This happened 13 years ago. Jayakrishnan
was an eighth grader in a school in the nice South Indian city called Trichy. During
his seventh grade, he had a cat – a lovely, fluffy cute cat. He loved it. And his
proclivity towards the cat caused him a fungal infection called “polyps” which
led to tissue growth in the nose almost blocking his entire right nose. It
seemed he was allergic to cat fur. His dad’s homeopathy doctor friend assured
he could cure this. After 6 months, the tissue growth only seemed to grow more,
effectively blocking his right nose and partially affecting his hearing. This
meant, he struggled with his class lessons. He was at his academic low. His
teachers had a condescending look for him every time the test papers were
distributed. Friends, if any, were few. They called him “Jaya”. Of late,
someone pointed out that “Jaya” is a feminine name. (It’s one of those thing
with the Indian names; when combined with a male name – “Krishna” it becomes a
male name in totality) He thought he was better off with the name his dad
christened him initially – Vivek Rasdan, after a then Indian cricket player. “Jayakrishnan”
was the name that his Astrologer-cum-Sanskrit scholar granddad christened him,
based out of astrology and also half his name, which was Ramakrishnan. Some
bullies caught upon the feminine part of his name. Scared, he tried to avoid
schools on any possible occasion. On lonely days when he bunked schools, he
used to solve crossword puzzles in the Young World paper which comes on
Saturdays. He also maintained a dairy, where he noted down his observations, witty
cartoons by Keshav in the Hindu, pictures of fast trains and the German
landscape from the German News magazine which his dad had subscribed. He particularly loved the cover stories on
LTTE and other major national events which were illustrated creatively in the
WEEK magazine. He used to wonder why India Today magazine always wrote articles
supporting a major national party a.k.a BJP. He never spoke about these to
anyone except to his dairy. His dairy was his only true friend. His dairy was
the only one who would know what that boy was and what went through him. He was
an introvert, at best. The only good thing that happened to him that year was
that his parents decided to go with allopathic surgery to remove the fungal
growth in his nose. And this put him on wheels of normalcy. Yet his introverted
character remained the same.
He entered the eighth grade. He had chosen
Hindi as a second language earlier when he was in sixth grade. But Hindi
students were a minority. So were Catholic Christian students in his school.
The school decided to put these two groups together in a same class for reasons
best known to them. This was where he first saw Nancy Perira. She was a legend
in that school. He had heard stories about her from his friends. She always
gets the first rank; she has never known what a second rank is, in her entire
life – that was her legend. She had a fierce competitive look in her eyes. And
she was damn smart- the speed with which she talked made her seem extra smart. He
looked at her with an awe and felt like a lowly being when she walked past him.
Once, he was standing near the classroom door, unknowingly blocking her path.
She said, “Hey, stupid, move away!” He felt bad for a moment, but gave her way
immediately. He conceded to the adjective, the smartest girl in the school just
gave him, because he thought it was his fault.
Arockyasamy, his social sciences teacher
was his class teacher. Arockyasamy seemed different in his approach of teaching.
He too had a legend – he normalized the social science marks of his students to
90%. The rest 10 marks would come from the Social Science notes that he asked
his students to maintain. And legend has it that no one ever got those 10
marks; students who get 2.5 consider themselves lucky. This was because, the
notes he asked his students to maintain was not book based. It was like, an
entire chapter in Geography should be summarized in just 2 pages with any fact about
the chapter NOT presented in the text book – all the extra details one can lay
their hands upon. And he substituted Civics sections with GK sections and
solicited newspaper articles for the Civics part. History chapters should be
substituted with in-depth historic event analysis. Civics section carried 5
marks, History and Geography 5 together. He actually started teaching us at the
end of first mid-term only. But he implemented his system no sooner. Nancy was
even asking Arockyasamy on ways to get the full 10 marks.
The First mid-term exams were just
conducted. Jayakrishnan got the 7th rank. This was the highest rank
he could imagine getting in a long time. Of course, Nancy got the first. But
before the ranks were computed, it was time for evaluation of the social
science notes by Arockyasamy. Nancy got 2.5 on her coverage on Historic
analysis. Arockyasamy called Jayakrishnan out. He said, “Good work. You’re the
first person to get 7.5 marks in the Social Science notes”. He got the full 5
in GK section and 2.5 on Geography. The GK section he covered was on a crucial judgment
the Supreme Court had passed on the Ayodhya issue. Many students had the
newspaper clipping of that judgment pasted in the GK section. But Jaya drew a
timeline across two pages, demarcating the important events that led to the
current judgment. A separate section was delineated at two different corners
listing the key parties involved in the conflict. The other two corners listing
the rationale and basis of the conflict as submitted by the conflicting
parties. As far as the Geography section was concerned, he pasted a single
stamp of the country that was being dealt, that he got through a philatelic
exchange with some his friends the previous year. He explained the cost of the
stamp. And a small box on the local currency and how it compares with the rupee
and the dollar and Yen. He then explained the person on the stamp, the first
prime minister after independence. A small box shows political system followed
by the country and the current leaders. And two other boxes on the climate,
it’s geopolitical influence on its neighbors and how it influences its economy.
He felt so happy that day. He looked though his notes the whole evening and the
words, “V.Good.. 7.5/10” embellishing the page. He wondered why Nancy gave a
hateful look at him when returned with his note to his bench.
