The Incredible Smiling Banshee

There are very few people I know whom I hate. I mean, I really hate. And standing on top of that exclusive list is a certain lady smiling benignly at everyone around.

To all Admirers of this teacher: - Don’t take this personally. It’s just my opinion I am expressing. I am not claiming to have any right to pass judgment on her.

Trrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrring!

I let out a groan as the bell rang. Well, I didn’t have anything personal against the bell but in this particular case, it presaged the arrival of our English teacher.

In class IX I liked attending the English classes but in class X all that vanished as soon as I had one class. No surprise really, the teacher is largely responsible for encouraging a student. This teacher did anything but.

She entered the class suddenly, trying to catch us doing something not so legit. Students hastily scrambled to their seats while she surveyed the class with a gradually widening smirk. I must say that the two things that I detest about this woman is her banshee like voice which she uses to great effect and her awful smile/smirk/grin- it was all the same for her.

After a minute or so when most of the class had settled down she said.”Today, we will do letter writing. You have done formal letters before?” she asked with a horrible travesty of a genial smile.

There was a confused murmur of assent and apparently satisfied, she turned toward the board and began scribbling.

Debarun leaned towards me and whispered for perhaps the hundredth time “You know, I know more English than she does.”

I nodded fervently. If I didn’t, then it would lead to an argument and arguments between me and Debarun were best not started. And I didn’t fancy standing up and explaining to the teacher.

Some boy chose that moment to laugh.

Aunty whipped around and stared hard at him.

“You boy, stand up!”

He did.

“Why did you laugh?” she asked with that unbearable smile back on her face.

“Aunty, he tickled me!”He said, pointing towards the guy to his right.

At this the entire class broke out into chuckles and giggles.

She raised her eyebrows quizzically and said,” In my class you shall not laugh stupidly.”

Then after some consideration she added, “And neither shall you laugh cleverly.”

WELL REALLY!

And then smiling contemptuously she proceeded to give the board her undivided attention and resumed scribbling.

I groaned again, really fed up with this teacher. She has this ability to bore people into silent submission. I groaned louder hoping to get an opportunity to snap back at her.

Totally by mistake I paid attention to what she was writing. It was the month of May and we were doing such an impressive job of resisting both the heat and her but she wrote the month as December.

I was too lazy to point out but someone obviously did because the next second she turned around and offered the worst imitation of a sheepish grin that I have ever seen or likely to see.

“I think that a laugh may be permitted in this situation.” She said sweetly.

She continued smiling and suddenly realizing that no one was reciprocating she turned back to the board.

I would have ever been able to forgive myself if I had smiled that day.

An English Class.

I always liked my class 9 English classes. Firstly, the teacher was such a nice person and secondly because i like the subject. The classes used to be a riot. Here is a description of one such class. i have fictionalized it slightly to make it more eventful but it is essentially based on facts.

TRING TRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRING!

The bell rang proclaiming that the chaos that reigned in our class should end now. But an incorrigible bunch of hooligans that we are, we didn’t stop until Sagarika aunty dropped in and gave us a piece of her mind. That did the trick. We settled down like tame little kids with faces that deceived no one.

And then our English aunty entered. Almost half the class forgot to stand up and wish her. I was among the other half for unlike most of the class I found English rather interesting. She surveyed the class with an exasperated expression that suggested that she would have loved to stomp out but I guess she wouldn’t accept defeat that easily.

In the first bench, Abhirup, our class prodigy, promptly reminded her about what we were doing and what we were supposed to do. Although I would have loved to call Abhirup an attention seeking ass, I never could because I myself admitted he wasn’t one. But that didn’t make me any happier.

Aunty cleared her throat to speak but was easily ignored. She was slightly louder next time. A few heads turned half-heartedly but the reverberating buzz in our class didn’t abate.

“Quiet everyone! Today I am going to…”

A loud groan emitted from the class as the student expressed their level of enthusiasm for the lesson.

Almost used to this kind of behavior, she went on teaching. She stopped suddenly and it seemed that she was trying to discern what was happening at the third last bench of the middle row.

“Aritran!” She shouted.

