Back to School: The Arabic Classes

Courtesy: news.nick.com

Of all the teachers in school, the ones we maintained a lot of distance from were probably the Arabic teachers. Today, I understand that this was vice versa too, mainly because of the language barrier. Probably because of the same reason, Arabic teachers were looked up to with fear and reverence. Besides these emotions, memories around them were also fashion oriented. Among students, they were considered as teachers of class when it came to dressing up. The pearl studded abhayas, the tops, the skirts, the heels, the long and slim figures, and the flawless complexion, the light make up – they carried themselves amazingly well.

I personally loved my Arabic classes. The lessons were not more than a page or a page and a half and the grammar was easy. Above all, everything about the language was different. I am of the opinion that the Arabic alphabets are beautiful and artistic in nature and it felt unique writing something from right to left, rather than the other way round. When all the other classes demanded 200 page notebooks, Arabic classes demanded two notebooks, one a 400 page one for class work and homework and a 200 page one for dictations. I loved Arabic examinations too. The papers were quite a replica of your notebook. Sometimes the questions even came in the same order as it was in our notebook. Since I am also a fan of people who do things differently, I loved it when once; an Arabic teacher taught us how to sing ‘Sanahal wa yadami’ (forgive me if this is mondegreen) instead ‘Happy Birthday to you’. So, from that day on, all the birthday girls got two musical wishes! In fact, I was wishful that my birthday falls on a day when we had Arabic classes.

Most Arabic teachers were known for their punishments and prizes. While punishments were not unique to them, prizes definitely were! Many of our Arabic teachers declared surprise prizes for girls who scored the highest marks in the language in the final exams. I also remember once, when there were 5 of us who scored a full fifty on fifty and the teacher had just one story book to give out. Since she had already declared the gift, she couldn't alter that. So she took out four other items and kept them on the table, there were two fancy rulers and two timetable cards that looked awfully cute. She pulled out chits to give away the prizes. I do not know about the rest, but I kept my fingers crossed for either the ruler or the timetable card because a standard IV student would have read Hansel Gretel at least a few hundred times already. Destiny got me one of the timetable cards – a cartoon-studded one, which I preserved like a treasure for a very long time…

I have never got punished; at least not by Arabic teachers. This was definitely not because I was the perfect student; let’s say I was good at self help. Dictation tests used to keep happening once in two weeks or so. There was no set frequency for these. It was the teacher’s choice – at least that’s how we understood it. They used to let us know a day or two in advance and we came prepared. Prepared I always was, but there was something more that we needed to keep in mind when it came to Arabic dictation tests. Unlike other subjects, there was a dedicated book for dictation tests. I was, as most of you know, forgetful. As a result, the dictation book rarely made it to my school bag. When the teacher called out for students who had forgotten their dictation book, I used to keep rummaging my school bag wondering what to do. My self help pranks almost always won over Gandhian doctrines. The voice in my head whispered, “Any book would do since Arabic is written the other way round.” So, I used to give in to me inner call and turn around another 200 page notebook for the dictation test.

It was always a 10 on 10, but rarely on the right book. Yes, I used to religiously cut-paste these pages once I got back home…

There's another incident that I will never forget as long as I am in my right senses. This one’s more of a confession…

There was this teacher who had extraordinarily huge eyes. Today, I know that that was the effect of extremely thick glasses that she required. Back then, she held quite a scary reputation among students. "She's good but she can scold badly", was the general rumor. She wasn't our regular teacher. But that year (if I am not wrong, I believe this was in standard VIII), our gang decided to take up Arabic tuition, which was for one hour after school hours. Today, I don’t remember why we decided to go for tuition, but we did. Classes were good and as time passed I realized that for some reason unknown to me, she had taken a liking towards me. My peers considered me lucky. But, only I knew the truth. I definitely loved her too, however, that didn't stop me from being any less scared of her. My love for her reflected in my Arabic tuition book - they were extremely well kept.

But one day, forgetful that I was, I forgot to carry my Arabic tuition book. I was already scared what I would do, when she walked in and declared that she was ill and couldn't take class because of which she would correct our notebooks. We had to go to her in person one by one to get our notes corrected. (Gulp!) I felt like a rat in a trap, desperately trying to free itself. The envy of the peers, the extra liking she had for me, everything seemed to weigh far too much. I realized that I had no other choice but to go and confess. But the devil dressed up in self help reminded me of something my friend, N, who was one of her regular students, once told me. "You know what? Our Arabic teacher, that teacher who has those big eyes… she can’t see. She has big eyes because of big spectacles, but she can’t see." I believed those words superficially only because she was one of my closest friends. To this day, I can’t believe that I decided to take the risk pinning my hopes on her words.

