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| Piyuh dressed as Araina Bose |
It has been four days since my only child stepped inside a
world full of strangers. We call it a school. An institution that has over the
years gained societal mandate for grooming a child to the needs of this ruthless world.
(Though, I have pushed myself to the point of obsession in looking for an
alternative to this norm, its failures roiling my already burdened conscience
for being unable to return her in full, the joy she has handed me since her
arrival).
This day, a Monday like any other, holds promise for me as it does in small measure a sense of foreboding. As I open the gates of the school swamped by the noon sun, my eyes rest on the still figure of a girl with her bag slung on her tender shoulders, the impish Winnie the Pooh on its front pocket smiling at me. The maid sees me first, a glimmer of recognition flashing in her eyes. She must have told Piyuh something for the next moment, the Pooh was gone and I was lost in a pair of big Bong eyes – one of those rare treats that she has borrowed from her mother – staring back at me.
And, then I steeled myself to face the moment of reckoning, the dropping of guard and the unmasking of a façade.
My child’s venture into a school hasn’t exactly been an Alice in wonderland episode. Far from excitement, she has been constantly traumatised by the separation from her known ones whenever she finds herself forced into a curious world of adults and unknown kids. The teachers pose they know everything about the kid and they can manage its ways. I loathe both the traits.
I am unable to fathom, how for once, they can or anybody else in this world know that my daughter cannot tolerate her feet perspiring in shoes. How can they ever understand that I call her Why Baby (In English), Kyon Baby (In Hindi) and Kano Baby (In Bengali) that recognises the many whys she bombards me with everyday encounter of something new and encourages her to flatten me out with more of why each day?
The other thing I have aversion to is the term manage. Far from the magic word that managing has come to be associated with, it admits a plea screaming about a botched-up situation bereft of resources that the circumstances warrant demanding a stop-gap arrangement to tide over the moment. What if the moment stretches into unending loop of habitual arrangement?
For sometime now, we have been grooming our daughter for school. I speak of a mental make-up fashioned to meet strangers and greet them with a hello or a good morning. Then, arrived the moment of truth.
On her first day to school, she was extremely chirpy during the journey to school regaling us with her cherubic laughter and her otherworldly talks that she engages in and surprises us in retaliation to our conversations that are hard for her to comprehend. But, the moment we landed at the school, she was a different person, a mouse caught in a trap. The feeling, as I look back, was mutual.
We were leaving her in care of an adult, whom we met for the first time. While our daughter was fighting for her freedom from the clutches of her teacher, the only thing that crossed our minds in that moment of helplessness was to tell more about our kid to her mentor so she could play mumma and baba to her. Then the maid dragged her away. I turned around and walked out of the school never looking back, ignoring her desperate cries that were driving a dagger through my cursing heart. My wife stayed put for sometime before following me out. She got into the car. I revived the engine to life. Her sobs were drowned in the beastly drone.
The first three days I returned for her, my daughter would rush towards me like a maniac on suicidal mission. Tears would stretch down her cheeks in deep rivulets as she would gasp in incoherence about the torture we subjected her to. Her tired eyes would have just one question: How could you? Every time I would come back for her she would be there by her teacher, standing, with her bag on her back and sipper in hand refusing to let go of them (In an unknown world, I now believe, these were the only things that she could relate to).
Today, as I steeled myself again for her guard to come down, she surprised me with a calm repose. She was not running towards me. Just walking languidly in easy strides. She wasn’t crying. Her eyes were riveted on me, but not watery. The rivulets on her cheeks that had become a part of her facial landscape had dried up, the eyes holding back the water that fed them. Yet, she had her bag on her shoulders refusing to let go of the emotional support the entire time she was in school. As I drove with her I was left wondering if she had truly matured or just managed the situation to our mutual benefit.
This day, a Monday like any other, holds promise for me as it does in small measure a sense of foreboding. As I open the gates of the school swamped by the noon sun, my eyes rest on the still figure of a girl with her bag slung on her tender shoulders, the impish Winnie the Pooh on its front pocket smiling at me. The maid sees me first, a glimmer of recognition flashing in her eyes. She must have told Piyuh something for the next moment, the Pooh was gone and I was lost in a pair of big Bong eyes – one of those rare treats that she has borrowed from her mother – staring back at me.
And, then I steeled myself to face the moment of reckoning, the dropping of guard and the unmasking of a façade.
My child’s venture into a school hasn’t exactly been an Alice in wonderland episode. Far from excitement, she has been constantly traumatised by the separation from her known ones whenever she finds herself forced into a curious world of adults and unknown kids. The teachers pose they know everything about the kid and they can manage its ways. I loathe both the traits.
I am unable to fathom, how for once, they can or anybody else in this world know that my daughter cannot tolerate her feet perspiring in shoes. How can they ever understand that I call her Why Baby (In English), Kyon Baby (In Hindi) and Kano Baby (In Bengali) that recognises the many whys she bombards me with everyday encounter of something new and encourages her to flatten me out with more of why each day?
The other thing I have aversion to is the term manage. Far from the magic word that managing has come to be associated with, it admits a plea screaming about a botched-up situation bereft of resources that the circumstances warrant demanding a stop-gap arrangement to tide over the moment. What if the moment stretches into unending loop of habitual arrangement?
For sometime now, we have been grooming our daughter for school. I speak of a mental make-up fashioned to meet strangers and greet them with a hello or a good morning. Then, arrived the moment of truth.
On her first day to school, she was extremely chirpy during the journey to school regaling us with her cherubic laughter and her otherworldly talks that she engages in and surprises us in retaliation to our conversations that are hard for her to comprehend. But, the moment we landed at the school, she was a different person, a mouse caught in a trap. The feeling, as I look back, was mutual.
We were leaving her in care of an adult, whom we met for the first time. While our daughter was fighting for her freedom from the clutches of her teacher, the only thing that crossed our minds in that moment of helplessness was to tell more about our kid to her mentor so she could play mumma and baba to her. Then the maid dragged her away. I turned around and walked out of the school never looking back, ignoring her desperate cries that were driving a dagger through my cursing heart. My wife stayed put for sometime before following me out. She got into the car. I revived the engine to life. Her sobs were drowned in the beastly drone.
The first three days I returned for her, my daughter would rush towards me like a maniac on suicidal mission. Tears would stretch down her cheeks in deep rivulets as she would gasp in incoherence about the torture we subjected her to. Her tired eyes would have just one question: How could you? Every time I would come back for her she would be there by her teacher, standing, with her bag on her back and sipper in hand refusing to let go of them (In an unknown world, I now believe, these were the only things that she could relate to).
Today, as I steeled myself again for her guard to come down, she surprised me with a calm repose. She was not running towards me. Just walking languidly in easy strides. She wasn’t crying. Her eyes were riveted on me, but not watery. The rivulets on her cheeks that had become a part of her facial landscape had dried up, the eyes holding back the water that fed them. Yet, she had her bag on her shoulders refusing to let go of the emotional support the entire time she was in school. As I drove with her I was left wondering if she had truly matured or just managed the situation to our mutual benefit.
