Ormakal
This article in The Hindu’s Open Ed brought back fond memories of a Utopia I lived in for thirteen years.
I was not brought up with a scientific temperament. Somehow, questioning the very basics of what I was studying never occurred to me. Given the constraint of a few formulae and a few neat, challenging practice problems, I found it pretty easy to score well in exams. The gratifying aspect of solving those problems was that most of them involved the cunning manipulation of a few variables here, applying basic laws to stupendous effect, and finally, the coup de grace - invoking the omnipotence of the Energy Conservation law or reductio ad absurdum.
For as long as I can remember, the only subjects I was any good at were eminently non-technical. English, Malayalam, History and Chemistry. Sure, the respective teachers influenced my attitude to the subjects heavily. I was very fortunate to have some of the best teachers handling those subjects.
The word Chemistry meant only one thing while I was in school - Prabhu sir. Now here was a man who got things done, and held absolute power over the entire class. He didn’t believe in mincing words, or half-assed teaching methods. The alien concept of reading a second (unprescribed) textbook (gasp!) was introduced to me for the first time in my life. He stood up to the entire parent community who gherao-ed him, crying foul in a PTA meeting (same issue) and subsequently made it a norm. He saw to it that every student gathered at least 5-10 “paayints” relevant to the chapter and read them in class. Dissenters were dealt with harshly, but they knew his actions were not unjustified. The most hilarious outcome of his class was that, during lunch breaks, the entire class would pore over the Chemistry section in the Library, and leave the rest of the place alone for all other periods.
I grew up to love Chemistry. Organic Chemistry was my forte. I passionately memorized all the reactions and processes, as getting them right gave me a huge high. ICSE Chemistry was mostly an exercise in retaining in memory all those trivia and kvlt esoteric processes.
English periods in the 11th were the times when I truly forgot myself and got transported to a higher mental plane, gently wafting on the immaculate words of the one and only DP. I still have all her lecture notes. She’d take a few seconds to compose her thoughts, and then begin to recite an extempore masterpiece of an expository essay. It would be sacrilege to confine her to a measly paragraph; only a separate blog post would do justice to her.
Sadly, both Prabhu sir and DP had to leave Loyola just as we were stepping into their exclusive scholastic dominions. In the normal course of events, they would have been our class teachers in the 11th and 12th.
I enjoyed History but detested Geography. Botticelli’s Venus in the chapter on the Renaissance could have been a reason, ;) but it was just a big storybook. One in which you had to read reasons and causes and effects, but I found it interesting. Geography was nothing but an endless parade of facts, calling for indiscriminate learning by rote.
Coming to Malayalam, a warm, beatific smile spreads across my face. Marar’s Bharathaparyadanam, Malayattoor’s Verukal, and Nalinakanthi were the prescribed texts in the 10th. With the exception of the third book, all others were an indescribable joy to read. With Ramesan sir’s summary of the books, most of the class scored well in the exam. And who can forget the vettila-chewing, mundu-clad Mammu and his quirks?
