The Average Indian Tuition

THE AVERAGE INDIAN TUITION 

It was around 5 PM on a post-summer day in Chennai. The threatening grey sky walked the walk today and it began raining cats and dogs. This was almost a cue for the ever ready Electricity board to severe the power and soon, it became very dark. Without the computer or the internet to entertain me, I walked out to the common veranda  The children who come for tuition to my neighbor’s house were all crowding the stairs, 2 or 3 in each of the 4 staircases.

I fought my way through those little kids and reached the veranda where my neighbor was sitting on her plastic chair with a book and questioning one of those kids who seemed to live in another planet trying to recite a poem above the noise around. I made myself comfortable in one of the descending staircases. I became so intrigued about what those kids were doing. I pretended to listen to the songs with my mp3 player plugged into my ears.

There was one guy, with a lavender shirt and unkempt hair sitting on the 3^rd staircase, who was staring blankly at the ceiling up ahead. As if a perfect foil, there was another guy behind him who was looking down busily fidgeting with his pen. My neighbor’s kid suddenly tore up through the line of kids, running,   complaining about something. By the time he was silenced and sent back by my neighbor, the guy who was reciting his Hindi poem stumbled to a stop. He closed his eyes, looked up, turned around caught the railing banged it several times and still, he did not get those words back. His friend, another cute little fellow in navy blue completed the rest of the poem for him, though he had come for his English classes. The teacher looked at him and he said in Tamil, ‘Even I remember it because Rakesh was reciting it so many times sitting next to me maam’

Unceremoniously another guy from the 2^nd staircase got up and shouted, more than a plea ‘Maam, I want to drink water…’ My neighbor was already beginning to get tired and waved him off for his sip of water. This induced a nostalgic thought. I remembered how I used to buy hot samosas for my tuition maam during my middle school. Her house used to be dark and cozy and she used to ask me to buy samosas and come. I used to ride through the damp roads, park the cycle hidden from my flat since the shop used to be a couple of plots away from my apartment. My parents never liked to see me buying samosas instead of studying or for the fact, eating them from that particular shop.

I had a rude awakening and woke up from my reverie to see two guys in a fist fight. It took several seconds for me to comprehend what was happening out there. A few stern words, rather, stern growl from my neighbor settled the issue. The guy who had gone for his water break had returned only then and he had a bashing. He gave excuses saying he had to go to the restroom and only so, he was late.

The chap in the 3^rd staircase suddenly got up saying ‘Maam, I forgot to bring my Math book. I have a test tomorrow’. The rest was commotion. The teacher began her bashing in complete flow and the poor kid held his face down. He would have been better off without revealing the fact that he had an exam the next day. I began remembering my journeys back home in the middle of classes forgetting my books. I used to take the longest route possible cycling as slowly as possible.

The class became a little more silent and looked like it becoming settled. Just then, the teacher’s phone rang. She attended the call and it was very ostentatious to see her concentrating half on her call and half on the kids. Something had caused her to shift her concentration to the call, the kids began clattering and she became busy over the call. After about three to four minutes, she severed the call and turned around and suddenly the clatter stopped and there was pin drop silence except for the mildly falling rain. I used to have similar moments when we used to shout and scream, but when the teacher turns her attention on us we would act as innocent as lamb.

A few minutes passed and the kids got settled. Apart from the rain, there was no other sound. The kids got into a rhythm with their books and the fun I was having seemed to have stopped. As I was about to power my mp3 player on, joyous sounds erupted from the kids. I turned around to see the tube lights and the bulbs get switched on. Power was back and the kids began running inside.

My neighbor smiled and got up saying, in her broken Tamil ‘I’ll have to manage these kids again from the beginning’ and walked away, half pulling and half carrying the chair behind her. I went back into my house, smiled inwardly for a brief second and turned my computer on.