By Toki Blah
I love sitting in Meghalayan tea shops and listening to the conversation that flows by in such settings. On one such occasion, in a rural tea shop and under direct provocation from me, a rustic-looking man spoke on the state of education in Meghalaya. Taken aback, I was surprised, curious and dug more into the background of this person. I came to know he was a local farmer and doing not too bad for himself. I was more than surprised to learn that he was a B. Ed with Net accreditation and that at one point in time had been a topper in the MPSC exams for some Government teaching posts in the state.
This was intriguing. I dug further and over another cup of tea he started to unravel. I give below a verbatim recount of what he said and leave the rest to the reader.
His story –
“I had always wanted to teach. I finished my Masters in sociology, completed my NET and unsuccessfully and repeatedly, tried to get appointments in the various educational institutions of the state. I was beginning to lose hope when, and based on an MPSC advertisement, I applied for a vacancy in one of the primary Government School. I sat for the entrance exam and to my immense surprise and delight topped the list of successful candidates. Within no time my appointment order arrived, and they ordered me to join up. I hastily complied.
On the day I joined and reported for duty to the principal of the school, the History teacher of that institution was on leave and I was sent as a substitute for the history period of class X for that day. I now realise that I was a bit nervous, as it was my first day as a teacher but I was terribly anxious to make a good impression on the students.
I entered the classroom.
I then took the roll call, and at the end of it, a long silence prevailed. I knew I had to say something, but nothing came to mind and the eager young scholarly faces turned expectantly towards me, simply increased my nervousness. I tried to think of something intelligent and amusing to say but nothing came to mind. My mind was blank except for the thought that I had to break the ice by saying something witty or clever but could think of nothing to say. Suddenly out of sheer desperation I blurted out a question to the entire class “Come on, I want someone to tell me who was responsible for the loss of the Khasi script?” In my nervousness, my question came out as a bark, as if I was trying to find out or single out the culprit responsible for losing the script.
For the uninitiated, the Khasis as a tribe are quite embarrassed by the fact that they have no script of their own. The Roman script – the missionaries had introduced them in the 1800s. Khasis, therefore, have made up a legend and believe that in some dark forgotten era of the past, they possessed a script, but this was tragically lost in an accident that occurred when our ancestors were fording a swollen river. This is a well-known and popular legend. Now as the new master wishing to break the ice with my students, I had directed the question to the whole class on the assumption that since it was a straightforward question, an answer would break the ice. The boys, however, contrary to my expectations suddenly found a sudden interest on their desk tops and complete silence overtook the classroom.
It was an easy question and the reaction was not one that I had expected. My nervousness disappeared and irritation took its place. This time I sounded really rough when I asked a boy sitting in the front row, his name.
“Minot Sir” he replied “My name is Minot Dohlun”
“OK, Minot you seem a bright chap. You tell me who lost the Khasi script?” I coaxed.
A long silence followed. Finally, Minot after a lot of unease plucked up the courage to answer “I really don’t know who walked away with the script Sir, but it was not me Sir”.
I was flabbergasted. It was unexpected. It was sheer idiocy. Something not expected from a front-row class X student. The room had suddenly become stuffy and so I quickly stepped out into the corridor to clear my head with some fresh air. Here I bumped into one of the senior teachers of the school, who on seeing my visibly agitated features asked me what was wrong.
“Wrong? Everything is wrong”! I burst out narrating the entire sequence of events to the old boy and said “I asked Minot of class XA how the Khasis lost their script, and he replies he doesn’t know but that he is not to blame. These are Class X students. Is that their level of intelligence? That is why I am so disgusted,” I sputtered indignantly.
“Tut Tut Tut” tutted the old chap, trying to calm me down. “Look here I know Minot. He is a good boy and comes from a good respectable family. He is a serious and studious lad. If he says he did not do it then he is telling the truth. So, rest assured that he did not do it. Some other boy must have either misplaced or stole the script you want”.
By now I was speechless with dismay. I felt there was no other option but to report the whole incident to the headmaster which I did during lunch break. The headmaster looked up from the fried potatoes he was munching and advised me by saying “I know each and every boy in that Class. They are a collective bunch of scoundrels and rascals. They love nothing better than to make both your life and mine miserable. I strongly suggest that you go back and announce ‘after school detention’ for the whole class unless someone confesses as to who has walked away with the lost script. I assure you that by this action, someone will denounce the culprit. It’s the best way to recover the lost book, which by the way, I want you to find out from the librarian whether he had been prudent enough to have insured against such loss or theft. You see it’s me who will have to explain such losses to the audit when it happens next year. Now do what I have suggested.”
Can you imagine the degree of anger and frustration I was going through by then? I went home, counted ten, a hundred times, but it helped little. I had had it till here! Finally, I made up my mind and drew up my resignation letter. The next day I proceeded to the Meghalaya Secretariat where I handed over my resignation to Bah Pompous Sansnem, the Minister in Charge Education. In all fairness to him, I also explained the background of my actions.
The Minister looked up at me with great sadness in his eyes, folded my resignation letter and handed it back saying, “Young man, this is a drastic step you are taking and I want you to reconsider it. government jobs, nowadays, are so hard to get. You just can’t imagine the hundreds of job seekers I have to deal with from all over the state. government jobs, with the security they provide, don’t come easy these days. Please give it a second thought. To me, it sounds stupid to quit a government job over the loss of some silly script. Secondly, I may be held responsible for the loss of this script and the opposition will definitely demand my resignation. You know how they love to raise a ruckus in the Assembly on the slightest pretext. So why don’t you go back, keep quiet about the whole thing, tell no one about it, prepare a report on the loss of this script and come and give it to me in a sealed envelope? No one needs to know about it. I guarantee that we shall include the cost of, not one but two scripts in next year’s budget for this department. By April next year, your school would have got a brand-new script and you can keep the second copy for yourself. No one needs to know anything about this affair. How does that sound?”
The man sipped the last drop of tea from his cup, put it down, smacked his lips, turned to me and asked, “I choose pig rearing for a livelihood. What would you have done in my place?”