11.08.08

The Aristocrats

Posted in Education, Humour at 1:09 am by The Editor

5:20 pm
I stared at the screen of my cell phone as I walked into the empty tuition classroom and placed my bag at the seat I usually occupied- third bench from the back, right in the row next to the window. I’d come early again to claim that seat- sought after by many like me. Let me introduce you to the aristocracy prevalent inside the IITJEE classroom. It originated from the merit list pinned on the notice board.. an article I had learnt to treat with obstinate indifference for more than half a year. This attitude must have bled into my inclination towards attending classes there, considering how I pined for the back seat. I could sit there by the window overlooking M.G Road listlessly watching the markings on the chalkboard and through the corner of my eye I could see the neon signs(almost at eye-level from the first floor of the building our classes were held in) of the quaint, rustic shops and the more recently established showrooms lined along the wet,sodden pavement.

I was more aware of the dampness on the soles of my mat slippers which I happily slipped into on a wet July evening. And a day such as that, when the water clogged at the roadsides reached right till the ankles. Three guys shuffled in, followed by a couple of girls who occupied the front seat. Usually these stalwarts(by the standards of the merit list) had nought to do with me, but Nimisha Dadhwal thought it only polite to walk up and say a word to the girl she befriended at the start of Junior college a year back. I supposed old friendships did count a little even if it had been six months since a particular friend had made it to Topper’s batch and the other hadn’t.(Yes, it is actually a batch, not just a hypothetical idea deduced from the merit list.). But the friendship had ‘mysteriously’ eroded over the past six months, reducing our interactions to a polite exchange of words 20 mintues before class, after which she had to go back and join Piya Rastogi on the front seat.

Manu Sabbarwal and his nameless frineds were staring at the notice board. Something more interesting than the merit list must have caught their attention, or so I thought. I walked up to examine the mystery-notice when a sudden gust of wind from the window released all the thumb-pins sending the papers flying about the classroom wildly. Since the incident coincided with my sudden arrival, Sabbarwal could not resist the urge to deride me, yet again. He called out to his friends loudly, meaning for me to hear “You know why THISSS happened?.. Because SHE does thissss!”.To this allegation I only reacted with a sharp constriction of the arch of my eye-brows. I seldom ever retorted. I could have appreciated the allusion to Carrie and Telekinesis. Only that serious IIT-aspirants didn’t read anything beyond coursework, leave alone Stephen King. So it wasn’t an allusion at all- just something nasty to say about me. I had become accustomed to his bland rudeness for over a year eversince I had been attending the same school and (to my distress) the same tuition classes as him. The rest of the lot from my school strutted in- N.T Verma and his ex-boys-school band, Nina Sanchit and her clique, Pradeep Srivastav, the topper of the topper’s batch – ranging from front-seat to middle-seat nobility.

Chokhani sir, the physics teacher checked in at ten minutes to six, causing the stir in the classroom to subside immediately. I knew we had started hydrostatics in class, but the rest of the details were incomprehensible for me. An IIT alumnus in his twenties, Chokhani sir shared with Sabbarwal a particular interest in picking on me ever since he learnt to pronounce my name. Sometimes I tried to feebly convince myself that I was usually at the receiving end of his reproofs because he just wanted to create more opportunites to enunciate my name. But I guessed my sleeping in class and my position on the merit list must have been stronger motives. I had yet again slept late the previous night, trying to wrap upa school project. I had to deal with the repercussions of this in Chokhani’s class – of all the classes in the world.

He started his lecture on Archimedes Principle, refering to bouyancy now and again oblivious of the fact that his pronounciation made it sound something similar to the name of a certain R&B diva of our times, dictating problems from a mysterious hard-bound book my a Russian author whose name he must have taken months to master the pronounciation of. I just sat taking down the numericals and writing down the values over and over again in my notebook… I had to keep the pen moving, right?

