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- Story Listed as: Fiction For Teens
- Theme: Family & Friends
- Subject: Memory / Reminiscence
- Published: 11/14/2012
The Ex-Student
Born 1992, F, from Jeddah, Saudi ArabiaThe Ex-Student
The man beside her looked familiar. She felt like she knew him. But as the crowd in the bus jostled and grew hot, she tried to think about something else. There were plenty of distractions. For one, given the fact that she was in Mumbai, the heart of Bollywood, she could always stare at the movie posters, the actress usually frozen in a sultry dance step. Otherwise she could always do some serious people watching, but she decided to drop this because, for some unknown reason, she felt uncomfortable to think about the man. Yet, she turned towards him and concentrated her gaze on him.
He was in his late fifties, tall, lanky and olive skinned. His hair was black, with white streaks here and there. His eyes were well spaced and thick lashed, and she thought he must have been handsome in his youth.
She suddenly looked away from him as he looked up to meet her eyes. But as soon as he bent over to pick a book from his bag placed between his legs, she stared again. Then when he opened the book on his knees, she instantly knew who he was.
"Now, if anyone ever has a doubt regarding factorisation, just once, read page number thirteen in your textbook. There would be no more doubt."
She giggled at the memory, remembering his patient, cool face. She recalled one by one, all the memories of her middle school Math teacher.
He was a widower and sometimes, looking up from her algebra, she would marvel how sad he seemed. He looked tailor-made for a dust allergic librarian, silent as his books, or a romantic poet, but a mathematics teacher was the last guess anyone could make about him.
Oh, how they used to make fun of him, play tricks on him and laugh behind his back! He never laughed but smiled politely at everybody. Sometimes he would make silly mistakes on the blackboard, then apologise as he erased it out. He always gave in to the girls' demands of shortening his class, and usually ended up completing the syllabus a few days before the exams. They never had time for a proper revision, but then, his correction was always careless and lenient, and the middle school girls thrived on this fact to pass through the hardest of mathematics exam papers.
But she didn't remember him for this.
Long lustrous hair and soulful big eyes. A tall, lean frame draped in light silks. His daughter. They had been best friends and were inseparable. She recalled wistfully all the fun they had in middle school, wild and carefree...until his daughter went down with pneumonia. The doctors said it was a bit late...but they said that she had a good chance for recovery.
But it never happened. She could never forget the suddenness and the meaninglessness of it, the feeling of emptiness.
After that, his sad eyes seemed to recede even more. But, life went on for all the girls. They graduated high school and moved on, found jobs and married, had kids of their own. Sometimes, the girls would bump into each other, in inconspicuous places like supermarkets or local fairs, and would greet each other with a mixture of surprise and curiosity. Some would be with little kids, some would be with their spouses, some expecting, others still unmarried and philosophic. They would have contacted through facebook. They would notice each other's wrinkles and obesity, meet their spouses and kids, and marvel at the time.
Now, after almost 25 years, sitting beside him, with a dirty city bus aisle between them, she thought about him with less amusement and more sympathy.
She remembered, in her twelfth grade four years after they all had outgrown his amusing math classes, and after many serious mathematics teachers and many no-joke and very tough mathematics question papers, they went to sit for their final school exams and glanced up at their familiar old invigilator.
She remembered precisely, how they had all flocked into the examination hall and taken their places. Then as their old mathematics teacher distributed answer sheets, everyone glanced up and greeted him before writing their names thoughtfully on their papers. Many of them were his old students, who had played pranks and tricks on him, who had taken advantage of his leniency, just to get a few more marks on the paper or to just shorten the class by a few minutes.
Now they all knew. And all of them felt sorry for him, and spared a few seconds to nod at him in sympathy.
All those years later, looking at him right then, she knew that he had not abandoned his teaching profession. The book was a twelfth grade mathematics guide, and his eyes were busy following a complex looking graph.
Almost 17 years earlier, when she had held her newborn, she had been attacked by a powerful surge of middle school nostalgia. Now, in the noisy bus, she mustered her courage and said, "Mr. Rao?"
