Teacher telling a story…

It was never a design-never calculated!  I had to do it; kids were on their knees-their hands clasped and they went on pleading.

“Please Sir!  Story! Story-” 

Class one kids-you just can’t do away with them.  Once they stick to their plan, they have to pull it out-you will hear desperation in their voice, their body language goes frantic and their eyes-it was all anxious.  It’s really funny to see those small kids feeling extremely distress at my call, “Nope! No more story-it’s a maths class!”  

Whining like those lost puppies, it was all mayhem. 

Sometimes- it is nice to see kids so resilient and so focused in their operation irrespective of the subject matter.  It is indeed a moment where you get to see their unity and their swift collaboration and ability to read the situation just to fit in for their yearning.

It’s was a late gloomy afternoon.  I zoomed in for our maths class.  Those dirt soiled boarder kids were buzzing and when I saw their eyes it was lighten and they were chuckling.  Instantaneously I read their minds-these kids want me to tell a story again!

I had an issue then but I couldn’t take this issue forward to them-they were little brats and of course I didn’t want that afternoon to turn into one big mighty mess.

I would hum and haw for some time knowingly that I have to give in just like I did last week.

I know that telling a story is no big deal but for this class one- narrating a story is like standing on the edge of the abyss; you can’t narrate the story that you know-no matter how interesting it might be.  In fact they will give some characters and you have to tell the story according to their instruction.

“Sir, tell us a ghost story and the ghost should have three eyes and the hero should be a little boy. No sir, tell us story of tiger called Panday –no Sir, about dragon-about handsome prince-about beautiful princess-about…..”    

 It’s all mayhem again and after some more arguments, we resolved the differences by voting.  However the general consensus is that the story should include all the masalas-bit of romance, bit of comedy, bit of horror and mind blowing thrilling experiences. And moreover,  you got to believe it-I have to include a song in the story.

 It has to be damn dramatic and you are one hell of standup comedian type!  I can’t simply sit and deliver-for them it’s too old fashion for them. They want spicy-action packed sort of stuff.

With a long deep sigh, I yell, “Okay then, here I start-"

I started the story like some back packer travelling and travelling –unsure of the destiny…

Amid my narration, I started to fumble…the conflict of story should be very direct with few incidents in the story.  Besides, I was wondering when to inject the song and I had no idea about the lyrics and the tune. I felt very sweaty-I had the pressure to maintain the flow…

Suddenly Beowulf struck me and I took few shots from there and incorporated in my story.

Piercing through the eyes of monster with steel sword, I yelled, “Ugyennnnnnnnnnnnnn!”

Kids were glued and I saw the time…I got roughly a minute to wrap up. I had stretch quite a long and now I was scrambling to assemble all the incidents back.

Finally I had to kill the monster because I saw Lopen Sonam walking for his class; it seems we all were so lost in our world of imagination that we hardly came by the school bell.

 I collected all my stuffs and I pompously I asked, “Hey! Liked it?”

“Nice Sir-But you forgot the song!” 

I looked at them teasingly and said, “Yea, I know, but the boy called Ugyen in the story doesn’t like singing.” the whole class burst out laughing.

 It was five years then-now- they must in class six-and today I wonder whether those smelly kids still have that kind of wild craving for the stories...