Math Tuition Tales

I would probably get screamed at by her for using the word ‘tuition’ here. She hated the word tuition. In fact in class if the word slipped out by mistake, she would yell, “Yei! Don’t use bad words like ‘tuition’! Tuition is for makku pasanga! Are you a makku? This is ‘coaching class’”. Shrimathi ma’am’s class. Brilliant times.

 

I was part of a rather fanatic cult that felt it was an obligatory ritual for any student who had reached 8^th grade standing to attend Math classes with Shrimathi ma’am. “She is called Centum Shrimathi, pa. She is really very good. Janaki’s both sons went for classes with her only. Both centum! Lalitha’s colleague’s uncle’s daughter’s classmates studied there. All of them got into IIT! Very good coaching…” members would try to persuade the uninitiated.

 

In the summer vacation following a very eventful 7^th standard (;) ), my mother and I went to see her for admission. After noting my name and other details (“Math exam le 90+ a? 80+ a?”), she asked me to come at some date (I don’t remember now, but it was way before school started, but I was more than happy because I was not on the waiting list. Whew!).

 

On the sultry evening of (the date she had asked us to come), Moni and I (Our houses were right opposite each other then, on 17^th street, 4^th sector, KK Nagar) carefully put together a totally unnecessary selection of math textbooks from 6-10^th std, 3 new notebooks, our school math notebooks of 7^th std, 2 pencil boxes, 1 calculator and 1 geometry box. Since we didn’t have any place left in the bag to carry our extra reference books (which later on we began to consider as our actual textbooks) by Tata McGraw Hill, Manjeet Singh and R.D. Sharma, we held them in our hands. We had been given holiday homework to be completed; obviously before the first class and we had neatly underlined, boxed, margined and laminated it.

 

We were five minutes early, yet a major stampede was going on at the doorstep. Huge numbers of enthus and hypers like ourselves were struggling to get in and we joined the crowd. After that great feat was accomplished, we squeezed ourselves into whatever space we could find and expectantly looked at the front door. She came. Silence. The first thing that happened was the appointment of the ‘homework leaders’ section wise, who undertook the noble task of making sure … well the name is self explanatory.

I think for our class (8 M – an extremely (in)famous ‘group of gangsters’) it was Pradeep.

Then she started the revision of some basic concepts we had learnt in 7^th std. We took down each and every word she said. Thus began the journey of 3 wonderful years of math class!

 

Of course it’s impossible to recount the wild wild adventure that each session was. But I vividly remember the very efficient homework squad that checked each and every subdivision of every division of every sum number of every exercise of every page. (“Hey, where is 12.c da? And why have you not shown the steps for this answer? How did u get 581? You copied a? I’ll tell ma’am a?”. Some homework leaders were kind hearted and so would accept bribes; others were just cruel. In such cases, influence also helped. Suddenly billions of people wanted to befriend the homework leaders. They were powerful people). I remember breaking our heads over the problems given in the ‘Modal’ exams… the illegal group discussions we used to have to solve the ‘Star-mark’ question in the tests. I remember how we were so eager to blurt out the answers during speed tests (The names of the people who gave the answer first were entered on the Board of Fame) and how, in the process we would end up giving more wrong answers than usual due to absurdities in calculations (for instance, 10X0=10). I remember the petite shell figurines she gifted to people who cracked her star-mark sum and also to those who got 100% in their school math exams. I remember the way she used to animatedly take class and make us all laugh our hearts out. I remember how she prayed for us and dabbed kilos of Vibhoodi on our foreheads on final exam days, how she pinched our cheeks when we didn’t get centum (it really really hurt!). I remember how she used to shout at our class – “8 Yem! Worstu class ! Ellam arundha vaalu!” I remember the hours we used to spend chit chatting after class in the street corner, the closely-knit groups that were formed for combined studies and group projects, the doubt-clearing sessions that lasted for hours. They were sooperfun.

 

We were bitten by the math-bug. We used to pore over the never ending homework problems not only trying to solve them but also trying to discover the best and quickest methods to arrive at the solution. Yes, we were all about innovation back then. In 10^th std, another batch of students was formed and these freshmen (who joined only in 10^th std) had class from 6.30-7.30 am in the morning after their ‘crash course’ in the summer holidays, and so we sophomores (who have been studying since 8^th std) were pushed to the 5-15 am slot. That is when I developed the bad habit of getting up at 4 am in order to finish off the homework before class, and also because I would usually waste the evenings by playing badminton and come home just in time for dinner and beauty sleep. Doing tuition homework became a common ‘under the desk’ activity in school and hence strongly condemned by school teachers.

 

If I said Shrimathi ma’am was a fantastic teacher that would be the understatement of the year! She was much more than a teacher; she was a guide, a well wisher, a thinker and a great human being.

 

Even last year she had come to Singapore and when I went to meet her, the first thing she said was, “Haiii Snek! Enna dhadha maari nose ring lam potundruke?!”. Typical Shrimathi ma’am.

 

Some of my best times were in that asbestos roofed terrace-shed. I loved every bit of her very eventful classes and had brilliant fun. Those three years were a major part of my middle and high school life.