from the master’s desk
by Sunil Ganu
People who take themselves and their work far too seriously have been the object
of my interest from an early age: I remember a neighbor who believed (very, very
wrongly) that his adolescent son was God’s gift to Mankind and to his better half
as well! Nothing the brat ever did, acquired, made, studied, managed or won was
wrong / bad / fair to middling! No, it just had to be “first-class”! Spoken in
Marathi, these two words attained a sonorous status their plebian English
counterparts could hardly imagine! So, as we all plodded through life taking it one
day at a time, Sudhir (the brat’s moniker) breezed through all life’s activities with
only one label for all results: “first class”!
This meant that Sudhir’s academics were covered with a patina of
Oxon-worthiness, for back in the days of yore, a “first class” (over 60%) in
standards 8, 9, 10, and 11 (yes Portia, they did have 11 classes back then for the
school to extract it’s legitimate pound of flesh!)! was a sure-fire indicator for even
greater academic excellence to come! He was destined for Higher Things, we
were told breathlessly by his doting Paterfamilias.
Everything rolled along swimmingly well, on all four motors, so to speak! Sudhir
worked for his S.S.C. examinations like an Olympian athlete would to take part in
a school 100 mts. trot! He oozed self-confidence and declared he had finished
revising “several times over before the Christmas holidays”! His notes, scribblings
and random jottings were prized by duffers in the class whose anxious parents
ingratiated themselves to Sudhir père by all means possible! Several weeks
before the dreaded examinations dawned, it was all but over, or so it seemed, for
this prize student of Jangli Maharaj Road! He, I am sure, could taste success long
before the examination papers had been set, misspelt and printed!
Nature, she who had generously poured of Her best into the mould that was
strictly single-use, decided to play a trick on Her own creation! The day before
the examinations (it was a Sunday, for all self-respecting academic institutions
started exams on a Monday so they finished properly on the weekend) Sudhir
woke up scratching several pustules on his confident countenance and ram-rod
back! Chickenpox, was the verdict delivered with serious concern by a doctor
who was hastily summoned to treat his famous patient! And then the cruel axe
fell like the guillotine used to in Paris: no examinations for Sudhir that year for fear
of infecting the other, not-so-bright particles of the working classes!