He looked up sharply, his expression not showing any signs of recognition. She breathed in, then said, "I'm an old student of yours."
Pages fluttered in a hot wind blowing from the window. He blinked his eyes. "I am afraid I do not remember."
"I was from 1986 batch of twelfth graders from St. Luke Girls School."
His eyebrows wrinkled in a frown and he looked down at the graph. "Oh, I do not work there anymore."
She felt a pang of a strange emotion. "You taught me in middle school."
He looked at her for a while. "I do not even seem to remember any student."
She knew he was lying. "I am sorry about your daughter."
There was a pause in their conversation, and it was filled with honks, yells and the grunts of the engine. Then he spoke, looking away. "I do not need any sympathy." His voice was not soft. It was crisp and determined. He had changed. "In fact, all my new students think I never had any kids." He had an ironic smile, but his eyes were sad. "What is left of me now anyways?"
"Where do you work now?" she asked.
"Future Generation High School."
She swallowed, her tummy knotted in excitement. The school where her daughter studied. "And you teach...?"
"Twelfth grade. Clever students, better pay."
"Do you happen to know Jaya Kumari?"
Something flashed across his face. Anyone else would decipher the expression as recalling something. But she knew it was pain. Then his face was composed again.
"No." His answer was curt and short.
"Well, she is my daughter." She pursed her lips in disappointment. Her daughter was a topper, a gold medalist in the Math State Competitions. He was pretending.
The bus halted. She stood up and looked down at him. "I was your daughter's best friend. You must surely remember me..."
"Excuse me," he said, looking agitated. "I do not want this conversation. Someday, you'll see that it is easier to bury the past." He said, and went back to his graph.
"Her loss was hard on me too," she continued, unperturbed. "I named my daughter after her."
The Ex-Student(Tahameem Sultana)
The Ex-Student
The man beside her looked familiar. She felt like she knew him. But as the crowd in the bus jostled and grew hot, she tried to think about something else. There were plenty of distractions. For one, given the fact that she was in Mumbai, the heart of Bollywood, she could always stare at the movie posters, the actress usually frozen in a sultry dance step. Otherwise she could always do some serious people watching, but she decided to drop this because, for some unknown reason, she felt uncomfortable to think about the man. Yet, she turned towards him and concentrated her gaze on him.
He was in his late fifties, tall, lanky and olive skinned. His hair was black, with white streaks here and there. His eyes were well spaced and thick lashed, and she thought he must have been handsome in his youth.
She suddenly looked away from him as he looked up to meet her eyes. But as soon as he bent over to pick a book from his bag placed between his legs, she stared again. Then when he opened the book on his knees, she instantly knew who he was.
"Now, if anyone ever has a doubt regarding factorisation, just once, read page number thirteen in your textbook. There would be no more doubt."
She giggled at the memory, remembering his patient, cool face. She recalled one by one, all the memories of her middle school Math teacher.
He was a widower and sometimes, looking up from her algebra, she would marvel how sad he seemed. He looked tailor-made for a dust allergic librarian, silent as his books, or a romantic poet, but a mathematics teacher was the last guess anyone could make about him.
Oh, how they used to make fun of him, play tricks on him and laugh behind his back! He never laughed but smiled politely at everybody. Sometimes he would make silly mistakes on the blackboard, then apologise as he erased it out. He always gave in to the girls' demands of shortening his class, and usually ended up completing the syllabus a few days before the exams. They never had time for a proper revision, but then, his correction was always careless and lenient, and the middle school girls thrived on this fact to pass through the hardest of mathematics exam papers.
But she didn't remember him for this.
Long lustrous hair and soulful big eyes. A tall, lean frame draped in light silks. His daughter. They had been best friends and were inseparable. She recalled wistfully all the fun they had in middle school, wild and carefree...until his daughter went down with pneumonia. The doctors said it was a bit late...but they said that she had a good chance for recovery.
But it never happened. She could never forget the suddenness and the meaninglessness of it, the feeling of emptiness.