I took another book, turned it around and scribbled all over the pages, making it look similar to Arabic. None of it was Arabic, it was no language; it was plain scribbles. I scribbled up until it was my turn. I decided that I would confess if she caught me. Till the time, I placed the book open in front of her, the voices in me debated. The devil won. I went with the lie. If the phrase, eyes popped out, can be literally true, mine should have popped out at that moment. She ticked off each page, continuously exclaiming what a good student I was!

Don’t ask me how she managed test papers or exam papers. May be the management knew and she was excused from such tasks. An array of maybes, oh my gods, thank gods slipped through my mind during those 5 minutes that I was standing next to her…

If you all do not believe this part of my post, I wouldn't be surprised. It took me a long time to gulp it myself. I remember having shared this incident only to N, because she knew that the teacher was low on vision. "I am sorry N, I didn't believe you completely when you told me. But it’s true – teacher can’t see”, I remember telling her. I have never bragged about this incident; never felt like it.

Dear Miss,

In my thoughts, I have always pictured coming to you in privacy to confess that I forgot my book that day. I am ashamed that I tricked you. My action was the outcome of a combination of cowardice and fears – fear of punishment; fear that I’d be a laughing stock, fear that I may lose the fondness you had for me.

My love for you grew into admiration after I realized that you are low on vision. Despite the handicap, you carried yourself so well. I still remember when you once walked in dressed up in all violet. What a beautiful skirt and top that was! Everything about you was beautiful except your eyes.

As an adult, I realize what a beautiful and powerful individual you were to carry on with life so boldly with those pair of eyes. They made you even more wonderful.

Thank you for the silent lesson I learnt from you and do forgive me.”

Missed any of the old posts of this series?
Read them now:

Back to School - the Biscuit, the Dance and the Sketches

Back to School – the Kindergartner, the Careless Child, the Morning Jogs and the Dear ol’ Bus

Back to School – the Early Morning Chorus, the Mighty Rains, the Creaky Cabins, and the Game of Hide and Seek

Back to School – the Early Morning Chorus, the Mighty Rains, the Creaky Cabins, and the Game of Hide and Seek

Courtesy: quotesinpaper.us

Like I promised, let's continue our journey back to those innocent days. Since we had stopped with the school bus yesterday, I thought I'll start with the early morning assembly, today. Have fun!

THE ASSEMBLY:

My mind's camera pictures multiple rows of us students, standing at one-arm distance on the concrete ground, facing our Principal, the teachers and two randomly-picked senior students - one, bestowed with the huge responsibility of leading the Morning Prayer (to guard our school, country of residence and country of origin) and School Pledge (a reminder of where we were and why we were there) and another to read out news highlights.

To think of it now, I am not sure why we had to repeat the Morning Prayer and the Pledge after anybody; everybody, including the dignitaries, knew them by heart. A rhythm-inducing technique, perhaps. I considered 8 a.m news reading a complete waste of time and energy. As far as I can remember, everything other than, ‘Honorary principal, Respected teachers and my dear friends. Today’s news!’ evaporated into thin air. 

All these are great memories; but the part that I enjoyed most during assembly-time was the part where we sang the National Anthems - the Jana Gana Mana (India's National Anthem) and the Aishibiladi (U.A.E's National Anthem) followed by the class disperse clap!

These were done with so much synchronization with no rehearsals or anybody in the lead – it was then, still is and will always be music to my ears.

THE CLASSROOMS:

The blackboard, the chalks, the duster, the notice board, the wooden chairs and tables with steel legs, the teachers, the lessons and all that mindless chatter – I loved my classroom.

P:
A:
T: 36

Everyday after she takes attendance, that’s the first thing each class teacher writes out on the blackboard - precisely speaking, on the top right corner of the board. P stood for no. of students present; A, for the no. of students absent and T was for total number of students. As a matter of practice, that was considered the non-erasable section of the blackboard. Every teacher entering the classroom instantly knew the strength of the class for the day.

There were two things that were great surprises – an absent teacher or a lot of absent students. An absent teacher was a boon that was granted once in a blue moon. It was an invited break, if there was no one available to do a proxy.

