Percentage Ma'am

Percentage Ma’am

It was a tragic end to a very different life - one that began with so much promise but lost its way along an endearing happy path that reveals the dark depths of its end being a point of no return. 

Swadesh’s body was extracted over forty-eight hours after her death, from the ventilation shaft of Jaipur Housing Society.  She did not live there nor did any of the residents know her.   It were her sandals that were found on the building terrace which told the story of her final leap that gave ultimate peace and solace to her turbulent mind.

A proud ‘Punjaban’, as she often referred to herself, Swadesh was born into a proud small town family, her home not too far from Amritsar.  An only child, she was the ‘puttar’ – daughter, son, child, the very life of her doting parents.  Small towns in North India are intensely networked social communities and her being a studious girl with a sterling academic record endeared her to the entire cultural ecosystem of the locality. A fair lass with rosy cheeks, with the dazzle of diamonds dropping from her glistening ears and with sharp grey matter in the head that lay between, is a potent combine.

Another distinctive facet of Swadesh that made her stand apart in a ‘crowd’ had been her sense of dress. Meticulous in her choice of clothing, their colours, fit and style, she would go to great lengths to select accessories that combined with each of her several dozens of dresses well justified her friends calling her ‘Miss Matching’.

A ‘sophistication’ Swadesh possessed was her interest in the English language. Though it entered her school curriculum only at the middle school stage,  she was already an budding ‘anglophile’ thanks to her maternal grandfather, a former Viceroy’s Commission military man who had spent years in Europe during the World War.

Unsurprisingly she was the ‘topper’ in the subject, a ready participant in every debate, discussion and elocution competition in which she was invariably a winner by many lengths. The combination of beauty, brains and a ‘class’ speaker of the English language made for an even potent combination.

Three years of graduation had been both, a rollicking time of fun and frolic as also one of high achievement. Swadesh qualified for a much coveted post graduate seat in a prestigious Delhi based University.  The fusion of her three ‘traits’ and her continued quest to retain the ‘topper’ tag pushed her to do well.

She was a much liked and well respected student and became a favourite of a fatherly South Indian ‘Professor’, the Head of the English Department, an affable Oxford scholar credited for being a ‘Shakespeare expert’ who, even as he taught Byron or Keats, would mention quotes from the bard. The throw of Professor’s loud voice would reverberate in the high walled classroom and continue to do so for long in the mind of his young Punjabi student. He was soon her guide, mentor and the model to emulate and defined her decision to become an English teacher.  

Notwithstanding his many years at Oxford, Professor, in heart and mind, remained a ‘hardcore’ Southerner.  On Swadesh’s insistence, he and his family planned a summer vacation visit to Amritsar with a promise to also visit the home of his favourite student.  Swadesh and her parents laid out the red carpet. Both sets of grandparents came in a day before with the Armyman bringing along several of his exquisite whiskies. Her mother procured lime and lemon, a bottle of Rooh Afza and a tetrapack of the rage drink of the time “Mango Frooti’. The one car cavalcade from Amritsar reached the town late that evening. Introductions were warm and the Professor spoke highly of how good a student the daughter of the house was, her capacitiy to work hard and why he saw so much potential in her.  Future career options for Swadesh were also discussed, with the discussion verering doen to one between Civil Services and teaching English.

The time then came to pose the archtypical polite question “What would you like to have Sir, something hot or cold?” and the South Indian in the Professor emerged to stun the Punjabi family and their neighbours into a tizzy. ‘A glass of buttermilk would be good enough’ he said. 

This was something they had just not anticipated and prepared for.   Drinks, soft drinks, tea, coffee, even perhaps lassi, yes. But buttermilk? No Sir. 

It was occasion for the spirit of Punjab to rise to the occasion and fulfil the desire of this guest of honour.  Word went out through the kitchen door and behold, a glass of buttermilk was skimmed out, never mind where. The evening carried on with the Prof regaling everyone with quotes, his experiences at Oxford and the reverting intermittently to Swadesh’s academic potential.  Many months later, when asked why buttermilk and not any other beverage, he  response was that if there is one thing that would always readily available in every home, it is buttermilk and he did not want to bother his hosts much. So much for a South Indian’s understanding of life in North India.

