenings to practice dictation. Neha also copied a paragraph into a notebook daily under Mummyji’s supervision but there was not much improvement. Mummyji often lost her temper and said things like, “What’s wrong with you? Such simple words, even a Class I student would get right.” Or “Let’s change the tuition teacher.”
Very often Papaji came to her rescue.
“You’re after the poor girl! True she’s got difficulty with English and Maths but she’s doing reasonably well in other subjects, isn’t it? See how well she draws! Who knows, given coaching, our Neha could grow up to become a well-known artist.”
In the course of time Neha’s learning disability was accepted. The complaints from the teachers had become fewer. Maybe because, in a way, they had given up trying to help her out. The teacher said it was like a sickness, even had a name for it.
At bedtime, too, Neha wondered what awaited her in the school next morning.
Whatever it was, why was Mummyji called to school?
* * *
Sharp at nine, the bell chimed for the morning assembly. As she lined up, through the corner of her eyes Neha could see Mummyji. There she stood in the shade of the tamarind tree, to the right of the flagpole. As usual, there were a few others too, standing around.
‘What could it be?’ thought Neha.
As if in answer to her thought, Principal madam came on the mike.
She said, “Dear children, I’ve good news to share. Make a guess, what could it be?”
“Some prize!”
“Prize for what?”
The students looked at each other trying to recollect the recently held competitions.
“I can read your thoughts children, you’re lost,” Madam laughed and continued, “One of our students has got recognition at the sub-district level and now has entered the district level! Can you imagine the artwork of our students being sent for the district level competition?”
“Education is not only high marks and ranks in the subjects! Areas like art, music, sports, etc., are also assets, adding to one’s self-esteem! Let’s meet a budding artist of our school. Neha Sharma, Class III, please come forward!”
The news came as a pleasant surprise to all! A circular had come a month ago seeking entries for a talent search competition. It was taken as one of the routine circulars and, as usual, teachers had held drawing competitions in every class and sent the three best entries to the cluster level.
“An exhibition of about 120 or so prize-winning paintings, one each from every school in the cluster are on display at the Panchayat Bhavan. Congratulations to Neha, her painting too is on display there! Tell your parents, it is open for the public. Tomorrow morning our students will go by the school bus to watch the exhibitions.”
The whole school burst into applause at the thought of going for the exhibition and also at the thought of Neha’s drawing being there!
“The prize-winning drawings will be sent to Nainital for the district level competition. Imagine Neha’s drawing being there in the District Headquarters Art Gallery! Best wishes to Neha and many budding artists among you!”
This time the applause grew louder with excitement, joy and hope!
(Savitri Narayanan is a retired educationist at present in Goa. A mother and grandmother, loves reading, writing and travelling.)