Lots of absent students was bumper lottery! And our gang would never miss any of them. Back then, the Dubai drains were not one bit ready for the rains. And weren't we glad about that! The roads and the school grounds got flooded. School buses would ply but parents would worry about children falling ill.

The P on the blackboard would definitely score only a 10 or less. Now that I know the funda behind taking leaves and salaries, I understand why teachers ended up coming to work on those days. Words cannot describe the triumph we felt when each of our teachers opened the door, got startled at the number of students, looked at the blackboard to cross-check and apologetically left the classroom.

Thanks to those worried parents and the helpless ones such as ours’, these seasonal joys lasted for a couple of days sometimes even a week. I do not know why but we preferred sitting up on the tables and chatting, rather than on the chairs, on such occasions…

THE CABINS:

It would be right to say that our school grew along with us. Each time a new building was set to get constructed, we would believe it was for us to be seated in. There were constructions happening all around the place. Owing to space constraints, once, there were temporary cabins-on-stilts set up in lieu of classrooms for some of us privileged souls. Those classrooms, which we believed, were the cutest, was so much fun. We could hear each of our footsteps when we walked over those floors. It felt as if we were one of those superwomen whose very footstep could get the earth trembling underneath. The creak of the door and the tiny flight of steps, the temporary walls that resembled Styrofoam, everything seemed to amaze us.

THE AFTERNOON SHIFT:

Back in school, a notice, announcing important events were titled as The Circular. One of the strangest Circulars that took the rounds announced that we, girls of class III, would have afternoon shift for a year, due to lack of classrooms.

For the benefit of those of you who may not know how it is out there in the gulf, schools worked in shifts. Girls attended classes in the morning and boys in the afternoon.  So this particular Circular was received with different kinds of emotions.

“But why?”, asked an anxious bunch. “Gosh! Will we reach home in time for the cartoons?”, wondered the confused bunch. “Psst… we’ll have to come with the boys now, IN THE SAME BUS.”, whispered a scandalous bunch in horror. Thankfully, the bunch I used to hang out took this news at perfect ease. We were extremely pleased because we figured that we won’t have to wake up early.

I distinctly remember an incident at our bus stop, during this phase. We were playing hide and seek, while waiting for our bus. I came out triumphantly – the denner had not found me. I came out and felt strange. Something was amiss. Nobody seemed to be around. Did I come out too soon? Was everybody still in their hiding? That's when I saw my next-door neighbor friend, B. He also looked lost. We then noticed that nobody else’s bags were there except for ours.

 “Uh oh!” we realized it with a sigh - we MISSED THE BUS. Seeing a petrified me, B took my hand and got all protective.

B: “Don’t worry Bis...”

Me: “Oh no! What do we do? Why didn't anybody call us? How can everybody be so selfish, B?”

B (confused): “It’s ok Bis, I’m there.”

Me (tensed and worried): “You can’t drive, B.”

B: “Let’s go up to your house and tell your dad. He’ll drop us, won't he?”

Me: “No, he’ll scold me.”

B: “I’ll tell him.”

Me: “Still. He’ll scold me.”

B: “Let’s go up and tell my dad.”

I thought about that option for a while and shook my head…

Me: “Your dad will tell my dad and then, he’ll scold me.”

B gave up and left my hand.

And then, in the horizon, there came, what I believed was an angel - another Indian High School Bus. Oh my! Decades later, even today, when I write about this incident, I can feel it – as if God just rushed down taking the form of a school bus.

Me (confused again): “But, will it stop for us. This is not a stop allotted for them right?”

B (waving out his hand at the bus): “Let’s find out.”

The bus stopped and so did my racing heart.

B (to the assistant on the bus, whom we all generally called ‘chacha’): “Missed our bus, chacha... can we come in?”

Thank God for uniforms, we got permitted in. All the children on that bus stared at us like we landed from another planet. We quietly walked and sat on a seat, thankful to God for saving us from all that yelling in the luxury of a car.

That's all for today! I'll get back with more school memories tomorrow...

Also Read:
Back to School – the Kindergartener, the Careless Child, the Morning Jogs and the Dear ol’ Bus
Rewinding to April 18, 1984
My Magic Beans

Back to School – the Kindergartner, the Careless Child, the Morning Jogs and the Dear ol’ Bus

Courtesy: clipartbest.com

Nowadays, with a son aged two, there are lots of discussions on schools. Quite naturally for me, it’s easy to drift back and think of the good ol’ days. Let’s all go back to school…

K.G. K:

I don’t remember a lot of my kindergarten days except us kids gathered around the teacher’s table, running out, playing in the sand and a classmate who once came up to me, advising me to discard my soiled handkerchief. She said that’s what her mother did after blowing her nose. “But you throw away tissue papers not hankies”, I countered. “Even that’s white just like this. I’m sure it’s the same. It should be thrown”, she stuck to her resolve.