He interrupted his lecture with a little “prize-distribution” ceremony of his own. The venerable receiver of this great honour this time was N.T Verma for having worked out the solution of a problem in Kinematics in the previous monthly test, solving which “had completely marked the difference between the profound and the shallow”. Pradeep Srivastav clenched his teeth at having been rudely shoved into the latter category by a mere remark. The “prize” in question was another hard-bound copy of his li’l Russian translation, which I later learnt was written by a guy called Irodov. It was called “Problems in Physics”- The Bible for all IIT-aspirants. Alright, the subtitle is an addition of my own.

Unlike Srivastav, I had long forgotten to begrudge such honours. I mentally hi-fived myself for not giving into my somnolent tendencies for a good two hours. After the revered honour was bestowed, Chokhani wrapped up the lecture with a conceptual problem and a derivation.

Due to the early onset of dusk, I did not fully realise how profusely it had been raining. By the end of the class, the showers had manged to thin-down the crowd on MG Road, even on a Saturday night. I had to walk right upn till West End to catch a bus home to Hadapsar. Meanwhile Piya Rastogi, Verma and Srivastav went to issue or return books from the library (a misnomer for the tiny book case in the office conjoined with the classroom) or to clear some doubts with Chokhani Sir or whatever it was that Topper’s batch kids did usually to linger around after class. Pulling away from the throng that was pushing out of the narrow door, Nimisha came up to inform me she was going to take a bus with me since she hadn’t brought along her scooty.

The two of us headed for the bus stop, taking a detour through Clover Centre to avoid getting wet. The minutes seemed to crawl by slowly as we stood at the bus stop with our umbrellas tilted more towards our backpacks. My vision grew misty as big drops settled on my glasses. The silence between us became more obvious than ever because I could not discuss with her the latest FIITJEE score or the last lecture in the Topper’s batch. My usual waiting period of ten minutes had then extended to half an hour.
“I don’t think the bus is going to come before nine.” I broke the silence cautiously.
“Ya, I guess by the time we get home, it’ll be past ten. If at all the bus comes.. The rains upset bus timings by hours.”
“Should we take a Rick?”
“No rick will go that far from camp, at this time especially now that its raining so hard.”

We both decided to walk back to the classroom and call up our parents to pick us up.
The classroom was empty. The three kids who’d stayed behind were still hanging around in the office. Nimisha joined Piya as she jotted down the answer key to the monthly test. Verma and Srivastav strode down the staircase to the parking lot only to come back again. Srivastav had hitched a ride on Verma’s bike on the way to class. But on seeing the heavy showers outside, Verma wasn’t confident enough for the road. In Pune, flooded roads speckled with pot-holes and traffic jams stretching for kilometres are familiar yet nightmarish for many young license holders. Piya decided agianst riding back home as well. They followed our lead and called up their parents.Chokhani sir who was still waiting at the office walked in to ask if any one of us would care to be dropped home. We reported that our parents were already on their way. He said he would wait right until the last one of us got picked up. We thought it jolly nice of the guy.

Srivastav and Verma (the “Profound”) decided to get cracking on their assignment sheets. Piya lead on by Nimisha joined me on my window seat. We made very little conversation. After ten minutes, which Piya must have thought the minimum amount of time required to oblige third party company, she walked away looking at her cell phone pretending to make a call. After this she casually sat down on a desk away from mine and took out her MP3 player end ear-phones. Nimisha, prompted by a musical urge I was never aware of while I was friends with her; squealed “Can I listen too?” . The both of them looked like peculiar Siamese twins connected ear to ear by the two leads of the ear phones.

I reverted back to my loner position, taking out my mobile phone, pretending to text message while the two happy pairs went about their business. The guys went down to Marzorin to get sandwiches. I suspected the two girls wanted to catch some grub too but in that case, they would have had to take me along, as decency dictated. To avoid complications, the must have discarded the idea.