Swadesh’s application to being appointed as English teacher at one of Delhi’s leading schools was readily accepted and freshly baked in the intellectual oven as it were, she was given charge of higher classes. Conscientious and hard working, she prepared hard for her classes but it must be said that for her adolescent students, it also  the joy of watching her that made her a ‘hit’. 

Teachers’ Common Rooms at schools are many times, ‘cesspools of gossip’ and ‘centres for affairs, romance'. Even treachery.  Many past masters of the love game have ruled over such rooms for decades whose devious means and methods were beyond simple Swadesh’s ability to see through. Rana, a product of the same University as Swadesh who passed out two years prior to her taught Physics. A young man with a range of interests that included reciting shaayari, helping poor children through free tuitions after school hours and watching movies.  Just as Punjabi as Swadesh, in fact hailing from another small town not afar from her own, the good looking Rana and Swadesh developed a ‘made for each other’ companionship that did not take long to elevate to love and the inevitable proposal. They were married in the course of the next summer holidays and the entire teacher group of the school without exception hired a bus to be present at the  wedding ceremony.

Rana and Swadesh, entered the stage of ‘gruhasti’. They both hailed from loving families but those of modest resources. The dust and sparkle of the honeymoon period once settled down, the reality of life, with its challenges and pitfalls, dawned on both of them. 

A realisation came, first in their mands and then expressed in the several arguments and even fights that theirs was a hurried marriage.  Swadesh repeatedly mentioned of her sacrificing an aspiration to join the Civil Services for the sake of Rana. He though  remained  a realist and reconciled to teaching being his chosen profession but felt there were far more ‘rewarding’ opportunities for a Science teachers that should be explored and set about to do so.

The tipping point came when Rana let Swadesh know of having secured the Physics teacher’s slot in a reputed Abu Dhabi school with a salary many times more  and came with housing, transit and other ‘perks’. Swadesh, he felt should resign her job, accompany him and seek out an English Teacher’s job at some other school there. 

Swadesh was shocked to disbelief.  How could Rana have taken so many decisions behind her back, not once even mentioning them to  her, his spouse. The next few weeks were ones of despondence and saw Rana leave for Abu Dhabi by himself. Swadesh did not even go to the airport to see him off and firmly conveyed that she would not accept any support from him. His wave from the window of the car as he left home evinced no response and that was the last glimpse of Swadesh he was to ever to have. Swadesh on her part was left to readjust to the new cuircumstances and shifted into a ‘subletting’ type boarding arrangement closer to school but in a rather down market neighbourhood. 

A brief period of mock sympathy for the young teacher followed in the Common Room. Some expressed surprise that a good man like Rana could have behaved in such a ‘selfish’ manner. A couple of oblique references surfaced to Rana being a dubious character and having had a ‘hot’ affair a couple of years ago with another teacher who soon left. He had of course made no mention of this at all to Swadesh who now felt a completely cheated.

The ‘vultures’ of the Common Room had kept their patience so far. The time for them to swoop down on this fresh new bait had come. . Swadesh was first invited to some or other of their homes to meet their families and have ‘home food’. She found nothing wrong and in fact readily accepted. At some early stage, she cast aside her hesitation to pick up a glass of wine.  These invites became regular and as Swadesh became more comfortable with her now very regular social routine, the composition of her party mates imperceptibly changed. There were less and less other ladies now in the groups and it was not long before she was the only lady in the group. Also, while the party circle was initially of her teacher friends, this began to include their friends and eventually friends of these friends – from all walks of life – businessmen, traders and even politicians.  She was now catering to the social needs of a very different class of society. 

Parties were evening affairs are understandably, ‘off school’ activities.  Their effect however lingered on impede Swadesh’s routines the next day.  Some mornings, she just could not arise and on many others, she simply did not seem to have energy to get ready and go to school, let alone prepare her lessons. School managements are sharp-nosed about the conduct of teachers and when these occasions of missing class due to being unwell became rose unsupported as they were by medical reports, Swadesh received a series of ‘memos’ and ‘warnings’ and a time came when  the school simply refused to renew her contract.

Swadesh needed a job. She applied to several other Delhi schools, even in new found outlying colonies, but Schools and  teachers are closed groups in which stained reputations spread fast and wide. Not a single job offer was received.  She was pushed to contemplating returning to her Punjab small town and start life afresh from scratch.  A former colleague sharing an advertisement for an English teacher’s position at a Jaipur school came was a much needed ray of hope and light in a time of such darkness. What is more, she applied and got that job. 

