Saturday, September 24, 2011

15 seconds of fame

Recently whilst I was writing some essays which required me to do some deep introspection I remembered a really funny incident that happened during my school years.This happened in the 8th standard. My class had earned the tag of being the naughtiest in the school that year. One of the teachers - the history teacher -was particularly very angry with us because of our repeated misdeameanors and inattentiveness.  Therefore one day she declared that she's going to take a oral test of all the completed chapters in the next lecture and anybody who could not answer any question would be taken to the Principal's office. I was spooked. The head master was a scary man with a reputation for getting violent with disobedient students. So immediately after the class I started mugging up the answers which the teacher herself had dictated and which I had obediently copied down in my notebook.

I kept memorising and revising the answers throughout the week and next week as expected she walked in to the class her face like thunder. Then, she started calling out students asking them, even challenging them to answer one random question. 4 students had been called up and nobody could answer a particular question. Next she asked me to answer. I stood up and sincerely repeated the answer which was by then I think imprinted on my brain word for word.  The class was shocked. I was shocked. She was flabbergasted.

The reason behind this was my reputation for being shy and reticent in the class and not taking part in any class discussions. Finally, after few moments of pin-drop silence she commended me thinking - Oh this guy can talk! She however pardoned the others who could not answer with only a warning which made me feel really stupid. Apparently most of the others had not even taken the effort to read any of the answers as they knew she would not go through with her threat. But however I did get my 15 seconds of fame.