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Wednesday, January 16, 2013

In my defense...


In my childhood I dreaded to say ‘I forgot’ to anyone.
 For one, I was enrolled into a Convent school where the nuns considered wearing nail polish as a severe crime. Forgetting to bring a book or an assignment was blown up into an act worthy to be reported at the nearest Police Station. When they distributed books for the academic year, they gave us two notebooks just for composition writing. One for English, and the other for second language, Malayalam in my case. So composition notebooks looked alike for everyone from first grade to the twelfth. Which also means that if you dint bring it, you cannot take another notebook and pretend like it is the composition book and save yourself a visit to the Principal’s room. Composition books were specially made to punish annoyingly forgetful students like me. However in a classroom of around 50 students there always were a couple of other miserable souls who were also brave enough to admit the same and followed me as the teacher escorted us to the Principal’s room.

Principal: ‘Hello Anita Jeyan. And others’.

(I am special you see)

Me: Good Morning Ma’am. *bowed head and held the ends of my skirt wide*

Principal, obviously not impressed by the show with the skirt, puts on a grim tone.

‘What did you do now?’

The teacher who escorted us to her room explained that according to the timetable one hour was assigned for composition writing and still we had not brought the composition book, with an expression as if she caught guns from our school bags. Principal started further interrogation.

 ‘How could you do this?’

‘I forgot, Ma’am’. I explained meekly.

‘How can you forget? Did you forget to comb your hair today? DID YOU?  DID YOU?

I touched my head to check if my hair is okay, because she seemed to have thought I dint comb it.

‘Anita!” she screamed. ‘I am trying to tell you, that if you dint forget to comb your hair, but forgot your book, then you should reset your priorities’

Ohh. That’s what she meant. Hair is okay only. For a second she scared me.Why cant people convey properly what they want to say and stop acting like Shakespeare? I can expect some sort of straight-forwardness from a Principal, no? Anyway. The frustrated Principal sent us back to class with instructions that composition for that day could be written in the rough note (which I had forgotten, but who cares) and copied in the composition from home. The next day she wanted to see these composition books first thing when she comes to her office. She had way too much free time .

Thats my past. I continue to dwell in amnesia. When hubby drives back from the mall, I remember the most important item which was the reason I sent him to the grocery in the first place. From his animosity to any explanation of forgetfulness, I usually keep mum. Or if he finds out, I am tempted to lie in highly animated tones like, ‘ Dint you buy that? Omg what were you thinking?’

My Mom writes a Things-to-buy list and sticks them on the refrigerator with a magnet. Papa notes them down in a tiny yellow pad, in a much smaller and illegible handwriting, so that even if someone pickpockets him, they don’t crack the code of what secret vegetables he is going to buy:-/

By the way, the Principal is nothing compared to how my parents react if I told them I forgot something.

What I am trying to say is, when I forget, I want to say that I forgot. If it is not taken gently, I will be tempted to lie. If you tempt me to lie, then you are answerable to God. ;-)

18 comments:

  1. "Ohh. That’s what she meant. Hair is okay only."
    "so that even if someone pickpockets him, they don’t crack the code of what secret vegetables he is going to buy" ROFL. Good one! :D

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  2. Anita,

    Good one. Laughed a lot. And the ending is so good - Heads I win, tails you lose.

    Take care

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  3. I always wanted you to study at Holy Angels ISC. You write because your Principal was harsh in not complying with composition writing. Please note. If at all I had done anything good in my life, it is that I could put both my daughters at HA ISC.It was an expensive affair when compared to state syllabus and even CBSE. Their Engineering degrees are only secondary. :( Who is not an engineer these days? But how many you find who passed XII ISC?
    Poor papa

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    1. Thanks for the gift of education papa. But I must say that ISC has little to do with it. You were not in ISC school but you have a better vocabulary than us who did go to that school.. :-) so it's not much about the syllabus.

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  4. Hilarious account Anita:-) and LOL on "someone pickpockets him, they don’t crack the code of what secret vegetables he is going to buy:-/ "

    We all were always so terrified in our school days. I used to triple check my bag to see that I have all my notebags so that i could be avoid the third degree treatment. Now when we think about those days, all those things seem so trivial!

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    1. Thanks ! Coming to think of it it's feels so trivial and funny now !

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  5. yes they are answerable to god and not us for lying .. lol :P

    i remember once when i was in school, teacher asked(for not submitting the homework), "did you forgot to take bath everyday?" (a common jargon) and immediately a comrade replied, "Leave the poor soul ma'm, he hasn't bathed since 2 days just to prove that he even forgets to take bath!!!"

    i hope it was funny !

    lol

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    1. haha yeah it was.. :D Unfortunately girls are not so light headed..they are more likely to be happy if a classmate is punished. :D

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  6. I can understand. . I also suffer from a very selective short term amnesia. . As in I tend to forget the small things which irritates my mother almost all the time because if she sends me to a shop to buy something she needs badly, she also tells me to buy some other stuff also. . I usually end up buying the non essential stuff while forgetting the thing she needs badly!

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  7. Well that was a good chuckle. Everyone forgets and the ones who get so angry about it??? Well....I guess it must suck to be them. Usually the one who is doing the forgetting seems to be the first to berate or punish self.. Others tyrants just never seem to measure up to self's criticism.

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    1. You are absolutely right Grayquill. Forgetting something is not a crime... People should be more patient and forgiving !

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  8. Your incident reminded me of one of my own.. but in college! I used to think of of my college as a school without uniform, which means everything remains strict but you have the freedom to wear what you like! One fine day, I misplaced my I-Card and I was made to stand near the entrance for like 2 hrs and then had to apologize in front of the principal! Discipline is good, but forcing discipline when you have crossed the age of 15 is bad!

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    1. Oh totally ! In college such punishments should be banned ... Cos no good can come out of it ! I have seen the same in my college as well... Your college was more like a school..mine was a jail..or more like a juvenile home !

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  9. I do that tooo....have a things to buy list stuck on the fridge and keep adding to it as and when I remember. I even remember to take it with me to the shop. But when I reach the shop and search for the list it's not there. This has happened so many times that its not funny anymore;-/.

    Ur composition book incident is funny....esp u lifting ur hand to chk ur hair bit;-D

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    1. hahaha it is funny to me, though :D LOL !


      And thanks for the laugh ;-)

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  10. Haha hilarious post! It's unbelievable how you can take up a casual theme or a one-liner story or event and just create magic with your narrative skills! :)

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