It’s the exam season now, most kids in school must be slogging it out while others may have just begun their holidays. I saw a bunch of kids in an auto this morning, each with a book opened on their laps and busy trying to brush up their lessons in the last minute. I was instantly reminded of my school days and grandpa.
Exam time used to be a terrorizing time for me as I was never a kid who studied every day. I would try as much as possible to finish my homework in school so I would have enough time to play with Manju and Suvvi in the evenings. They were children of Eeranna, my dad’s man Friday, who stayed in the outhouse and were each a year younger and older than me respectively. Each day we’d have a lot of things to talk about, Suvvi was the cleverest amongst us and would have many interesting stuff to tell us. She’d learn new games in her school and come home and teach us. We’d do everything together, right from playing to studying and we’d even sleep in the same room, giggling and talking throughout the night. However, our happy routine would undergo a major change when exams came close.
My grandpa would arrive from Mysore a month before exams started and the ‘military rule’ would begin. He’d be very strict with my timings. I’d have to freshen up after coming back from school and instantly sit to study. TV and playtime would be completely banned for a month. There would be no contact of any kind with Suvvi and Manju, and the only things that would keep me company would be my text books. I used to hate exams for another reason, grandpa would never allow me to eat junk food at this time as he feared that I’d fall sick. He’d not allow me to go out with my parents as that just meant wasting time. Maybe all this rigidity and sternness came from his being a professor and college principal.
Grandpa came to stay with us after dad passed away, and his interest in my studies slowly began to reduce, as I took up Science and he was an English Professor, so there was hardly anything that he could help me with. However, he continued to have great interest in my marks. Once I finished my studies and began working, I don’t think there was any soul happier and prouder about me, than him. He became friendlier and less strict. I used to spend most of the evenings, sitting in his room and talking to him about the goings-on at work and complaining about my colleagues, he gave a patient hear to everything I had to share with him. We’d also sit for long hours discussing about books, current affairs, technology, anything and everything under the sun. There was not a single secret that I kept from him and there was never a topic that bored him.
Grandpa has had a stroke recently and has become unrecognizable. The illness has robbed him of all his charm and has made him very emotional and aggressive. He’s lost the ability to read and can’t comprehend anything that we speak. I am now helping him resume reading by writing short notes for him to read and understand. He reads clearly sometimes but gives up very easily when he can’t. He’s having problems with his mobility as well, but I’m sure he’ll be able to walk about very soon. The only thing that bothers me is if he can get back to being the cheerful and active person he always was.
He taught me how to read and write and to be happy come what may; now it’s payback time, but the problem is that I can’t be as good a teacher as he was to me!
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