What are words, but expressions of the thought process strung together in different ways? Indraani, a 15-year-old, aspires to be an English teacher, and as we peep into her life on a beautiful morning we are shown a different perspective of this big, beautiful world of creation .
Indraani walked in with a spring in her step and a light in her heart. The smell of rain from the previous night hung over the surroundings, and the freshness was palpable. Walking barefoot on the path that led to the hostel kitchen, she enjoyed the peculiar chill that the bare earth possessed as opposed to the coldness of the mosaic flooring in her room.
It had rained the whole of the previous night and the thunder-claps were ominous. She loved to play in the rain, but the hostel warden would never allow the girls to venture out in the night, leave alone on a rainy night.
The girls had to cram for their half-yearly examinations. The rains had not deterred the hostellers from preparing for them. The school sent the girls home before the exams, giving them a vacation to help them focus and to do some intense studying to perform well in the exams — or so they say.
The girls loved this vacation. They preferred to study in the school rather than ‘waste’ time at home with their books. They enjoyed their time with their siblings, helping their mother with the chores and catching up with all the drama that would have happened in their respective homes.
This time, the rains had extended their spell and the holidays got extended. The girls were caught up in exam frenzy as soon as they reached Chennai and in just two days the city was caught in another storm. There was no power supply and the dinner conversations were competing with the consistent drumming of the rain on the roof and revolved around the plates of hot bajji,vada,bonda and tea, noodles, kaara kuzhambu , and the piping hot rasam served by the ammas on rainy days. The hostel paatti , Muthukumari, along with her women, whipped up tasty dishes in a jiffy, but the girls missed their own ammas’ cooking. Well, sometimes at least. Most of them were glad they were back from the study-vacation to be together with their sister-souls. They believed they were specially blessed, different from the ‘special’ way the world thought of them.
Reaching the hostel kitchen, Indraani was offered a plate of hot idlis and sambar. She dunked pieces of idlis in the hot sambar and finished this boring chore of having breakfast. She washed it down with a glass of milk and went back to her room. The clanging of plates, the clinking of spoons and the laughter faded, and she focussed on the present.
She picked up the exam pad, the pouch containing her favourite blue pen, a black pen to write headings, a ruler, a pencil, a sharpener and an eraser. Clipping the pouch to her examination pad, she made her way to the examination hall. She loved English literature. She wanted to teach English and tolerated the other subjects just enough to help her reach the place she aspired to see herself in. This year she felt her English text book had the most beautiful stories that showed how emotions made humans their puppets.
Actions are driven by the mind; the mind is driven by emotions. Indraani wondered at the fragility of the mind. The story of Jim and Della taught her the strong emotion of sacrifice incited by love. The story of Phatik showed how hope hanging on a single thread could make a person climb the fabled Jack’s beanstalk and how toxic delusion could be. The mirth of laughter escaped her lips when the lines ‘Makhan rose from Mother Earth, blind as fate and screaming like the Furies’ came to her mind. Tagore’s use of similes held her in raptures. She loved Tagore and R.K. Narayan and Ruskin Bond… their stories are so relatable. She never understood the obsession of her English teacher with English authors. Grades and dorms, ginger ale and maple syrup, ham and bacon sandwiches, chimneys and picket fences. She could only imagine them in words. Nothing more!
Finding her place in the examination hall, she sat patiently, her mind mentally rattling off lines from the poems she had studied: ‘If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew, to serve your turn long after they are gone...’
Indraani did not realise the inspiring words of Kipling were loud enough till she heard Anitha’s voice joining hers, ‘And so hold on when there is nothing in you…’. ‘Sorry, ma’am, I did not realise I was loud’, Indraani said. Anitha replied, ‘Hi Indraani! I heard there has been no power in these parts for the last two days. I can see you managed to prepare for the exam nevertheless’.
Indraani answered: ‘The dots and spaces in our Braille textbooks don’t fail us as your printed textbooks do in the dark, ma’am. Thank you, ma’am, for being my scribe today.’
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