After that, Jaya was the one to answer the
GK questions and current affairs questions posed by Arockyasamy to his class. It
felt nice for him. And he made no mistake the second time. He got the full 10
marks in Social Science notes section, breaking his own record. He improved his
rank by securing the 3rd rank. But at the same time, he was being
hated by Nancy like never before. Now, she knows him by name. But nevertheless,
she found new situations just to call him “stupid”. He didn’t know how to react
to that. Because every time, it was someway his fault. She was the ‘class
monitor’. Persons who get the first rank get to become the monitor and she was
the monitor by default, always. She wrote the name “Jaya” every other day on
the board which lists the students who misbehaved during the absence of
teachers. This ensured that Jayakrishnan got punished for a crime he grasped
hard to understand when he committed. But it must have been his mistake; he
never defended himself for any of that, because he was still scared to speak
out to his teachers.
The school conducted an assembly every
week. And every week, one class must host the assembly. And during each
assembly, there’s a small speech on a topic. It was his class’ turn to host the
assembly. The topic for speech was ‘The Crown and Glory of Life is character’. Arockyasamy,
chose his favorite student, Jayakrishnan, to give the speech. Jayakrishnan was
scared to death. He didn’t even dare to speak a complete sentence to his
teachers. His dad penned his speech. Arockyasamy decided to conduct a mock
trial in front of the class. Jayakrishnan never looked at any of the students
while he spoke. He spoke looking down. And he couldn’t complete three sentences
properly. Nancy was smiling at the sorry figure he cut for himself. He was
sweating profusely. He gave a pleading look at his class teacher and cried, “I can’t..
I’m sorry”… He said, “It’s okay, we’ll do another session in two days”.
Two complete days of speaking with the
mirror and his sister, he probably realized he could make it. The second time,
he completed the speech with occasional stammering, but he barely looked at the
audience.
Arockyasamy called him aside and gave a
great piece of advice. “You’re doing well, but no one will listen to you if you
don’t speak TO them. If you’re scared about looking at the audience, don’t
really look at them. Just sway her head at all the audience constantly.”
Jayakrishnan took the advice and during the third trial, he did exactly the
same. It turned out well. But speaking before 60 students and before 2000
students is different. Jayakrishnan knew that.
On the day of speech, Jayakrishnan was
standing behind the stage, wishing that the Master of Ceremonies would pace out
their introductions; he literally prayed for each delayed second. Finally they
called out, “Now Jayakrishnan from 8-A will deliver a speech on the topic, ‘The
Crown and Glory of Life Is character”. Jayakrishnan waited for five seconds
after he was called for. He realized that the entire school was ready to laugh
at his folly. He wanted to run away from the place. At that time, he felt a
hand on his shoulder. He looked back at the tall figure of Arockyasamy smiling
at him. He said, “The school is waiting to hear your great speech”. This
brought a wide smile on his face. He decided, come what may, he is not letting
this man down. He tread the stage towards the mike for the first time in his
life. His first word was over amplified; someone came running to push the mike
a bit away from his mouth. IN this process, he forgot his customary salutations
which should invariably begin with “Revered Principal,…” Instead, he started
with a line, he never rehearsed to speak about.
“When I was given this topic, I didn’t
even understand what it meant. In fact, it was my dad who wrote this speech”.
The whole school burst into laughter. After the laughter subsided, he
continued, “But I’m here just for one thing, or rather for one person –
Mr.Arockyasamy, my class teacher and guide who believed in me to deliver this
to this august audience. So here I am to speak about the topic, which I now
feel is so meaningful”.
When the speech was over, the 4000 pairs
of hands clapped – all the sound directed at one person that was overwhelming
for him. Arockyasamy patted his back. He smiled back at him. Back in the class,
Arockyasamy distributed the Half-yearly rank cards. When Jayakrishnan’s roll
number came, he called out, “Mr.JK…” (Jayakrishnan wondered that this is the
first time someone called him JK, but it certainly felt nice), “You get the
first rank this time. And that was a good speech by the way, I forgot to
mention..”, he smiled as he handed him the rank card.
The whole class clapped except for the one
girl. But then, at that moment, he realized, it’s not always his fault. And that
he’s not a stupid. That day Nancy didn’t write down his name on the board even
though he was talking happily with all his friends in the ‘absence of the
teacher’ which was categorized as misbehavior during many such earlier
instances. Just then he realized that he is the monitor from the next day.
Remember, persons who get the first rank get to become the monitor.
That was the day Jayakrishnan became JK.
Till this day, he carried that name as a remembrance of his first mentor. He
became the monitor. No names on the board ever as long as he was the monitor. From
then on, he grabbed any and every opportunity to give a public speech. Won some
state level speech competitions. Be it Independence Day or Republic day, JK is
solicited to give his passionate patriotic speech. And of course, participated
in many quiz competitions and won some. He replaced Nancy as the person who
never knew what the second rank was. Nancy tried to insult me by accusing him
in front of the class he got the first rank by using ‘bit’ in exams. He still couldn’t
defend himself or shout back at her. But he didn’t feel sorry. He was able to
smile back at her. But none of that was important than the fact that none of
this would have happened if Arockyasamy never believed in him. One person
changed a boy's life. And that person was able to changed his outlook. By just believing in the other person.
JK is still secretly an introvert. But when occasion arises, he can be the best extrovert around. And when the bullies tried to call him "Jaya" the next time, he retorted back, "There's no space between Jaya and Krishnan, you ignorant fuck…"
JK is still secretly an introvert. But when occasion arises, he can be the best extrovert around. And when the bullies tried to call him "Jaya" the next time, he retorted back, "There's no space between Jaya and Krishnan, you ignorant fuck…"
~~~~~~
Dedicated to all genuine teachers who are
transforming young lives for the better…
~~~~~~~