“Yes ma’m?” asked Aritran. I could see some discreet but hurried movements of his hand. What ever he was doing wasn’t strictly by the rulebook.

“What are you doing?” She asked.

“Nothing!” replied Aritran. I thought that wasn’t entirely the perfect answer. She could have told him off for not doing anything. But did I mention our English aunty wasn’t very bright?

“Come here and sit in this bench.” She said.

Aritran obliged.

“And don’t disturb the class.”

Aritran nodded.

She then went ahead and began to tell us about Salim Ali’s extraordinary interest in birds and his proficiency at spotting rare bird. A useless talent in my opinion but maybe, that’s why I don’t have the makings of an ornithologist. Anyway, we weren’t fascinated and hence the occasional groans that the class offered.

I had to admit that Salim Ali sounded pretty unimpressive as a protagonist of the story. (Actually it was a biography but did I say I was following her? Nah!)

She tried to keep up her lecture for a few minutes against stiff resistance from us. But maybe we were getting on too many of her nerves because she flung the book on the table for grand effect and glared at us. She suddenly took off her specs when she realized that glaring through her specs gave her an appearance more comical than intimidating. Some of us tried to suppress giggles.

“Why are you doing this?”She asked, clearly tired of our impertinence. “If you want to talk, get out of the class.”

But her voice lacked any conviction because she knew it as well as we did. No one was going to get out of the class to talk.

“It wouldn’t be fun then.” Debarun told me knowingly. I suspected it was because no one had the guts.

“Please don’t do this. Your constant talking is very disturbing for a teacher. Haven’t I told you enough times?”

She might have told us but we made it a point to forget such instructions within minutes of their being given. And so we were disturbing her again.

“If you don’t stop this I would have no other option but to tell Indrani aunty.” She said, hoping that maybe mentioning Indrani aunty would keep us in line.

For reference, Indrani aunty was our history teacher. She was lethal enough in that post but she was also our class teacher. It is my infallible belief that it was through a grave misunderstanding that Indrani aunty became a teacher instead of a detective. He eyes and ears were frighteningly sharp. Her cross-questioning techniques were even more so.

And our English aunty was right, well almost. That threat did lessen the noise considerably.

Our class contained a character that went by the name Anwesh. A comedian and entertainer by nature, we counted on his diversions at times like these.

And so, Anwesh, foreseeing a nasty outbreak of silence, livened it up a bit. He began to chatter excitedly not bothering to keep his voice down and then he screamed.

Aunty flinched visibly. Then her eyes narrowed.

She said “Anwesh! What was that?” now she was really mad.

Anwesh looked at her, his face the perfect imitation of an innocent child’s, “Aunty, he tried to murder me!” he exclaimed holding up a geometrical compass to lend credibility to his claim.

Aunty wasn’t impressed and her face hardened when most of the class began stifling their giggles.

“This is just too much. I am going to report this to Indrani aunty. Who else was involved with you?” she asked Anwesh.

Anwesh looked terrified.

He said, “We weren’t playing, aunty. Darpan just jumped at me with a compass!”

Darpan who had been, for so long, enjoying the scene like everyone else stood up abruptly, his face registering total surprise.

“Aunty, I-I-I didn’t do anything. He is lying.” he stammered accusingly.

Aunty was fast losing whatever control she had over her temper.

“I really didn’t do anything.” Darpan murmured again with an accusing sideways glance at Anwesh.

It seemed Aunty had reached her boiling point and was about to explode when-

TRING TRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRING!

The bell rang signaling the end of the class.

And our teacher was unceremoniously ousted from the classroom with hasty apologies and perfunctory promises of behaving ourselves.

A Day.

In the absence of any better topic I decided to write about my life. No, I don’t intend to start another pointless paragraph on how confused I am but instead I will describe a typical day in my life though I can’t promise that this would be any more interesting.
……………………………………

The sun was just up. I was walking along the bank of a river. The color of the river water was ocher. Suddenly I halted. I could hear the faint melody of someone singing. Then it happened.