It would be unfair to say that Swadesh did not mend her ways as she joined her new school. An important lesson she had learnt at Delhi is that jobs are hard to come and must be treasured. She prepared well for her class and soon came to be the much liked and admired teacher she always wanted to be. Jaipur, much unlike Delhi had a very different pace of life and social activities, if at all, became restricted to weekends and holidays. This worked fine and Swadesh started enjoying teaching and come to terms with herself.

But once a ‘social animal’ does not a person always remain one? Alas, in Swadesh’s case this came true. Though it was not the School’s Common Room for teachers but some ‘well meaning’ folks in her immediate neighbourhood who tempted her to join into the  ‘privileged’ social life of Jaipur. Happy times were back though not in measures comparable to Delhi. On her part, Swadesh did not forget her hard-learned lessons and ensured that her teaching remained unaffected.   In just a few years she was confirmed as a permanent teacher. Years rolled by. Swadesh was content and enjoyed both sides of her life. Rana and she were not in communication but they remained ‘married’ on the record books.  That did not matter much to her as at no time did she think of marrying again.

‘My fair lady’ the record breaking hit movie of the sixties with Professor Higgins, as its legendary character of an English teacher was Swadesh’s favourite film. A song in that film that Higgins sings has an ominous line on the future of his student Eliza Doolittle, that “the blossom of her cheek would turned to chalk”. 

Age and time did just that to Swadesh herself.  She was Swadesh now in her late thirties, subject to the pulls and pushes of the company she kept and the contrasting expectations of her social friends for fresh blossoms of ‘cheek’ as against the ‘chalk’ they increasingly saw on the face of their old friend.  Swadesh found herself being left out of the party circles she was at one time the very light of.  Instead it was a smaller set of a different class of folk, not all of standing or stature that spent time with her.

A stage came, sooner than later, when Swadesh ‘slipped on one of life’s banana peels’ and needed to see a doctor. It was here that she made the cardinal blunder of taking along her to the doctor’s chambers a male friend posing as her ‘husband’.  The doctor’s findings hit Swadesh hard. But the simultaneous dissemination of her condition in her social circle damaged her even more and made her a social discard a veritable ‘don’t touch with a bargepole’.

The ‘message’ somehow reached the school, its staff and  students and eventually, the school management with the person reporting  the matter to the Principal being the Area Police Superintendent and the parent of one of Swadesh’s class students. She was summoned and presented the hard choice to either produce the papers of her doctor’s visit or to undergo a test at a clinic of the School’s choice.

Swadesh sought time to do so, which was not granted. Her efforts to reach out to her several ‘friends’ proved futile. Not one responded to her calls and many messages for advice, assistance or guidance. Her friends were all somehow ‘busy’ and always so. Even a lawyer friend who she banked upon for some advice in the past told her rather sternly not to visit him and seek advice only on the phone. The next time on, he did not respond to her calls.

Swadesh walked towards her home that late evening, tired and weary, in obvious mental distress though on the outside, she was dressed as always in a bright coloured saree with large flowery motifs, the loose edge of which tucked firmly into her waist and the folds gathered together tightly positioned between her substantive breasts – and was why her students referred to her as ‘Percentage Madam’.

Swadesh walked and walked that evening, well beyond past the building of her residence, along roads she hardly know and into localities she had hardly seen. Her mind in complete tumult, it isd not hard to expect that as she walked, she recalled her days at home, of Professor’s  visit to her home, the debates she participated in and the various stage shows she presented through her student life. Her mind went to Rana and she wondered if she had been obstinate on her part, whether she was too harsh on him and their marriage could be saved, of her shift to Jaipur and if she could and should have led life differently on this second chance.  Her assessments of her own conduct are implicit in the verdict of ‘guilty’ that she imposed and inflicted on herself.

Her conclusions reached, Swadesh entered the next building she passed by, took the stairs up the several stories to the terrace, chose a parapet on the inward side of the building.

What her thoughts had been as she threw herself into that last leap went down with her.  Improbable though that one of the Professor’s oft quoted lines from Shakespeare would not have crossed her mind as she recalled the many who she thought of as friends until they all abandoned her - “Blow, blow, thou North Wind, thou art not as harsh as man’s ingratitude’.

So many of life’s lessons in this sad story of the gold of promise turning to mere tinsel.