As with most big city experiences, the checkout experience is less personal than it was in the small town across the river. Six months later, I am yet to build any familiarity with the checkout clerks. I am yet to find a Wendy or Kathy or the rest here in the new store. On this Pi Day, I am reminded of Wendy sharing a pun, as she often did: "Studies show that 3.14 percent of all sailors are PIrates."
As much as I have stories about places and people in the old country, I suppose I will also carry around stories of people from the other side of the river.
As a nerd, I loved solving all the π-problems in math. I could not believe that π is a constant, whatever be the size of the circle. It was one of the many mind-blowing concepts that I learnt, and which I truly enjoyed learning about. Like how any which way we drew triangles, the angles always added up to 180 degrees. What an exhilarating experience it was to learn such new stuff every day!
One year, the maths (which is how we referred to math in the old country) teacher was the daughter of my father's colleague. Her younger brother was my age but in a different school. I was a tad nervous in the classroom, worried that she might tell my parents what I was up to in school. Not that I ever got into trouble, especially during those younger years, but the worry was always there.
During one of those quarterly or half-yearly exams, for which we took clipboards and the school supplied the paper on which we wrote down our responses, I completed the exam well ahead of time. I loved racing to be the first to finish the tests. Of course, there was a downside--"silly mistakes" as we called them. Errors that might not have happened had I been slow and careful. But, those mistakes did not matter to me because I didn't care about the grade--"marks."
I suspect that my indifference to grades resulted from a supreme confidence that I had about my abilities, which is what another math teacher, in the high school level, referred to as "over-confidence." She showed me an example of a mistake that I had made as a result of my careless race to the finish. But, I never changed my approach. I am glad that I never cared about marks and grades, even though they have effected me quite a bit, like this one.
True to myself, I finished the exam and turned the papers over to the teacher. Very few teachers let us leave the exam hall early. Almost always, I sat there scribbling something or thinking about whatever, until the teacher felt it was ok for students who turned in the papers to leave.
This teacher, because she knew me and my family, inquired about us. I recall telling her that I am the middle child. I think that was the first time ever that I articulated my thoughts that I was a middle child. What I didn't tell her was what I meant by that--a concern that my sister was loved more than me because she is the first, and my brother was loved more because he is the youngest.
It is not without reason that much later in life, after moving to America and picking up all things Americana, I adopted Rodney Dangerfield's "I don't get no respect" as my shtick too. After all, it is not that I was a favorite of any teacher at school either. Leading up to the 30th-reunion after graduating from high school, I called up a classmate whose mother was our English teacher for a couple of years. Mrs. M. had no idea who I was! "I recall Ravikumar, Sridhar, Srikumar, ... but ..."
Even though I didn't say anything about my insecurities, this math teacher perhaps picked up the vibe. She told me that there was nothing wrong in being a middle child and that I should stop saying that.
When visiting India a few years ago, while sitting around and talking old stories, I asked my father if my sister is his favorite. He acknowledged his special soft spot for her. It was my mother's turn now. I asked her if my brother was her favorite and, surprise, he was.
My sister jumped in: "You are Aunty R.'s favorite."
We are all somebody's favorites.
No comments:
Post a Comment