To Madam With Love
“Tshering Namgyel,” a boy complained in between his sobs. “Madam, Tshering Namgyel is bullying me again.”
Tshering Namgyel! It all came back. Only previous day, another boy had brought a similar grievance against him. And he had been told time and again to b a good boy and not to be so mean and rude towards his fellow mates. But from verbal reprimands to corporal punishments to counseling, he refused to budge. In fact, teachers had no trouble with anybody except Tshering Namgyel, a pale, gray haired fellow of twelve.
He being unable to fabricate a single sensible line and being unable to complete a simple multiplication table of 3, was detained in the same class the previous year. And the probabilities were, he might have to repeat another year or so before he could be promoted to next grade.
It’s about 9 o’clock in the morning. Your spirit is high and plan ready. You have just started your lesson. Suddenly, a child appears at your classroom door. You know why he has come and you are not pleased. You gesture him to go back to his class. But the child persists, lurking at the door. You try to ignore him, but the damage is already done. You are distracted. “Alright, what is your problem?” You ask. “Tshering Namgyel is beating me,” he complains. Of all, this is the last thing you liked to hear. “Enough! Enough!” You try to suppress your displeasure. “I will come to your class. Now, go back.” Helpless, the child moves away. It is a part of every school and it isn’t urgent. Doing justice to your lesson plan remains aloft over such trifle matters. Thus, the situation plays itself in varying degrees in any classrooms across the country.
Miss Seldon, a graduate of TTC, steps forward to do justice not only to the child, but to the world of teaching-learning at large. “Something has to be done,” thought Seldon. “There must be a reason for his queer behavior. I shall find it and fix it.”
Later that day, she ventured to investigate. “Tshering what made you to have a row with your friends this morning?” She asked. Silence. “Why don’t you answer me,” she pushed on. “Yes, did they try to hurt you?”
“You may go home,” she said after a lengthy pause. “Tell your father to see me tomorrow.” The boy refused to talk. There was no point in asking him.
Without even nodding, he turned his back to her and walked out of the room. Other students didn’t do that. There was definitely something wrong somewhere.
The next morning a man of around forty-five visited her. “Can I do anything for you?” she asked. “Madam,” he replied, bowing low. “Did you send for me. Namgyel asked me to see you.”
“O, yes,” she faltered. “We need to talk about your child. Do you realize that Namgyel is quite different from his peers?”
“Has he created another trouble?” his father replied, eyes filled with fear. “No, nothing of that sort,” she said. “I just asked to see if you know about his state of affairs.”
“Yes, I do,” he answered, relieved. “I wonder why he was born to us at all. He has absolutely no brains and is of little help at home. Everyday, I get fresh insults from my neighbor. But they are all useless.”
“Sad story,” she slurred, crestfallen. “When did the problem crop up?” “Till the age of ten, he wasn’t as bad as he is now. He was our first child. We loved him dearly and he would reciprocate in whatever small ways he could. Ours was a joyous family then.”
“When did the problem crop up?”
“The problem actually began right from the day he was taken to Thimphu for what his uncle put it as better education. A year later, his mother died, leaving me alone to fend for myself. In my hectic schedule, I had almost forgotten his existence, when three years later, my brother brought him back. He said something cryptic: “It’s risky to nurture him in an urban area,” or “he’s not really happy with me there” or something like that. I did not understand then. And even now, it is hard to figure out what went wrong with my lovable child. Not a soul likes him.”
“Have you seen him doing these mischiefs?” Miss Seldon asked languidly.
“I haven’t,” he bristled. “But I believe he does. He is bad in studies; bad to his siblings; he is bad at everything. If ever he tries to show his better self, which he seldom does, it looks like the crudest of the crude detractor a sort of most wooden kind of labored regularity. Ironically, the better education in the urban area has only worsened his condition. Now I am in a fix. I have put him back to the school in the hope that he might improve. He hasn’t but I don’t blame anybody. Perhaps, it is his fate, or perhaps mine. I don’t know.” He ended with a heavy sigh.
“Some children are often thus,” Seldon quibbled nonchalantly. “But he will improve. I have seen children worst than him improve.”
“Then my child can improve too,” he exclaimed, overwhelmed with joy. “I do have a ray of hope.”
“of course, he will,” reassured Seldon. “The only condition is we will have to work together.” Commencing from next day, Seldon’s job of refining the ugly duckling started. As expected, it wasn’t an easy task. Whenever, she neared the boy, he either cocooned himself or remained deceivingly hostile. The process, then, required to be down-right natural, not propelled to gain his attention. The first few days were catastrophic. She almost felt as if she was not actually trying to get some golden apples out of a neem tree and wondered if she was expecting bit of too much from that street urchin.
“A teacher,” she had thought when she was doing her training in the TTC, Paro. “Go to the class, say a few things, give some homework and the job is wound up.”
