ADMISSION PHOBIA !!

From the first floor window of my classroom, I watch the frantic parents down in the reception area of our school. It is admission time in the nursery section. Today not only the child must do well in his entrance test but also the parents must impress the interviewing committee. Yes this day is a test for both. !!

So the fathers are all suited-booted trying to put up a relaxed front, but their pacing up and down and the occasional fixing of their ties is giving away their anxious state of mind. The mothers, in their smartest attire , are smiling a little too much, but the worry factor is constantly plaguing them…’will babloo be able to recite A for Apple; B for Ball without a hitch..? Oh! I must revise the nursery rhymes once more….or maybe I should do the numbers 1 to 10 …? The child is unconcerned , playing on the monkey-bars or on the swings as though he is out on a picnic. “Don’t dirty your clothes betaa…” trills out one mother, while another tries her best to hide her impatience as she repeats the tenth time “Good Morning bolo beta. " Today the parents are honey sweet , they dare not annoy the ‘apple of their eye’ and invite a tantrum. That would be disastrous!!

My mind travels fifty two years back in time …I could hear my mother’s complaining voice…”Tuku is 6yrs already ! she should be in school now!” But Baba being in the private sector was forever busy with work and tours. “Next month we will surely look for a school “would be his pacifying reply. But "next month " would come and go ,and I would still be a free bird ,happy in my own world , till one day, ma plucked up all her courage ,took my hand and stepped out of her middle class traditional Bengali home to walk to the nearest school available …Anand Niketan .

It was a small primary school adjacent to the Bangla Sahib Gurdwara , a ten minute walk from my house. The school boasted a strength of probably hundred students . Ma could barely speak English , but undeterred she managed to persuade the Head mistress in her atrocious ‘bong-Hindi ‘ that I should be admitted into class 1 as I was already more than 6yrs old. Thus began my academic life. How simple admission was those days!!

I spent two blissful years in that school. We had classes in the tents and occasionally under the mulberry tree. No study pressure …no security risk! During recess some of us would quietly sneak through the gap in the mehendi hedge and go to the gurdwara for the ‘langar’…the taste of ‘halwa-puri ‘ still lingers…

A voice behind me jolts me back from my reverie. “Ma’am could you please explain this again… “and I turn around to attend to my students.