Recite it- Loud and Clear

                           
                                                    For  a  Teacher's Day

Can you imagine a time when the food people ate determined their caste and creed? How the so-called higher classes looked upon them? This is the best part of learning literature, they teach you the truths in history so that it wouldn’t be repeated. I was introduced to poems and stories, quite early in my childhood from when I was barely two years old. My grandma took care of me as a toddler so that I wouldn’t run to the kitchen and create trouble for my mother. I never ran away from her when I was with her. She would glue me on the bed with the poems and stories she read out from ‘Kalikudukka’ or ‘Magic pot’.

The day would begin by taking attendance in the pseudo classroom she had created with the dolls I had. She would call out the names and mark them present when I said ‘present’ after each name being called. Then would begin, the daily dose of stories, poems and action songs. I would memorize the poems but the author would be ‘Cippy Pallipuram’. May be I found the name fascinating and different, I would shout his name when she asked me, “and this was written by?”

With this training I got used to memorizing poems and reciting them along. The old videos of us performing, displays me forever reciting one of my favorite poem by Kunjan Nambyar from ‘Kalyana Saugandhikam’. As a third grader I might not have been mused by the underlying meaning of the poem. I might have been enthused by the tune in which it was taught in.

So by hearting them was not new to me. I was in grade five then. Our class teacher was our Malayalam teacher, Ms.Beenamol Jacob. It was the time when our school had introduced a new custom of each class handling a day’s school assembly. Apart from the usual, proceedings, each class was to handle a short act for the day. It was a matter of pride for all the class teachers; they wanted their class to do well. When our turn came, our ma’am stood with as a guide to organize the program. There were hands up for handling the individual programs like emceeing, prayer and news reading by the enthusiastic and smart lot of the class. A few like me took refuge in the prayer song, you might know why. You could perform without the pressure and fear of being noted by the whole school. But for the showstopper, she used her strength and creativity equally, to do something that nobody had ever done before. The idea seemed brilliant, to enact a poem that we had just learnt.

The poem was dealing with a lunch box that falls down from a kid’s hand due to the morning rush in the school premises and how those around him would react to what they saw in the lunch box. It was the time when students used not bags but boxes made of aluminum to carry their books. It so happened that one our classmate had such a box in his house and he agreed to bring it for the act. He belonged to the silent group of our class. Our ma’am assigned him, to play the role of the protagonist. Many volunteered to be in the group of students, who would push him down and his box. All roles set, now was to select the one would recite the poem when they played this on stage.

I bowed my head down as she walked past my table, to avoid eye contact with her. I forgot that she could see me. She patted me and asked me to recite the poem in front of the class. No I couldn’t, I wanted to say. I haven’t done it before, I thought to my self. I didn’t utter a word, I stood there still. Seeing me hesitate, she stood next to me gave me the textbook to recite by looking at it. She wants me to do it, I said to my self. I kept the book on my desk dreading that if I held it everyone would see my hands shivering out of fright. Holding the hanky tight under my fist, I recited the poem in the class (I did it just for her). With the background score (the plain recital by me) set, we had many rounds of practice for a few days before the assembly, the degree of wetness of my hanky decreased each time I recited.

The day had arrived, with the variety we brought in with our performance; there was continuous applause and instant praise by our principal as well. We were proud as a class; we had raised the bar high.

I might not have been the best. I took up a challenge, which I thought I never would take up in my life. She made me believe I could do it. There are a very few teachers who makes students push their boundaries farther. She was one among them. Those who mould you for life are the best teachers. She is in the list, so is my grandma the one who taught me to find solace in stories and poems.

As I write this I am cracking my brain to find out the name of the poem I recited that day. I just remember a few lines from the poem, which goes like this.

" aksharabhandathe bhadramaayi peruma
  pettithan bharam thalarthiya kaiyil ninnithiri
  ponnoru chottu paathram nadu roattil venullil
  ninnellam nilathu poyi"

Neither can I recollect the rest nor can I remember the collection of poems which it was from. But I faintly recall that the author was none other than 'Cippy Pallipuram'.A mere coincidence that memories and life sometimes play.