Paper Tiger
The Children’s World Encyclopedia I received for my seventh birthday started off with a bang — the Big Bang to be precise. It went on exploring galaxies, stars, and quasars, then came down towards the solar system, and finally orbited the Earth. From there on it took a bird’s eye view of history, civilization, literature, music, art, science, geography and everything else that a third grader could envision in their tiny head (figuratively of course, I had an oversized head). It was a sad parting when I had to put it down. To ‘actually’ study.
The year 2007 had hit. The People’s Movement was recently over, and so were the holidays. I was surprised and slightly dubious when my dad suggested skipping school, if I wasn’t feeling well. Any third grader would jump at this opportunity, but for my education-loving father to suggest this was out of place. Then he suggested reading for a couple of hours for the upcoming entrance wouldn’t hurt, would it?
As far as my memory is concerned, in my entire life that has been the only time I have ever ‘laboriously’ studied, and now it’s obvious to me why. My parents had me scared stiff of the exam. Gandaki Boarding School was the fabled land, resplendent with pearly gates decked in navy blue. Aashish dada’s dad had taught there, and my father had stayed with him for a while back in the day. He was impressed by that school. There was no question of if I was going to apply there, only when. It was commonplace for many fourth-graders to apply, and again get enrolled in fourth grade. I had this intense fear of repeating a grade and spending a whole year with the same books.
Paramount was the growing fright of not getting high enough in the merit list to warrant a day scholar position. Having to stay at a hostel terrified the socially anxious and aloof me. My brain couldn’t work out what to do in that situation. Run away from the hostel? Plead unsuccessfully to my parents to let me remain in the nearby school? I would be eaten alive there, or worse, everyone would find out how helpless I was. I had no choice but to put all my weight behind studying. And so I did for two months.
The day of the exam, I rode pillion behind my father out to Lamachaur, to the north of Pokhara. GBS was huge. Machhapuchhre had a different view this far north, seemed much closer. The buildings looked old, but hardened and clean. The teachers looked sharp and imposing. Everyone filed deathly quiet into the classroom. The test had two halves: math and science. The very first math question had me stumped.
After so many problems practiced, this simple sequence was baffling my brain. The numbers just didn’t seem to be anywhere related to each other. I wrote them down, shuffled them around, even tried converting them into alphabets to see if they were vowels or something. No dice. And I was supposed to be good at this. I stared at the paper for a few eternities.
The rest of the exam I finished in autopilot. I vaguely remember the English section, especially writing a convoluted story about three fishes (or maybe two fishes?). They gave us lunch after that.
Back at home, I relayed what happened in a daze. My parents let me down gently, saying this was just the practice round, that if I failed then we’d have another go next year. If I did pass then maybe they would talk to the teachers they knew to keep me out of the hostel. That soured my mood greatly. I was experiencing this emotional conflict for the first time: between my dread and wounded ego.
It came as a shock, then, when the newspapers published the result and my name was at the top with a ridiculous score in the next column. My brain broke a little at that moment. My parents were calling people left and right like they’d won the lottery. All this time I was thinking “I could have studied a lot less than two months!” For two months I had let go of my curiosity, and the world had grayed.
I had been running as fast as I could from this tiger chasing me, and found myself crossing a finish line I wasn’t even aware existed. With all the people congratulating me, I looked back to what was actually a paper tiger.
The school was new, but people were mostly the same. I got into trouble with the Junior School Supervisor for not submitting my homework twice for GK class, which seemed stupid. I was still the smallest in the class, still awkward around people. Different was a sort of visibility, being known as the topper, which I had never asked for. I also had this navy blazer that never seemed to sit right upon my shoulders.
New also were a few classes. I had a lot of fun in Arts & Crafts class (made a paper dinosaur) and there was this other thing called a Library class. The library was a long room filled with books, many reminding me of my trusty old encyclopedia. We learned how to make an entry in our notes for a book, write a sentence-long summary and also how to look up books. At the end of the class, the miss said, “You can also borrow anything you want to take home!” in a singsong voice.
My classmates rushed out of the library, eager for the break. I thought they didn’t really hear the teacher. Or maybe I didn’t. Could we really take any book we wanted home? That seemed dubious. I went to a shelf full of thick books proclaiming ‘Great Illustrated Classics’ and picked out one at random. ‘The Mutiny on Board HMS Bounty’, it read. I went to the main desk. The counter had a greater height than me. The librarian had to lean over to look at me as I placed the book on the counter. She raised an eyebrow at it but said nothing and checked it out, asking my roll number. I had just borrowed my first book, beginning my literary journey.
This writing was a product of a workshop for my training to become a Book Bus instructor. For more information on the US Embassy’s book bus, click here.
(For the inquisitive minds, the title for this was chosen before I heard of Bill Burr’s special; which is weird since I used to religiously listen to his podcast. Nevertheless, I will be watching it as soon as feasible.)
