The Worst Teacher I Ever Had

I don’t think she was that bad to be honest. When I was in the 10th grade, we had this elderly English teacher who, I hope it isn’t too rude to say, should have retired a few years before she joined our school. She was a grandmother and she was a disciplinarian and boy was she strict.

I remember a few incidents about her : she didn’t like boys growing their hair long! And when I mean long it wasn’t even shoulder length. She was crazy about it. About 6 of us in the class had longish hair and we were all into hard rock and metal music so our dream was to have even more longer hair. It was 1992 and we were 15 and we all had dreams of looking like Bon Jovi or the Scorpions. So she made it a point to constantly criticize and nag us to death about it. She even once demanded that we all cut our hair short before the next day! We rebelled and didn’t do it. She was livid.

She could be guilty of favoritism and partiality and she was not the nicest person to be around. Indian schools tolerated teachers using the cane and she did it once or twice. It barely hurt as she was not strong enough to inflict much pain. Anyone of us could have pushed her down with the slightest of ease and she would have broken a hip or some other bone. But we still treated her with respect because that’s what kids are supposed to do.

I learned that she passed away in 1999 and most of us had only good things to say about her at that time. Even the 6 of us rockers who had long hair and rebelled against her.

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Would I Survive No Internet For A Month?

Although a regular user of the internet since 1998, I didn’t have a connection at home until September, 2006. From then I would go once or twice a week to a nearby internet parlour to browse the net and check my email. For a year I also managed an internet club, a very small one with just 4 systems. It wasn’t a success so I quit after a year. By then it was 2000 and the internet cafe charges were a little bit more cheaper, so I went 3 to 4 times to a cafe and spend 2-3 hours there.

I moved to Calicut (about 5 hours from my hometown of Cochin) in 2002 and there I used the net very infrequently due to shortage of cash. The company I had joined has problems and so I was not paid for weeks. In early 2003 I moved back to Cochin and got a steady paying job, if if it wasn’t much, and I went back to using the net 3-4 times a week. This was also the time that my old pc died. As the years went by I used it more and more, settling on using it for 7 to 8 hours during the weekend and an hour or so on workdays. Until I moved to Kacheripady and then I got a new desktop computer and a broadband connection.

Last year I upgraded my connection and for the past almost 4 years I have been online almost extensively, only being offline when the ISP server goes down or there is a cable fault or when I am out of town. But yes I have been without the internet for 3 weeks – this year in May! After my pc died on me, I had to wait 3 weeks to gather the cash and get a new laptop. During that time I went without the internet at home and at work as well. I only checked my mail a couple of times and paid a couple of bills online, maximum spending time online would have been 10 minutes in total.

Never again though. I was so bored outta my brain.

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