School keys - 2

The kunji was slim, and so to hide it on one’s person and carry it to the examination hall was not a big challenge. But there were some intrepid fellows who took on mightier mountains. I remember a fellow who smuggled the state-prescribed physics book into the exam hall. And that was a real tome, some five hundred pages or so. If I remember right, it was authored by Harnam Singh, perhaps co-authored, for it was fondly referred to as ‘four authors’. Now, the invigilator  who happened to walk the aisle that day had the habit of bending his head suddenly, and our young intrepid student thought he had been caught and he blurted a sudden ’sorry!’. The invigilator woke up to the unsolicited confession, and dived to find out the sin. And there it was, in the drawer of the desk. The huge tome itself! Even he was shocked!

‘Copying’ was a fine art those days, a parallel education passed on by tribal elders. Bit papers with finely calligraphed subject matter were exam-keys for many a student. There was even a name for this ‘bit-paper-meant-for-copying’. It was called a ‘Furraa’, and I dont know if that word is found in the Hindi dictionary. Furraas were kept in geometry boxes, socks, shoes etc. There were some tribal elders who knew the art of attaching these to a rubber band tied to the shoulder, so that it could be released from the palm, and shot back into the sleeve, when danger was spotted. Oh the slings of David!

And it wasnt just the boys who used ‘furraas’. I remember this girl who was caught with a ‘furraa’. And she fainted when she was caught. ‘A’,  she was a girl, and ‘B’, she had fainted. And so she was let off on ‘compassionate’ grounds. Well that would have been fine, except that she brought in a furraa the next exam the following day, was caught again, and she fainted again!

Lets now come to the term ‘ee adichaan copy’.

I asked a few people about the etymology of this colorful phrase, and heres what I heard.

Exams were on. Student ‘A’ telescoped his vision to look at the answer sheet of student ‘B’ sitting in the seat ahead of him. Now, there was a house-fly sitting on the answer sheet of student ‘B’. Student ‘A’, who was very exact in his copying, thought that the fly was a part of the answer, and so caught a fly and pasted it in his answer sheet too. A fly is called ‘Eee’ in Tamil. And ‘Ee adichaan copy’ means, he copied the ‘fly’ as well!

Which brings to mind the famous Hindi proverb - ‘Nakal mein bhee akal honee chahiye’ - “Even to copy, you need some intelligence’…

School keys - 1

School system for us Indians has often been a David vs Goliath kind of challenge, with the might of the entire Education Empire thrown against us poor little cornered kids. But we Davids had our slings and stones, and somehow or other we have all exorcised every school Goliath out of our lives.

My memory goes back to a few of the slings and stones of my school times.

One of them was called a ‘key’ book. These were books that were meant to ease the severe brain burden that an Indian school kid carries. A ‘Key-book’ would contain solutions to all questions listed in the ‘state prescribed’ text book. That the solution would be mediocre (or even wrong), and the book itself bulkier than the ‘prescribed’ book is another story. But its utility was beyond doubt. Imagine, for a moment, a grinning teacher throwing a curve ball at an unsuspecting student…a ball of solid iron, something like –

“Prove sin(a) + sin(b) + sin(c)
  = sin(a + b + c) + 4sin((b+c)/2) sin((c+a)/2) sin((a+b)/2”

Or Prove that sin(2 arctan(x)) = 2x/(1 + x2)…

Now tell me, how many students would look forward to face this ball? 39 out of 40 students in a class would rather not use their brain power to attack such problems. This was not in the list of our priorities for the day. But we were safe in the knowledge that when ‘push comes to shove’, there is always a ‘key-book’ that has the solution to these kind of paper problems. A book with a name like – ‘Trigonometry without tears’…

A ‘key book’! What a comfort!  Who indeed would want to wrestle with questions about asymptotes, axes and foci of a hyperbola without the aid of a book such as “Geometry without Fear” (by, say, Nipat Niranjan, Gold Medalist) ?

So that’s how we did it. Armed with question papers of ‘last five years exams’, and a key book – we successfully overcame many a Goliath.

But then there were some opponents who were far more fierce than the normal Goliath. Take Sanskrit, for example. This was a holy-terror for a large section of the student community. Most would rather worship the Sanskrit book, than open and read it. It was but faith in a benevolent higher power that enabled most kids to enter the battlefield of the examination hall and face an exam in Sanskrit. And for that battle, they had the most ingenious of slings – the Kunji.

