Tuesday

My Plus 1 & Plus 2 Days With An Overdose Of Sexism

1

Plus 2: Sick of walking into our filthy classroom with dust, mud, paper bits and lunch remains flying around our math teacher Ms. Sham... sponsored a broom for the class.
She drew up a ‘brooming schedule’ for the 15 girls, smoothly leaving out the 35 boys.
“What about the boys?” I asked genuinely confused because in my previous school everybody had to partake in the class-cleaning activities.
“Boys don’t sweep”- the teacher snarled while a few boys snickered.

2

Plus 2: I was walking back to class after morning break. Something until then I thought only happened in movies or slums was happening spectacularly before my eyes. Let’s call them Mr. Stick & Ms. Stout.
Stick was hitting Stout as though she was a punching bag. She was squealing in pain while trying to cower back against the wall. I stared with my mouth open. “What the hell is happening”. Stick muttered & growled something like a rabid dog and stormed out.

Next minute she was bawling on my shoulders. Even while patting her back I couldn’t help but remember those random scenes of drunk husband kicking about the wife so common in our movies.

If this was the story of one couple, I wouldn't have mentioned this. Many couples in our school were into this beating-crying syndrome. And the optimist in me hopes that they all have matured by now.

3

Plus 1: My best buddy and I loved to sit on the wall in front of the school canteen to chitchat.
In the initial days, some stared and some commented which were tuned out of course. Then (may be 2-3 months later?) it happened.

The furious face of the usually jovial Nou Sir beckoned us over. We walked over meekly. He gave one big lecture about the uncouthness of sitting on wall, to remember that we are ‘girls’ (as if we didn’t know) and what people would ‘say’...

A group of interested students nearby shook their heads in amusement. Nothing was said about the boys haunting the walls on the other side (not saying boys’ right to frequent the walls should have been taken away).

Wonder how our sitting on the wall during morning breaks went unnoticed until then in a school full of sexists!

4

Teachers were not just teachers but James Bond wannabes. And their area of interest? Students' love lives of course. It was for our good, they said. So that we remained focused on what mattered- studies.

And the real drama followed once they found out who's whose bf/gf and who's kissing who and... Then the moral superiority surfaced. Calling the girls’ parents, berating the parents at the top voice for not bringing up their girls properly; without caring anyone could overhear (as I did once, which caused such an intense hatred in me for that teacher) and what not.

...

All in all I am glad that it was Plus 2 and not Plus 3 or Plus 4. I would have been indoctrinated after a while like any normal person subjected to an overdose of sexism.

2 comments:

  1. Wow! you remember all these! Thanks for bringing back plus 2 days to my memory. Mr. Stick & Ms. Stout had shocked me too!

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  2. Hey Deepu, Thanks for dropping by.
    I wish I didnt remember :D.
    Weird days no? I think we learned more bizarre-ness of life than actual computer science.

    ReplyDelete