After that, his sad eyes seemed to recede even more. But, life went on for all the girls. They graduated high school and moved on, found jobs and married, had kids of their own. Sometimes, the girls would bump into each other, in inconspicuous places like supermarkets or local fairs, and would greet each other with a mixture of surprise and curiosity. Some would be with little kids, some would be with their spouses, some expecting, others still unmarried and philosophic. They would have contacted through facebook. They would notice each other's wrinkles and obesity, meet their spouses and kids, and marvel at the time.
Now, after almost 25 years, sitting beside him, with a dirty city bus aisle between them, she thought about him with less amusement and more sympathy.
She remembered, in her twelfth grade four years after they all had outgrown his amusing math classes, and after many serious mathematics teachers and many no-joke and very tough mathematics question papers, they went to sit for their final school exams and glanced up at their familiar old invigilator.
She remembered precisely, how they had all flocked into the examination hall and taken their places. Then as their old mathematics teacher distributed answer sheets, everyone glanced up and greeted him before writing their names thoughtfully on their papers. Many of them were his old students, who had played pranks and tricks on him, who had taken advantage of his leniency, just to get a few more marks on the paper or to just shorten the class by a few minutes.
Now they all knew. And all of them felt sorry for him, and spared a few seconds to nod at him in sympathy.
All those years later, looking at him right then, she knew that he had not abandoned his teaching profession. The book was a twelfth grade mathematics guide, and his eyes were busy following a complex looking graph.
Almost 17 years earlier, when she had held her newborn, she had been attacked by a powerful surge of middle school nostalgia. Now, in the noisy bus, she mustered her courage and said, "Mr. Rao?"
He looked up sharply, his expression not showing any signs of recognition. She breathed in, then said, "I'm an old student of yours."
Pages fluttered in a hot wind blowing from the window. He blinked his eyes. "I am afraid I do not remember."
"I was from 1986 batch of twelfth graders from St. Luke Girls School."
His eyebrows wrinkled in a frown and he looked down at the graph. "Oh, I do not work there anymore."
She felt a pang of a strange emotion. "You taught me in middle school."
He looked at her for a while. "I do not even seem to remember any student."
She knew he was lying. "I am sorry about your daughter."
There was a pause in their conversation, and it was filled with honks, yells and the grunts of the engine. Then he spoke, looking away. "I do not need any sympathy." His voice was not soft. It was crisp and determined. He had changed. "In fact, all my new students think I never had any kids." He had an ironic smile, but his eyes were sad. "What is left of me now anyways?"
"Where do you work now?" she asked.
"Future Generation High School."
She swallowed, her tummy knotted in excitement. The school where her daughter studied. "And you teach...?"
"Twelfth grade. Clever students, better pay."
"Do you happen to know Jaya Kumari?"
Something flashed across his face. Anyone else would decipher the expression as recalling something. But she knew it was pain. Then his face was composed again.
"No." His answer was curt and short.
"Well, she is my daughter." She pursed her lips in disappointment. Her daughter was a topper, a gold medalist in the Math State Competitions. He was pretending.
The bus halted. She stood up and looked down at him. "I was your daughter's best friend. You must surely remember me..."
"Excuse me," he said, looking agitated. "I do not want this conversation. Someday, you'll see that it is easier to bury the past." He said, and went back to his graph.
"Her loss was hard on me too," she continued, unperturbed. "I named my daughter after her."
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JD
06/08/2019Outstanding character portrait, Tahameem. I felt empathy for the old teacher who was still suffering the loss of his daughter so much that he could not even acknowledge the pain so many years later. I would like to have been there to see the expression on his face when he was told that his daughter meant so much to her friend that she later named her own daughter after her. I suppose he would have again tried to hide his emotion, but somehow I want to believe it would have softened him and he would have acknowledged the honor given and the deep sentiment behind it. But of course, you left this 'reaction' and what might have followed to the imagination of the reader. It definitely left me guessing and wondering about what came next, so well done. Thank you for sharing this powerful and emotional story on Storystar.
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