Chapter 5: In Prasanna’s School
Prasanna, the teacher, had his school inside the premises of his house, next to his grocery shop. The school couldn’t boast of any teaching equipment barring the stick, in which both the teacher and the guardians of the students had immense faith nevertheless. In fact, the guardians had granted Prasanna the permission to use the stick as much as he could, as long as their wards didn’t turn crippled or blind. He too used the stick often to compensate for the lack of other teaching tools, and only the eyes and legs of his pupils got spared in the process.
A couple of years had passed since the day Harihar took his son to the Kuthi, and it was winter yet again. One cold winter morning, in the month of Poush, Apu was lying on his bed, underneath a quilt, and waiting for it to get warmer outside. But his mother came and said, ‘Come on, Apu, get up. You’ll go to the school today. Lots of new books will be brought for you, and a slate too. Once you freshen up, your dad will take you there.’
Unable to believe his own ears, Apu opened his eyes and stared at his mother. In his mind, only the children who disobeyed their parents and fought with their siblings went to school. But since he wasn’t one of those, why did he have to go to school?
Apu didn’t get up for a while, but then when his father showed up, he couldn’t lie on his bed any further and had to get ready, despite being almost in tears the entire time due to the heartlessness of his mother. When Sarbajaya was packing his food, ruefully he said, ‘I’m not coming home again, please know that.’
`Ohh no, why won’t you come back home?’ said she endearingly. ‘If you study hard, some day they’ll offer you a job with a high salary, and you’ll have so much wealth!’ Then she turned towards Harihar, who was about to set off for the school with Apu, and said, ‘Please request the teacher not to scold my son.’
Once they reached school, Harihar said to Apu, ‘Alright, I’ll leave now. Once the lessons are over, I’ll come back again and take you home. Now, take a seat and work on your writing. Do listen to what your teacher says.’
After taking a seat, Apu looked behind and saw Harihar slowly disappearing as he took a turn on his way back home . Apu was at sea now. He took a seat a bit further away from the other pupils in the class and kept his face down for a long time. Then slowly he lifted his face up to find the teacher, seated at an elevation, weighing salt and selling it to customers. A few boys, who looked much older than Apu, were sitting on their own straw mats, spread out on the floor, and were swaying bizarrely as they read out something aloud — it didn’t sound pleasant though. Another child, who looked younger, was leaning against a pole and chewing palm leaves, without paying attention to anything else around. An older boy, with a mole on his cheek, had his eyes fixed at the elevation where the teacher was seated. In front of him, two other boys were taking turns and drawing crosses and circles on their slates, while keeping an eye on the teacher. Apu took out his own slate from his bag and started writing the alphabet on it, big and bold.
To Be Continued
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