The Pupil's Prose

We moved to different cities thrice in the past 5 years over my frequent change of jobs.  Life was fairly stable before 5 years, when I decided to shake up the routines.  The decision made us to let go of some things that we were clinging to for years, for no reason but sentiment.  There was a long discussion between me and my wife over the books that I had kept for years.  My wife said that she didn’t see me reading any of the books over the past 12 years that we had been married, but agreed to carry the books with us.  She was not convinced, but she didn’t want an argument.  To avoid the acrimonious after effects, I condeded some old curricular books, which served no continued purpose.

After 5 years, and after coming a full circle (we came back to the same city in 5 years), I decided to do justice to the books.  The steel case in which the books were kept was dumped in a corner in the store, over which were stacked several boxes.  The boxes contained items that are sparsely used.  My wife had stacked them in their perceived order of usage.  After a lot of effort, I laid my hands on the steel chest, my eyes beaming in anticipation of the joy of seeing my collection.  I sat in front of the chest and opened it.  The steel case opened with a screech, and amidst a lot of dust laid my prized possessions.  On the top was the English prose book of my college, wearing a tatterdemalion cover.  It had somehow managed to remain in my possession.

I opened the book, reclined on the wall and stretched my legs.  The first essay was ‘University Days’ by James Thurber, a big-time humorist.  As I started reading, my mind slipped into yore, and into my college classroom, where Prof.Bosco taught us ‘University Days’.

Prof.Bosco was a stocky man.  He genuinely believed in his tutoring skills, but didn’t realise that his lack of finesse in manners didn’t make him particularly appealing to his students.  On that day, he walked in and sat ON his desk.  While with the left hand he tried to open the book, he parted his legs and scratched at his groin with the right.  He then lowered his glasses and stared at the students from over the frame.  Sitting wit legs parted wide, he said, “Today… University Days.  It's humour, and I assure, you will be in splits”.

We were almost at the end of the semester, and most of us were worried over our readiness for the ensuing exams.  We looked at anything in our books as more burden.

He started reading out of the book with animated moderations, intended to get us into the mood.

I passed all the other courses that I took at my university, but I could never pass botany. This was because all botany students had to spend several hours a week in a laboratory looking through a microscope at plant cells, and I could never see through a microscope. I never once saw a cell through a microscope. This used to enrage my instructor. He would wander around the laboratory pleased with the progress all the students were making in drawing the involved and, so I am told, interesting structure of flower cells, until he came to me. I would just be standing there.

“I can’t see anything,” I would say. He would begin patiently enough, explaining how anybody can see through a microscope, but he would always end up in a fury, claiming that I could too see through a microscope but just pretended that I couldn’t.

“It takes away from the beauty of flowers anyway,” I used to tell him.
“We are not concerned with beauty in this course,” he would say. “We are concerned solely with what I may call the mechanics of flowers.”

“Well,” I’d say, “I can’t see anything.”

Prof.Bosco paused and looked over his spectacles.  At least half the class was dozing, but we had learnt the art of hiding it from the teacher with masterly craft.  The rest looked up with grim faces and false attention.  The man looked confused.  He must have expected us to be enjoying the session, and at least smiling, particularly so as it was humour that he was reading out.  But the class must have looked pretty serious.  He however, continued unflinchingly.

 “Try it just once again,” he’d say, and I would put my eye to the microscope and see nothing at all, except now and again, a nebulous milky substance—a phenomenon of maladjustment. You were supposed to see a vivid, restless clockwork of sharply defined plant cells.
“I see what looks like a lot of milk”, I would tell him.

At this, Prof.Bosco broke into loud, hideous laughter.  Those of us who were half asleep jolted into awakening.  His laughter was the only sound in the class for a few seconds.  The class gave a strikingly quick response to the situation.  We all laughed along with him for the next few seconds.  Laughing, he looked at the class over his spectacle, and slowly, his laugh trickled to a grin, and stopped at an empty puzzled look.  We must have looked unmistakably artificial.  The class then went into rapt attention.

Through the rest of the lesson, he was noticeably uninterested.  He completed the lesson though, with the detachment of an ascetic.  He must have been used to it over the years.

When I came to, there was a smile on my lips.  I realised how much I missed those days.  I adjusted my recline, and went through the rest of 'University Days'.  It was indeed, very comical.  I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.

But why didn’t I enjoy it in the class?  And that, despite Prof.Bosco’s heroics?  Perhaps, even hilarious comedy, if it is curriculum, is prose to the pupil.

Almost always, the way elders see things and the way youngsters see things appear counter to each other.  What I enjoy today, I didn’t enjoy when I was young.  My pursuits were different as a youngster.

Later that day, I went through my entire English prose book.  It was a legendary collection of essays, often very thought provoking.  I thought for a moment that the educators had painstakingly picked classic essays with foresight, to mould a generation.  But what I read and enjoy today with the weight of my age and experience over me, will it appeal to a lighter youngster?

Well, I should leave this problem to the educators to inquire, for I have enough of my own.