All at once, the world around me began to change. Ominous grey war-clouds hung low in the sky and I could hear sporadic gunfire. Suddenly I saw a soldier materialize out of nowhere and throw a grenade towards me with frightening precision. It bounced on my head and dropped at my feet. As I looked at it, it began to beep. The beep steadily grew louder and then there was a flash.
I opened my eyes. I could still hear the beep. I looked around fascinated because it took me some time to realize I was in my own room. I could still hear the beep-beep. I looked up.
My mum was staring at me, eyes narrowed, holding an alarm clock right beside my ears.

“…..calling you for an hour and you don’t wake up till I practically stuff the alarm clock in your ears. You went to sleep at 11, right? Its 7 o clock!” she said, shocked.

“Aright now, lemme get up. I was tired…” I began groggily but she cut across me.

“On your table with Life Science within 5 minutes.”

……………………………………

The picture of he mosquito sucking something looked very interesting but that still did not explain why the picture was gradually getting bigger and bigger. Soon, all I could see was the face of the mosquito and then-
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!

“Rick!” my mum shouted. I was sleeping peacefully, with my head on the life science book.

“You are sleeping again?” She asked incredulously.

“Sleeping? No! I was thinking, mum.” I said defensively.

“Really? About what?”She asked raising her eyebrows.

“Well about how it feels-“

“But you are reading about mosquitoes.”

“About how it feels to be a mosquito, yes, sucking blood and all, you know, from a different perspective.” I invented wildly.

“I see, and why was your head on the book?”

“I was looking at the picture from up close…er…trying to count the number of hairs on the proboscis, its helps to determine if-“

I stopped seeing the look on mum’s face that gave an indication that something very unpleasant was about to happen.

“You need to know something” she said dangerously.

Moron that I am, I asked “what?”

“1> I came district first in Madhyamik.
2> I did honours in Physics.
3> I am YOUR mother.”

“Right” I said and said no more. Privately, I think my mother is working on modern techniques of intimidation while my dad is still a dinosaur.

……………………………………

“Rick dada, May I take this glass?” asked my brother pointing at the magnifying glass on my table.

“What? Yeah, sure, just don’t break it.”

“Okay.”

I was surprised to see that my 7 year old brother took my history book and went to the window. I thought maybe he was trying to have fun reading the long words.

I suddenly saw a thin column of smoke drifting across me eyes. I looked around and found the source of the smoke. My history book.

I snatched the book from him and looked at the two big holes where Subhas chandra’s glasses were supposed to be. He mistook the look on my face for amazement.

“We can make fire with a glass!” He said enthusiastically, believing I was about to extol him.

I looked at him.

……………………………………

I was stuck at a difficult problem. I began to think (honestly, this time I was thinking). I looked out of my window at the road trying to find a break. I didn’t know how or why but I entered into some kind of trance. Suddenly I saw a huge bird fly across from left to right. And then it flew from right to left. And then it screeched.

The bird was mum mum’s hand.

“What are you looking at?!” mum said hotly. “I waved twice but no reaction! Have you perfected the art of sleeping with your eyes open or what?”

“No mum, you see this problem…I was thinking about it.” I said trying to explain.

“I think there is something wrong with you, who were you looking at? Is there any girl outside?” she said trying to peek out of the window.

“No mum, don’t be stupid!” She always had a habit of jumping to conclusions and far fetched ones at that.

“There is nobody out side, I was just looking at the cats and dogs there.” I said.

“WHAT!?” asked my sister, horrified.

“You know very well what I mean!” I told her and she went away smirking.

Mum looked bemused but that didn’t prevent her from venting her anger.

……………………………………

Before leaving for office Mum looked at me solemnly.

“Rick, don’t waste the day just because your tests are finished. These are important times, ever minute is important-“

She couldn’t finish because I had rushed to my room to utilize that very minute.

“Rick! Come over here right now!” she said impatiently.

“Yes?” I asked innocently as if nothing had happened.

“You won’t play games in the P.C for more than two hours.”

“Right.” I said with the most serious expression I could muster.

“And you won’t go out for more than 2 hrs either.” She continued.

“Right!” I repeated.

“And why should I trust you?” She asked shrewdly.

“Mum” I said “how can I forget that you are the main reason I am here? Do you think I can disobey you?” I said.

She just stared at me before shaking her head.

That's how my day begins.