But there she stood, face to face with the enigmatic problem she never dreamt in her wildest dreams.
“An opportunity to prove myself,” she reminded herself. “I am too young to retire and too mean to quit.”
As the days slipped by, her efforts did seem to have some effect on the problem child. He would now accept the small gifts his teacher brought to him every now and then. He would candidly ask for more picture books.
“Enjoy reading these books,” she would say. “And don’t forget to tell me the story.”
In one particular incident, he said that he liked the story of a poor boy, who was ostracized by the society for reasons oblivious to him.
“Madam, I feel very sorry for that poor boy,” he said calmly. “Because like me, he seems to suffer a great deal. But I like the story very much.”
Paradoxically enough, he also narrated another incident of how he disliked a story just because the pictures said all the good things in life, while in reality, none of its sort existed. “Madam, I don’t like this book,” he said rather dejected. “Because it’s all a pack of lies.” “Not really,” she responded with a forced smile. “Life is never black or white. It’s our thinking which makes it so.” The child only grinned in disbelief.
“Namgay has finally opened up,” she stuttered. “It’s my chance to discover the truth.” Can she win where others had lost? Only time could tell.
“Your father says you came from Thimphu,” she asked him casually. “When did you go there?”
“Two years ago,” he replied as a matter of fact.
“With whom did you stay?”
“With my uncle, Sangay.”
“He must have been very fond of you”
“Yes, he was and still is.”
“What made you leave him?”
“It was my aunt’s idea. Damn her! She is a real devil.”
“Well, well, that isn’t really pleasing to hear.”
“Or, may be she deserves to be called a witch, a hobgoblin, or something more sinister.”
“Namgay, I sympathize with you. But why do you have such dislikes for her?”
“Dislike! I hate her. She hated me from the day I arrived at her house. I didn’t mind then. But things soon became unbearable. Most often, I had to go to the school hungry. And I can’t imagine the huge hill of culinary utensils I had to clean at the end of the day. I used to recollect my happy days back home and used to cry. But shedding tears only enraged my aunt.”
“So, you did not feel like going to school?”
“Who would think of school when you didn’t have even a breakfast? Besides, boys used to ridicule me. They said I came from the forest and was too old to be with them.”
“What did you do next?”
“I used to skip classes and sneak into the movie hall.”
“Alone?”
“No, I had friends of my own who trudged on the same path of misery. We used to forget our troubles for a while in the movie hall…”
“Now, you are back home but I believe you aren’t as happy as you should be. Why don’t you like them? They may not be as bad as you think.”
“For the slightest mistake, they spank me. They say I am a fool. Worse still, they have picked up an ugly expression of calling me a ‘thief.’ I swear I haven’t stolen anything from anywhere still they called me ‘goondah‘. All the people are bad to me. So, I try to prove that. And being in bad books is something that I care for least.”
“I understand how you feel,” Miss Seldon comforted with a gentle pat on his shoulders. “You will not steal from now, because you are not a ‘goondah‘. You’ll not fail this year, because you’re not stupid. In fact, you can do far better than the rest, because I know you’re capable.”
Seldom knew that she had to remove the ingrained sense of failure by giving the child some kind of work in which he could quickly achieve a conspicuous improvement and feel a growth of personal triumph. It was important not to let him lose his heart.
She was quick to learn that her child was still being haunted by the ghosts of not so happy past. “What should matter is ‘Today’,” being firm, her voice was still soft. “Because, today is the only chance to redeem yourself. Because, today is the only time you can contribute something to the world at large. Because, it is only today, not yesterday, not tomorrow that you get the opportunity to take a pen and make the lines dance, or take a brush and make the colors sing. Yesterday is gone and tomorrow would, perhaps never come.”
“Madam, you make me see things in a very wonderful way,” he said, “I shall try my utmost to undo the wrongs I have done. I will definitely live for the better.”
Seven months later, true to his word, Tshering Namgay passed the exams with flying colours. Certainly he wasn’t a dullard, or a ‘goondah‘ or whatsoever in that matter. He was essentially a rational child with his own needs and priorities. And for his tremendous all round improvement, the school awarded him the ‘Student of the Year’ certificate.
Tshering Namgay realized that he did belong to the society and for the first time saw happiness dawning upon him.
“This incident is going to make an impact in my life,” he said candidly. “I shall leave no stones unturned on my way.” That was quite promising. His teacher smiled. She saw a chrysalis gradually turning into a beautiful butterfly.
The next morning, when she opened the door, she was surprised to see a card at her door step. On the card was inscribed: “To Madam With Love. Thank you for opening my eyes.” Sender’s name wasn’t given and it wasn’t necessary. The style of writing was too obvious. Tears of joy welled up in her eyes. She did win where others had lost. She proved to be a good teacher after all.
By: Dorji Wangchuk