Short Stories

TEACHER’S PLAY
Lata Jagtiani

Its Thursday today, the washing-the-hair day. And today is the last extra lecture that the class had begged her for. She had to look nice.
Who knows, Pratik might even bring a camera, he might even want a snap of hers to adorn his album. When she washed her hair her face looked lovely with the soft halo around it.
Louisa remembered Ravi’s reaction in the morning when, in a moment of candour, she had shared that thought with him.
“Really! How original! You think it forms a halo around your head!” Ravi’s guffaws had pierced her heart.
She really ought to have expected his derision. How could she expect the traditional macho man to compliment her or even agree with her? The previous night’s closeness had made her forget who he was underneath. You fool, she chided herself, now pay for forgetting the nature of the beast. Never push it to the back of your mind.

Right. Why waste time on regrets? Its Thursday, Louisa, wash your hair.

Soon her hair was washed. She looked pretty. All the confusion seemed to have been washed away with the grime in her hair. Her head felt much clearer.
Clarity is necessary today.
The students had been petulant: “Ma’am, please don’t cancel this class, let us meet at least once more.” Quite a few had been enthusiastic. They were keen to talk to her about subjects outside of journalism.
Gosh, she thought, almost pinching herself, I’m a success, what do you know!
“Okay” she acquiesced with modest reluctance.
In two hours she would be standing before them discussing-WHAT? She hadn’t the slightest idea but she felt her pulse quicken and face flush. In a way, she mused, blow-drying her hair, this is like saying goodbye forever. Students don’t keep in touch.

Vikramajit.

Their last meeting had been a couple of years after he had graduated. She had found him sitting on the steps of the Stuttgart Hall at Kala Ghoda.

She beamed brightly at him. He stood up slowly to greet her. Oh, she despaired, he’s forgotten my name while I, his teacher with a hundred students in each class, remember his. He was embarrassed, unable to introduce her to the girl by his side. He continued grinning, cheerfully indulging in small talk. In the end she escaped with an excuse. She turned to look back. He was holding the girl’s hand. She felt a lump in her throat. Teachers are so easily forgotten.
But that wasn’t it, not really. It was she that people forgot. Even her parents forgot that she loved books and instead got her a dress for her birthday. Nobody heard her silent scream: Its Sweety who likes dresses, I like books, remember you have two children, not one. Her classmates forgot to invite her to birthday parties and then apologised the next morning. And Vikramajit was just like them. She was just unremarkable.

She turned her head: nice, hair done! Replacing the hair-dryer in the dressing-table drawer, she thought, but this is an intelligent batch, they are diligent, enthusiastic and caring.
Especially Pratik.
It was Pratik who had given her his book of articles and poems to assess. He wanted to set the world on fire, he wanted to be a journalist par excellence. Once he announced to the whole class that she had been his best teacher ever. She had known his poem, “If I could turn the clock back” was about her. She had felt her cheeks burn as she read it and saw what he felt for her. For a few minutes she had been tongue-tied.
Pratik!
She saw the two of them at the seaside together, picking pebbles, sharing a coconut, watching the sun return to bed. But she had shaken herself out of that futile reverie. He was right, time was their enemy; early spring and late autumn never come together.

Pratik hadn’t bunked a single class of hers. It was he who had been the most vocal when requesting the extra class from her, it was he who said that he wanted to discuss life, love, forgiveness and failure and he added with a grin, but no journalism, Ma’am, no journalism!
What do I tell Pratik today?You want to know about life?
I have failed in life, Pratik.
You want my thought on love?
I have lost in love.
You want to know about forgiveness?I cannot forgive.
Failure?You are looking at one, Pratik.
You think I have the world at my feet that I have all the answers that I have gone beyond pain and that I have a heart as large as India.
And you are wrong about it all.
What am I?A wounded animal with very little strength.
Even my poems aren’t original I merely imitate Frost.
I am a humbug.
I say I love Shakespeare but when nobody’s looking I choose limericks. I ask you to abhor cynicism and trust others but I keep the doors to my heart tightly shut. I ask you to pray but often when I pray I find myself laughing!
What a joke it all is, I say to myself, there’s nobody in the crucifix.
When I squash a cockroach in broad daylight, I say it’s all chance and necessity.
Stupidity is never rewarded, intelligence is critical. If the cockroach remembered that darkness was his friend and light his enemy he’d still be alive. Instead he stupidly darted in the light, he chose his enemy.
Life and death are no more than accidents and what’s this thing called “the soul”?
It’s all indoctrination, brainwash, and hogwash.
Pratik, have I shocked your sensibilities and trust? No, don’t run yet, wait. Here’s more of me. Even when I know it’s all chance and necessity I continue to pray. As a disbeliever, I am not even sincere. I am loyal to nothing, no ideology. . I am an empty hypocrite.I am a mix, a maze, a shallow tank of water with the muddy layer at the bottom. A woman altogether too clever for her own good. So idealise me at your risk. For me you are no more than a name in the empty slot of my calendar.

You ask, why then do I talk about ethics in journalism. Because hiding behind the sages’ words I am safe and unchallenged. Big skirts hide one well. I am well-read but I have learnt nothing. I know all arguments, accept all conclusions because, at heart, I accept nothing.
And yet, Pratik, in the midst of all my humbug, I seek you, Pratik.

Because I get my kicks from teaching, I enjoy the hero-worship. You don’t know how intoxicating power is, how it helps to make one forget an empty life. I seem to be confident, strong and easily delighted. But the real me seeks obedience.