The Kunji deserves a post in itself. But I will try and compress it. For that is in the spirit of a Kunji. A kunji was a razor thin book that held the key for the subject in question – shady answers to cosmic questions. The paper that a Kunji was printed in  was a precursor to the modern day toilet paper, a cheap paper of the kind a bus ticket of those days was usually made of. The print was so smudgy, you could probably rub it off with your fingers. Facing a Sanskrit exam, many a desperate  student would smuggle the kunji into the examination hall. And after that it was a ‘pattern recognition’ challenge. Look at the question. See if any question in the Kunji looks similar. Copy the answer, in ‘Ee adichaan copy’ manner. When in doubt put a ‘halant’ mark at the end of a word or two (‘Halant’ is a symbol that makes Sanskrit look Sanskrit). Draw neat lines after each answer. Write the same answer more than once (not in succession though) – and hope that either one or both may be right and that the teacher would be kind of enough to give you credit for at least one of the attempts, if not both. Done. That’s it. QED.

Oh, the kunji was a masterpiece! It was not a tome like other ‘key books’. It was a designer item, a use-once and dispose kind of thing, of great utility. If by chance you were caught by the ‘invigilators’ in the examination hall with a kunji in your hand, you could always swallow the whole thing. Three bites and gone. The material and size of the kunji was such that it would cause no serious digestion issue either. Eat the evidence!

Sirji! What an idea, Sirji!

(Wondering what is ‘ee adichaan copy’? Hold on for the next post)…

Coming back to college….

The world of internet  has enabled people all over the world to discover and reconnect with their high school and college chums….And the egroups that get formed do have a goldrush kind of process….(of that in some other post…)…

But at some stage, the gang does get together for a major reunion…like my college classmates did, to mark silver jubilee of our completing our graduate degrees….Having studied in a residential institute, we had put in five years of our lives, living in the same campus, twenty five years or more ago….And then we met, after all these years, in the same campus….Heres a shot at a ‘pome’ that tries to ’say it’, as it happened.

Hello!
 
A batch of sixty co-students
            All guys,
Got together again
twenty five years after
And gaped.
 
The athlete of the college
Had run faster than the clock.
The lean one
Nicknamed ’stick’
            (Who was rumoured  to have flown away
            That year of the cyclone)
Had put on a hundred kilos.
And the fat one
Had shed a ton of weight.
 
The Miss World face
Had grown a macho mouche
The bush haired
Had become bald
The old-fashioned, orthodox, spectacled one
Was now dashing, debonair, nude eyed,
Wearing see-through contact lenses.
 
Fat jowls
Hid the once smoke-sunk-cheeks of one
And a designer beard
The baby-bums face of another.
 
The roughneck of yore
Looked now, like Gautama
The Buddha.
 
Time teased
            Grinned
                        Laughed.
 
It was not as if they gaped for a long time.
 
It all happened kind of together,
They gaped, gasped, smiled, spoke…
 And it was when they started speaking
That they hit gold.
 
I tell you differently.
 
Eyes didn’t help recognize.
 
Ears did,
For voices had not changed.
 
And so, recognize me?
 
Hello! Hello! Hello!

From a closed place…

On this day of Bandh in Tamil Nadu, when not a fly moves in deference to the rulers, and the unruly, I log on to the school egroup hoping to find an oasis….but seems that the bandh declared by TN Govt extends to DTEA school egroup as well…..not a single mail…..

i remember the time our school changed from MEA (Madrasi Education Assoc) to DTEA (Delhi Tamil Educ Assoc) ….it was the time the state govt changed the name of Madras to Tamil Nadu…..and then, a year or so later, Tiru mu karunanidi came to delhi, and to some branches of DTEA school as well…I was a part of the school band giving a welcome guard of honor….since DTEA LR band was the only one among DTEA branches, our band went to other branches as well….

Got to hear MK speak….and what a good speaker! Our school had the unfortunate tag of being money minded (MEA….was referred to by some uncharitable folks as ‘Money Eating Association’)….and what was the reputation due to? Due to our ‘chillarai’ brains! Just imagine, paying 38 paise fees per month, and ‘donation’ of Rs 7 or so per family per month - and we complained that the school was money minded….naturally the school was short of funds, as always….and they had requested TN Govt for help….

and MK said in his speech - “My name is Karunanidhi…i.e. Karunai and Nidhi…(Compassion and Wealth)….The word Karunai is longer than Nidhi….My sympathy is more abundant…My ability to give is less….” - or something to that effect…all said in chaste Tamizh, in his characteristic trade-mark voice….he connected well with the huge gathering…

People in power always leave some impression on young minds - thanks to the pomp, regalia, and general ‘power based’ charisma that they have…So, memories of a CM, is natural….’

But then there were others, much simpler folks, who came to our school on occasion, who also come to mind….and to me, they are interesting….

For eg: there was one turbaned, cycle driving, social worker….his cycle would have a small board, proclaiming some rules of ethics that he followed…..he came and spoke to us about ‘character building’……By normal standards, he was an absolute misfit…..Toiling physically, in the hot Delhi Sun, going from school to school, connecting with kids to tell them about the virtues of sincerity, hard work, honesty and ethics…..

There was Rukimini mami, who taught us Nenjak Kanakallu negizn turuka (Kandar anubhuti of Arunagirinatha)…the whole assembly used to sing this…..

That song rings on….