During my childhood
summer vacation was a whole long tedious period of two full months. More than a month would go burning in the
anxiety about the annual exam results.
The system was not at all student-friendly in those days. During the ten months at school the students
would be made to memorise a whole lot of things and caned mercilessly if their
memory failed. The evaluation process of
exams was as severe as the caning. The
teachers were more eager to find out the mistakes in the answer sheets unlike
their counterparts today (which includes me too) who go out of their way to
reward whatever happens to be right in answer sheets. Passing exams was quite tough in those
days. It appeared that the only purpose
of exams in those days was to make as many students as possible fail.
The only thing that made
me forget the anxiety about the ‘result’ was the fairly long visit to all the
maternal uncles some distance away. I
loved the bus journey in those days. I
was sorry that the journey was short: ten kilometres by one bus and another ten
by another. The first ten was an
adventure. The road was very narrow and
never suffered any maintenance of any sort.
The bus would crawl on and take about an hour to reach the
destination. Since journey by bus was only
an annual affair, that ride was a dream come true.
Climbing up and down the
mountain on which my uncles lived was another adventure. It was a trek in fact. The path wound up and down the mountain among
rubber trees or tapioca plants or massive granite rocks. Then there were the mango trees all full of
fruits. We plucked them and ate to our
hearts’ content. We played hide and seek
on the mountain. A lot of uncles means a
lot of cousins. Cousins are usually fun.
Uncles become tolerant parents when
nephews and nieces are visiting. So our
visit was an added boon for the cousins. Finally when we had to take leave of
each other we would struggle to hold back our tears. The anxiety about the impending doom called ‘result’
helped to make the good bye less painful.
I never failed in any
class. Running the risk of sounding boastful,
I was one of the toppers in the class.
Yet the fear of ‘result’ haunted me like a vindictive ghost every
year. Such was the system. You could never predict your destiny which
depended on the caprices of many elders.
As a man rushing toward
the honourable age of ‘senior citizen’ I feel very humbled to say that I have
never remembered my childhood as a happy period. A lot of boring lessons at school and then
even more boring Sunday school classes, all taught by people who looked sterner
than the saints whose pictures or statues adorned the church walls and alcoves. Worse, I was ill-fated to live with a lot of
such people for the most part of my life.
No wonder I lost my faith in religion and religious people and the summer vacation was no joyful affair with all these saintly people around.
This post reminded me of my visit to my grandfather's tea estate. I won't as well term my childhood memories as the best with the constant pressure of studies which continues even up till now.
ReplyDeleteBut nostalgia give a sense of pleasure quite different from other forms
Nostalgia is peculiar. It transforms even pain into pleasure sometimes.
DeleteNice read,by the way, you were one of the toppers that's why fear of result used to haunt you...the last bench students never have this fear...bcs they dont care.
ReplyDeleteThat's quite true. I remember how some of my classmates never bothered even when they were detained.
DeleteI too have many fond memories of my visits to my maternal uncles' house during summer vacations.
ReplyDelete