The Teacher

The foreigners have come from a land where all people are beautiful. They have blue eyes so deep, like the ocean and golden hair, so soft you cannot help but want to stroke it. Our teacher is one of them, but now, she has lived away from her home for so many years, that she says she is "Indian". She tells us about great thinkers who spoke out for "Liberty, Equality and Fraternity". Then, she begins to talk about the struggle, our "fight" for freedom. She tells us that we should not need to fight for it because it is a human right. She supports the moderates.

Big words, our teacher speaks out from our textbooks. We do not understand most of them, but her expressions tell a story of their own. “What is that?”, asks a young boy, “What is freedom?”. Our teacher does not answer him, but instead looks away with a lost look in her eyes, as if cherishing her own thoughts as a hint of a smile comes over her pretty face. Then she tells us that the imperialists will take the loot, convert all of us to Christianity by force and like lambs we will comply, because we must remember our place in society. She begins to cry as she shakes her head and tells us “Our battle is far from over”.
Maya offers her a handkerchief, but she shuns it. “Do you know that because you have bought their foreign cloth, your father is out of work? You should be ashamed of yourself.” She tells us to be proud of our countrymen, of our heritage and of what is rightfully ours. She tells us that the days ahead will be full of misery and despair and that through it all, we must be strong for each other and carry hope within our hearts because without hope, there is nothing.

Ravi’s father pulled him out of school to work in the fields. “It is useless nonsense” he muttered, when Ravi asked him what freedom was”. “Is that what you are learning in this English medium school of yours? In that case, you might as well make yourself useful and learn a trade that will get you on in the world. There is a new factory coming up a few kilometers away and they will certainly be able to exploit your nimble hands over there and earn us a few rupees. And keep your smart mouth shut and don’t ask silly questions like this to your bosses, else you’ll be turned out like all the rest of them fools”
Lucky fell terribly ill, there was no money to go to a doctor or to buy medicines for his illness and so he stayed at home, everyday growing weaker and more lifeless. Some of the boys would escape from the pressures of home and on the pretext of going to school, jump into the lake or make mischief with the other lads, sometimes stealing sweets from the grocery store, to satisfy their cravings.

And this is how, one by one, so many children left the school that by the end of the year, we were just four of us left on those dusty benches.
My teacher asked me to promise her that I would become a teacher when I grew up. She was going away, to live in another colony where her husband had been posted. She gave me her old diary, which had a few unused pages left in it and she told me to practice my maths in that. “I want to become just like you”, I told her one day. And she told me to study well and make her proud. I promised her that I would.