Before & After The Exams

We're still at the before stage right now. Last night, after our visit to the doctors, I got a new set of crayons, a new set of Stabilo pencils (yes, the ones you can throw from the window and they won't break when they crash land....no we haven't tried that yet), new eraser, new pencils out for Aneesha.

"Why are you being so kind?" pat came the question.

Don't get her wrong. I'm known for my kindness, at least at home, though the spirit wanes when the exams loom.

"Oh, I just don't want to be like Swami's Dad," I replied.

"Swami, who's Swami?"

Sensing this as the perfect opportunity to induct my twosome into the world of Malgudi and take them far far away from 'The Gingerbread Man', 'Alice in Wonderland', I read out these parts much to the delight of my kids.

This part is from 'Before the Examination'.....
"Two days before his examination he sat down to draw up a list of his needs. On a piece of paper he wrote:

Unruled white paper 20 sheets
Nibs 6
Ink 2 bottles
Clips
Pins"

Swami subsequently frets over it, reworks it before finally mustering the courage to present it to his father who remains busy in his office. Expectedly when he comes face to face with his father, almost everything else fails. He wishes the list could disappear. It's too late:

"What is that paper in your hand?
'Nothing, Father,' Swaminathan answered, thrusting the paper into his pocket.
'What is that?' Father shouted, snatching the list. Reading it with a terrific scowl, he went back to his chair. 'What is this thing?'
Swaminathan had to cough twice to find his voice.
'It is - my - examination list.'
'What examination list?'
'My examinations begin the day after tomorrow, you know.'
'And yet you are wandering about the house like an unleashed donkey! What preposterous list is this? Do you think rupees, annas and paisas drop from the sky?'
Swaminathan did not think so, but something nearly so."

Attempt reading this when you are close to breaking point, you'll find there has never been a better stress buster. In fact, you can get your child to be Swami (trust me they'll love playing him, some parts of the personality will in fact emerge naturally) and take turns reading the lines, you'll be surprised by the intense merriment that ensues.

Now for the part after the exams from 'School Breaks Up':
"With dry lips, parched throat, and ink-stained fingers, and exhaustion on one side and exaltation on the other, Swaminathan strode out of the examination hall on the last day.

Standing in the veranda, he turned back and looked into the hall and felt slightly uneasy. He would have felt more comfortable if all the boys had given their papers as he had done, twenty minutes before time......

Swaminathan suddenly wished that he had not come out so soon....."

And so the story unfolds. Now, it's time for you to go get the book. A treasure trove if ever there was one.

Swami & Friends

The exams are upon us. These are moments when I'm at my antsy best. It takes very little to get me to snap. The slightest excuse can have my temper reach fever pitch. As a rule I never hit my kids - forget the cane - so I have to do a lot of walking around to restore a semblance of balance in my system and to prevent my pounding heart from popping out of mortal body.

Things have been different this time round. Yes, Aneesha has improved. She reads a lot faster, focuses on her work and at least before her pencil hits the paper, she is always going for A - "easy, peasy," is her preferred turn of phrase. Yes, a lot has changed since she entered a 'real school.' Exam after exam, where grades have vacillated violently between C and A have taught me that at the end of the day it's not the paper grades rather the brilliance from within that matters.


Helping me with this philosophical take is this timeless R.K.Narayan classic. Swami & Friends, which was first published in 1935 by Hamish Hamilton has gone into several re-prints since. I have a copy of it in my Nani's home in India, left in the hope of setting that library if and when we do return to our shores. The copy that I am reading now was picked up at the Vijitha Yapa Bookstore in Colombo and guess what it's the 37th edition. Such is the charm of the book.

The story is as simple as it comes. 10-year old Swaminathan (Swami) is a student of Albert Mission School whose life changes when the smart Rajam enters the school. "He (Rajam) was a new-comer....He spoke very good English, exactly like a European; which meant that few in the school could make out what he said."

I'm not going to read too much into that, it's already been done by many others. Let me stick to the key characters. Swami also has four other friends - the mighty Good-for-Nothing, Mani, the brilliant Sankar, the Monitor Somu and Samuel, the 'Pea' who had nothing outstanding about him.

When Swami decides to befriend Rajam, this tightly knit circle of friendship threatens to break away. They survive that test, but it is the tests that remain an imposition of the education system that break them.

As I revise Sabki Surahi and other lessons and the test sheets of the various Hindi books that a 7-year old and their parents have to grapple with, I wonder how much has changed since 1935 when Narayan first published this classic?

Children remain children, doing everything in their power to escape the drudgery of homework for the charms of the playground. I was like that once. They re-visit their course books only when threatened with the gravest of threats. In my days, my mother's rose cane was enough of a deterrent, these days, it's more likely to be "no tv, no playstation."

The pressures of the system remain, parents being parents want the Swamis to keep up with the Rajams. It's a tough job, as Narayan showed us, but someone's got to do it.