Forgiveness… no, I can never forgive. Do you think I can forgive Vikram for forgetting my name? The other day the editor of “The Prime Statesman” called me. In an application with the newspaper Vikram had put down my name (suddenly he remembered it!) for reference. I gave him a bad referral. You ask why. Its simple, Pratik.
I don’t like being forgotten.
But Ravi forgave me my dalliance with Vikram. Ravi has a big heart, you say? Fool, don’t mistake indifference for generosity. I’ve failed to make him pay attention to me… I am a failure.
Now the two of us, Pratik.
It must be God’s will. Otherwise why should you be attracted to me?
Here I am, married, middle-aged and there you are, young and romantic. Don’t fight it, Pratik, just give me a signal today and you can know me more. No marriage, no commitment just some temporary immortality. That’s all there is to life. Everything passes but there’s a chance that this might be meaningful and last. They say love gives meaning to life, perhaps we’ll have love.
Louisa, shut up! Of course you can’t tell the students this, they don’t want the plain, bitter truth. She must keep her mask on, must continue the act. She needed to quote generously from the Bible, from Tao, the Buddha, the Vedas and take her last false bow with the wisdom of the sages on her lips. She’d even throw in an occasional Ghalib, Kabir and Tulsidas. She wanted adoration today, not an awakening.
The show would go on.
As she entered the classroom she heard a gasp from some students. She was wearing her beautiful blue and rust silk saree. She wanted them to remember her.
“Morning, Ma’am!” they chorused.
“Morning, how are we today?”“You are looking beautiful today, Ma’am!”
“Thank you, it’s very kind of you!”“ Ma’am, Pratik isn’t coming today.”
Pratik wasn’t coming. Has he already forgotten?
“Why not?” her voice sounded casual. Careful, don’t let it show.
“Don’t know, he sent a note that he wasn’t coming.”
Forgotten.
And all this while she had rehearsed her lines for him, to bare her truth to him.



La plus ca change, la plus c’est la meme chose (the more things change the more they remain the same).
Another Vikram only on a smaller scale.
She smiled and spoke mechanically. Tao, Confucius, Tagore, Mahavir. Finally it was time, they gave their thank-you speeches and she looked at them with kindness. She smiled and they were enchanted.
Pratik has forgotten.
The bell rang, the class was finished, the last smile was bestowed and the last firm handshake, the autographs were done and so were the gushing farewells. As soon as she turned her back to the class her smile faded.
How dare he, she raged.
The lift was out of order. She started to descend the stairs.
Suddenly she heard her name being called.
“Louisa! The bitch, she did that to you!” It was unmistakably Pratik’s voice. He sounded shocked and angry.
“Why do you think I’d lie? Here listen to the recorded conversation between the editor and her.”There was silence as she pretending to rummage through her handbag. They were at the turn of the stairs and they couldn’t see her. “Vikram? Of course I know him, he is such a tiresome boy, no sense of responsibility and very little talent, about a teaspoon full, I’d say, in quantity. No more. Quite unmistakably mediocre if you ask me. I’m surprised that you are even considering him.”
“Are you sure it’s the same Vikram Pandey? He has very high scores.”
“Don’t believe them for a minute, he bribes the registrars and even the peons to leak the exam paper to him in advance. How much talent does one need after that?”
“I am so glad I checked with you first. Thanks.”
“My pleasure, any time, happy to be of help”.

Yes, it was the authentic recording. She was too shocked to move. She was still beyond their line of vision, at the turn of the stairs. Suddenly she heard some quick shuffling and saw both Pratik and Vikram before her. One had an angry and perplexed face while the other looked triumphant. Pratik looked away from her, hurt.
Vikram lifted his hand in a naval salute. He smiled.
“Remember me?”
Louisa nodded.
“You remember her, Pratik?”
Pratik did not answer.
“Pratik, this is Ms Louisa, she has the world at her feet. Is she the love of your life? Once she had chosen me. But she tires fast. Don’t take it personally, she wants only numbers, she wants to be remembered at any cost. But in actuality she is sad. She is nothing but an average human being with power she can’t handle. And that tape, the editor is my Dad’s friend, he made that call because I asked him to do it, I just wanted to see how low she could stoop. But when word got to me of your fondness for her I felt I must tell you…



“But, Ma’am, Pratik will succeed where I have failed because he hasn’t yet been touched by you, he is still pure. Me, I am too angry to make anything of my life, thanks to you. But I am glad I could save him from that!”
Louisa glanced at Pratik with concern, “Pratik, do you believe him or me?”
Pratik looked away and said in a broken voice, “Bye, Ma’am. We can’t turn the clock back.” He turned around and started going down the stairs. Vikram laughed and lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it.
“My love, he has already forgotten you!”
Louisa froze for a moment and then recovered herself. Her laughter was high-pitched but shaky. ‘No, dear Vikram, he never can. Like you he can never forget his first lesson in the adult world.”
“That’s true.” He stared into her laughing eyes and asked, “How about a drink for old time’s sake?”
She returned his gaze. The same smooth skin and the same seductive mustache.
She nodded.
Yes, a drink to the past, in the present. Some call this real love but how can one tell if it lifts you up or drags you down?
Poor Pratik, she thought, it isn’t for you to put the clock back. As they passed the canteen she saw Pratik seated staring hard at the bare wooden table before him.
By the time he starts to sip his tea it will be far too cold and far too salty. But he would certainly never forget her. His favourite teacher had delivered him his first unforgettable lesson.
Nobody gives a damn, not even teachers.