Innerdialects

Hard to say. Anne Mogi was Chemistry teacher. I hated the Subject, but Mogi had drama. She made the formula of Chlorine smell like a cleaned up river! And Math of Ms. Kini- I secretly felt she could terrify God, with her hatred for anyone who didn’t know what 2356855×78754 +4543÷993 was.

I got closer to God right thru’ Math. Kini also gave us Physics. I got even closer to God. He made Physics, yes but He was on my side. Always. We made our own Laws. The Law of Pain. It equalled nothing else, and raised my threshold of tolerance. It knew what Life held, it braced me with sacred courage in the face of discouragement. Sure I’d never be good enough for a world that eternally would crave success. Kini’s Math was my angel there.

With each Class, a new angel walked in, some with very dark wings. Mr.Shoyia, Dance teacher. He singled me out, I was shy and froze in headlights. I couldn’t dance to Hindi box office hits. I made an awful ‘heroine’. He singled me out, said I had something. Well, I did. I learned how to run, climb trees, the roof, get as far from him as I could. Following which I surpassed at other races, esp Hurdles.

So, and sure there was Minay Sherath, Bio teacher, she was my original Picasso. When Sherath drew a butterfly wing or metatarsal, you wanted to take that pencil and become her powerful fingers. She drew human cell, amoeba, ganglion, epithelium tissue – oooof, you stared, gagged, went home, got paper and drew till the stars came out. Sherath introduced me to the Arts.

And Majji Sen, of Dramatics, who raised Shakespeare, Tagore, and Saki from the dead, made them walk all over our little rehearsal room next to the mango tree: every moment, a motion picture, tracked with Sen’s emotion charged high tenor or bass wreaking words at us, as if we were guilty, or not – depending on the plot, we were audience, or accomplice, in murder, theft, love, hate, you just had to see it, you became it, you were victim, the offender, protoganist, villain changed or hopeless. Majji Sen made me love poetry, words, silences, pauses, entries, exits, dog eared scripts, made me want to write. I scribbled in the back page of Geometry and Language, wrote about class, distinction, rule, erasers, everything became words in movement with Majji S. around.

Did we include Coya Mani, Geography? Coya was the youngest, a brat, just out of his Masters. He raced in with a globe in his arms, curiously looking like the Statue of Liberty when he held up our planet and whispered, “Who wants to go around the world and know exactly where what is…?” He was crazy, lovable, and obsessed about neatness, which was a terrific attribute for any mentor here, this Class was not neat. We had one spilly dustbin, six noisy windows visited by sparrow and pigeon. My eleven classmates were all runaways from homes with OCD parents. They wore out their socks just running around shoeless. I learned fast to be one of the crowd or be left out. Our brat Geography Teachie took our socks to the back yard of school where the stone and wash happened, he smacked every sock till it was purged of error. When he brought back that washed laundry in aluminum bucket, we were sufficiently remorse. Coya Mani gave us the gift of Clean. He said travelers may be dusty, but it helps to try and smell nice.

I could go on. Am nostalgic yes, but here’s the thing. There could be no single favorite Subject. They each were/ are a piece of what made me arrive here, this time in space, rearing to reach higher, and rest in the predicament 🙂

Daily writing prompt

What was your favorite subject in school?

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