Dons!

We were a group of assorted children in our class- we had our school watchman's niece, a film director's son, a hotelier's son, an advocate's sister a professor's daughter who could not tell A from B.... and two of us - my close friend and I -college lecturers' daughters. Lecturers were held in high regard those days and we two shone in their halo. We were considered very 'bright' and given a lot of importance. We had a few things to our credit. We learnt the poems quickiy and recited them, we talked boldly and sang well. We also 'chanted' the tables upto12. So we were asked to mind the class, teach our friends or run errands for the teacher. We took our tasks seriously but never behaved in a high-handed manner.
These tasks were assigned to us because the teachers had some other important work to do. The Kannada teacher had to write notations for the 'krithis' she was taught in her music class and had to learn it before evening. TheEnglish teacher had to write to her husband who was in 'foreign'. Maths teacher would be tired, and after teaching a sample sum, would settle down for 'forty winks' while the 'good ones' kept an eye on the others. My friend and I would be bored with the whole thing and would go out on the pretext of transfering ink from one pen to another. One of us always forgot to fill ink you know! Then we would pour ink from one pen to the other, several times, so that our hands and faces would be smeared with ink. Then we would go to wash our hands and by the time we entered the class the lunch bell would ring and yippeee! we were out!
Today I wonder how I passed the exams at all . And with my rich experience of the past, I catch my unsuspecting students when they are upto some trick and keep them wondering how smart their teacher is!! I hope none of my students read my blog.
ps: I should confess that my basic maths-( the 4 operations ) is good. I never use a calculator where as the maths teacher does!