The Boy Who Dreamed in the Classroom

 The Boy Who Dreamed in the Classroom

I did not like school much till the sixth standard.

When I look back at my early school days now, I sometimes wonder how little I understood about the importance of education. From Standard 1 to Standard 5, I was just an ordinary boy—neither particularly brilliant nor particularly poor in studies. I was one among twenty or thirty students sitting on wooden benches, listening to the teacher, or at least pretending to listen.

The teacher would stand in front of the class and continue with the lesson. But my mind would often be somewhere else.

I would sit quietly for some time, look at the blackboard, listen to a few sentences, and then slowly drift away into my own world. I had a very active imagination, and once I entered that world, it was difficult for the teacher's voice to bring me back.

I don't remember any teacher in those early years giving us a motivating lecture about why we should study, what education could do for us, or what kind of future we could build through learning. Perhaps such things were not considered necessary in those days. A teacher's responsibility, as we understood it, was simply to teach the prescribed lesson, and a student's responsibility was to sit quietly and reproduce it in the examination.

So the teacher would go on teaching his lesson, and I would go on wandering in my imagination.

And where did my imagination take me?

Almost always to our family garden.

It was not an ordinary garden. It spread over more than five acres of land and was one of the most fascinating places in my childhood world. For me, it was not merely a piece of agricultural land. It was a universe of its own—a place where I felt free, curious and completely at home.

The garden had a long family history attached to it. It had been founded by my real grandfather's cousin, a very strict, disciplined and principled man. Because my real grandfather had passed away at a very young age, this gentleman took upon himself the responsibility of bringing up my father, my uncle—whom we lovingly called Chachaji—and my cousin Tauji.

He was a man of strong principles. His personality must have left a deep impression on the family, although as a child I understood little of the history and sacrifices behind it. What I knew was simply that our family had this vast garden, and that it was a place full of life.

Perhaps that is why, whenever I became bored in the classroom, my mind naturally travelled there.

I could imagine the trees, the open space, the familiar surroundings and the activities associated with the garden. The classroom had four walls; my imagination had no walls at all.

For my lack of attention in class, I must have received physical punishment many times. But physical punishment was a very common practice in schools in those days. Nobody made much of it. Parents generally accepted it as a normal part of education, and children simply learned to live with it.

Today, when I think about it, I realise that fear can make a child obedient for a moment, but it does not necessarily make him interested in learning.

My primary school days, therefore, were mostly days of fun, distraction and imagination. I must have done some schoolwork here and there. I must have learned my lessons well enough to move from one class to another. But studying was certainly not my passion.

My real interest was singing.

And, fortunately, somebody noticed it.

There was a young and affectionate teacher in our school who had a different way of looking at children. One day, he announced in our class:

"Who wants to participate in singing?"

I immediately raised my hand.

I don't remember thinking much about it. I simply liked singing, and the opportunity sounded exciting. The teacher asked me to sing something. I sang for him, and apparently, he liked what he heard.

That small moment became an important turning point in my childhood.

The teacher selected a small group of singers from Standards Four and Five. He began training us for a Qawwali—a form of chorus singing in which different voices come together in rhythm and harmony.

For a boy who was usually lost in his own thoughts during lessons, this was something completely different. Here, I had a reason to pay attention. I had something to practise. Someone believed that I could do it.

The teacher patiently taught us the Qawwali and prepared us for a competition. This was in the 1960s, when opportunities of this kind were not as common as they are today. Eventually, he took our little group to a state-level competition.

And something wonderful happened.

We won a prize.

For the first time, perhaps, I experienced the feeling that I could be good at something.

I may not have been the boy who always sat at the top of the class. I may not have been the most attentive student. But when I sang, I felt confident. Someone had discovered something in me that I myself had not fully recognised.

Looking back, I think that teacher did something much more important than merely teaching us a song. He gave us an opportunity to discover ourselves.

He showed me, perhaps without ever saying so explicitly, that every child has some ability waiting to be recognised.

But if singing gave me confidence, mathematics gave me fear.

I was particularly afraid of our Maths teacher.

He was known for using a stick on students who could not do well. In those days, the sight of a teacher holding a stick was enough to make an entire classroom silent.

I still remember one particular day as clearly as if it had happened yesterday.

The students who had made mistakes or could not perform well were made to stand in a line. One by one, they were called forward to receive their punishment.

The line moved at what seemed to me like a snail's pace.

I stood there watching each student ahead of me.

With every passing minute, my fear increased.

I probably had enough time to imagine every possible kind of pain that the stick could cause. By the time about ten minutes had passed, my turn finally came.

I walked forward reluctantly.

The teacher looked at me.

I knew what was coming.

I stretched out my hand.

That small gesture—holding out my hand to receive the stick—is something I have never forgotten.

But something unexpected happened.

Before the stick could even touch my hand, I began to weep.

I was not merely crying; I was frightened. The fear had become so intense that the punishment had already happened in my imagination before it happened in reality.

The teacher looked at me.

And then, surprisingly, he began to laugh.

Perhaps my frightened face amused him. Perhaps he realised that I was genuinely terrified.

Then he said something I could never have expected:

"I will spare you if you sing a song for me."

What could I do?

I was standing there trembling and crying, but I knew there was only one way out.

So I sang.

I sang for my Maths teacher while tears were still running down my face and my voice trembled with fear.

It must have been quite a strange performance—a little boy standing before a strict Maths teacher, crying and singing at the same time.

But that is one of the memories from my childhood that has remained with me.

Today, when I recall that incident, I smile.

The same boy who could not concentrate on a Maths lesson had somehow managed to escape punishment by singing a song.

Perhaps there was a message hidden in that little incident.

As children, we do not always know what our strengths are. Sometimes we struggle in one area because our minds are naturally drawn towards another. A child who appears inattentive, weak or ordinary may simply be waiting for someone to discover the right door through which his abilities can emerge.

In my case, that door was music.

My early school life was therefore a curious mixture of fear, fun, imagination and music. I was not yet the serious student I would later become. I did not understand the value of education in those early years. I had no grand ambition and no clear idea of what I wanted to become.

I was simply a village boy growing up in a family with its own history, spending his days between school, home, the vast family garden and the world of his imagination.

Then came Standard Six.

Something began to change.

I cannot say that there was one dramatic moment when I suddenly became a serious student. It was more gradual than that. Perhaps growing older changed my outlook. Perhaps new teachers and new subjects made a difference. Perhaps the experiences of the earlier years had slowly prepared me for what was to come.

Whatever the reason, the boy who once wandered in imagination while the teacher taught gradually began to understand that school could offer something more than lessons, examinations and punishment.

It could open doors.

And perhaps the first person who opened one of those doors for me was not a Maths teacher, but a young, affectionate teacher who simply asked a very ordinary question:

"Who wants to participate in singing?"

I raised my hand.

I had no idea then that such a small gesture would become one of the memorable moments of my childhood.