To my mother’s relief I didn't take that advice seriously.

THE PENCILS AND THE WATER BOTTLE:

My pencil box and my water bottle were two challenges that I couldn't tackle throughout my schooling period. My pencil box, the one commanded to return as is, was almost always destined to return half empty – I had adventurous pencils that never returned to the box. Thankfully, my eraser, sharpener and scale lacked the enthusiasm of their skinny counterpart. On the contrary, my water bottle, the one that was supposed to be empty by the end of the day, got back just the way it left home. I never seemed to get that right.

I believe my father invested quite a sum of money into pencils. Gladly, the pens I owned found their way back into my pouch everyday. Some lessons take time, I guess...

THE BUS STOP:

I lived 15 minutes away from where my school was located. Ours was the first pick-up point and we had, probably, five others before we reached our destination. We had pick-up points that were a stone’s throw away from each other. Talk about convenience!

If any of my friends are of the opinion that I am a late Kate – it’s true and it’s been there from time immemorial. It was a usual sight for my bus mates to see me jogging behind the 7:30 a.m. bus to catch it at least at the next pick-up point. There were times when I have wondered if I would make it to the Guinness Book of World Records if I ran behind it till school.

I am grateful that my non-athletic nature shunned looking into this possibility on a serious note.

THE BUS

In the beginning bus rides were all about reciting rhymes over and over again, jumping in the bus when it goes over humps; laughing at things I just can’t seem to remember, etc. 

In high school, bus rides were still fun but on a different note. There were four of us who were the oldest on the bus. It was an unwritten rule that the right hand side of the longest seat at the back of the bus; and the one in front of it was ours. That was our gossip-cum movie replay zone.

Friday being a holiday, it was customary for a new movie to be out on cassettes every Thursday evening. It was also customary for Channel 33 – the then local TV Channel of Dubai to play a Hindi movie on Thursday nights. The four of us used to enact these movies that we would have watched over the weekend. I don’t know how we did them after viewing the movie just once, but we did it with a lot of vigor and zeal. It was as if we had a screen test coming up soon. Nothing was rehearsed for this act. If all four of us hadn't watched the same movie, there wouldn't be any acting sessions, just motivations with highlights to watch the movie. It was sheer fun!

Talking about fun, there comes to my mind another incident which was pure fun when we were at it, but not quite after a while. This one was with my gang in class – six of us. It was one of those boring high school days. I don’t have a speck of memory with regards to why we didn't have class and what we were doing loitering in the campus. At that age, the thought of bunking classes was not even an idea at its genesis. Whatever the reason be, the point is that we had nothing to do. Roaming around the campus on that hot day, we stopped by for some shade at the parking lot allotted for the school buses. We noticed that there was nobody around – just open buses. What did we fancy about a parked bus? I don’t know - I'm not 11 anymore. It’s human to have aching legs the moment you see empty seats. So we hopped into one of the buses. At first it was the echo of our footsteps in a still and empty bus that intrigued us. I don’t know when the devil got the better of us; because before we knew, we were cheering and racing each other - two at a time. If that wasn't bad enough, we decided to run over the seats, along the aisle with one foot each on adjacent seats. I wish I could tell you that you should try that some time because it was super fun. Once we were drained from this activity, we realized that all the seats were soiled with our footprints on them. By the time, sense put a reign on us and we decided to wipe them away with our handkerchiefs, one of us spotted a man, dressed in a bus driver’s uniform, walking towards the bus. Out we jumped and ran away for the fear of being caught! All those moral studies of being apologetic and owning up one’s faults went down the drain. I swear I saw myself getting scolded at in the Principal’s office, my dad’s angry face and an eventuality which I didn't know how to imagine – all this in the split of a second.

Never once later had any one of us suggested doing such a thing on a boring day which is verdict in itself that we all swore inwardly never to repeat such a thing ever again.

I think I'll stop for today. Hope you had a fun ride so far. This is not all. I’ll be back with more school memories tomorrow. Stay tuned!

Also Read:

Back to School – the Early Morning Chorus, the Mighty Rains, the Creaky Cabins, and the Game of Hide and Seek
Back to School - the Biscuit, the Dance and the Sketches