On returning, the two boys didn’t seem all that inclined to resume their problem solving session. Seized by a sudden inspiration, Verma monopolized the chalkboard, drawing far-fetched caricatures of classmates, using his stale sense of humour to fill in dialog boxes for his supposed comical characters. Srivastav, having forgotten his misgivings concerning the prize-distribution ceremony contributed with even lamer additions. I wasn’t roused from my detatched state until I heard my name.
“Oh look, I’m Nirmolini. Its such a horrible, horrible day. I’m going to complain about the weather and the class and the assignment. Ooh! I hate everyone and everything.” Verma cackled away in a high pitched voice which was supposed to be similar to mine.I knew I wasn’t popular in school but wasn’t quite aware of this confirmed unanimous opinion of me. I wondered when I ever uttered such words. Indignated at the obloquy, I just yelled “Go read your Irodov, Verma!” as my eye-brows arched at varying angles. Srivastav found this such a cause for hilarity that he fell back on his chair in peals of laughter.Verma who was not amused, was still capable of intelligent replies.
“I don’t read Russian authors…. Except Vladimir Nabikov.” He pronounced the last two words with a flourish which betrayed the name of the book in the insinuation.
“I’m sure you just read Lolita for the risque content.”
“Ofcourse I did. There was a copy of it in the library in my old boys school.”
The others were oblivious to our discourse- the two girls cut-off from the rest of the world courtesy the ear phones and Srivastav, because he lost the thread of the converstation at the mention of ‘books’.

I incredulously listened to the words coming out of Verma’s mouth at that moment. I was going to ask him if he had read D.H Lawrence as well, but he resumed to amuse himself with his exercise, this time victimizing Chokhani sir. I wasn’t much of a fan of Chokhani but I employed my better judgement to go back to my seat.

“So thish ij how Archimediss Principle workss. Thee vaalume of liquid displaced ij iqual to thee vaalume of the bawdy immersed in thee liquid. Thee weight of thee liquid displaced ij the apparent louss in wieght, aalso cauled Beyonce. Now when Beyonce is working on the bawdy…”And so on Verma continued to use ridiculous sentence constructions just to squeeze in the word “Bouyancy”. We prudently looked away with blank faces,while he happily laboured under the delusion that he was providing us with infinitely agreeable entertainment. Our portentious fears came to life when the man in question strode into the classroom. The chalk in Verma’s hand fell on the floor with a dramatic thump incongruous with its small size and loud enough to jerk the earphoned pair to pull out their leads out of their ears.

“Piya your parents have come”. He spoke glowering at Verma.. a look even I never received in class.
Once he left slamming the door, I couldn’t help myself. “You’re so getting thrown out of topper’s batch.” I quipped. Srivastav could barely contain his emotion as if he was in higher favour for the sake of his own accomplishments rather than Verma’s sheer bad luck.
Verma sheepishly went back to his seat, his jaws shut and face hardened. There was nothing to be said or done any more. Presently the rest of the parents came in. I thought Chokhani would report to Verma’s parents. The forgoing of this opportunity to get back at Verma seemed to mean that Verma’s dismissal from Topper’s batch was even more evident.

—— —– —- —- —– —– —- – — — — —– —- —- —- — -

A week later , the notice board displayed the new list of students in the Topper’s batch. They usually shuffled the batch every two months but this time the list came out earlier than usual. Most of the names on the list were intact… They shrank the batch yet again, this time only by removing four students.

About The Author:
Arima Joshi is studying in Mumbai, but based out of Pune.
She’s in her first year Mechanical Engineering at Sardar Patel College of Engr,Mumbai.
Arima talks: “I’ve dabbled with guitars and rowing.. but finally settled for writing. I love watching hindi movies and draw inspiration from authors like Ruskin Bond and Roald Dahl. I rarely ever study and according to the MBTI (Meyr’s Briggs Type Indicator), my personality type is INTP(Introverted Intuitive Thinking Perceiving).

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