I was never the brightest student in school. I just about managed to pass. I think I could have done way better, but I decided that doing just enough was good enough. Scoring low was never an obstacle in making my progress through school, college and beyond. I have survived so long and I believe I will survive further. I am in now way trying to preach that there is no point in scoring high. Don't get me wrong here. I'm just telling you what has worked for me. There is of course a price to pay for not knowing much and I have made a complete ass out of myself on many occasions. Gosh, I cant believe that I am actually going to list out some of the dumbest crap I have said in school and college, but hey, I'm not perfect and I am not afraid to show it. I guess its a small step in my much larger journey of knowing that its perfectly ok to not know and say stupid things instead.
Kannada Indeed
When I started my 5th grade in Bangalore, Kannada was a mandatory third language. I could never speak Kannada, forget reading and writing. Thankfully, the saving grace was that we were not required to pass in order to move to the next class. We just need to have it as a class. Thank God for that. Anyway, I have absolutely no memory about the class, except the fact that the teacher used to hate me because I made a lot of noise and fooled around. I don't remember what I did for the mid term exams but I remember taking the final exam. I got the question paper in hand and I couldn't read. Now what do I do? I remember my dad or mom always telling me that I should always attempt all questions, an advise I follow even to this day. So I did attempt, and what I did was, as the answers, I write each question backwards. For example, if the question was "Do you speak Kannada really well?" my answer would be, "Well really Kannada speak you do." Let me remind you that the paper was not in English. It was pure Kannada and I had a nice time drawing each letter one by one. I think I managed to rewrite the whole question paper backwards just within the given time frame.
The Hibiscus Incident
My dad had got transferred to Trivandrum and I was supposed to take an entrance test at a well reputed school in Trivandrum. I was supposed to join the 6th grade. The exam goes pretty well and I did not score well, but just about enough to make it through. Looking back, I get the feeling that one particular answer could have blown my chances. The question was simple: "What is the Hibiscus Plant?" I was maybe 10 or 11 and I had not heard the word hibiscus before, but hey, I was not doing to leave that question just because I did not know it. I finished the rest of my paper and spent a lot of time thinking. I thought and I thought what sense I could make of this damn word. After pondering for a long time, I arrived at the conclusion that such a word did not exist. Funny that I was even convinced. It could be a spelling mistake, couldn't it? In those days the question papers were typed and anyone could make a typing error, and that was what I was betting on. So what could it be? Hibiscus...hhmmm.. sounds like biscuit, so could it be? Ahh yes... this must be it. It must be biscuit miss-spelt. So anyway, my answer was: "The hibiscus plant is a type of plant found on the hills, whose extracts are used to make biscuits." I did not get my answer paper back and at that time I did not care. For curiosity sake, I would love to see that paper now just to see what comment the teacher had left.
The Gandhi sketch.
Everybody studies something or the other about Gandhi and most of us have at least read a part of "My Experiments with Truth." We had a lesson in our English text, in the 7th grade and it was from this book. I remember it being an easy lesson with nothing really difficult. Come exam time and one of the questions was, "Give a character sketch of Kasturba Gandhi." Now, I love doodling and have always loved it. All my notebooks have more doodling than notes. After I had read the question, my eyes saw only the word "sketch" and nothing else. I was happy because the English teacher had asked us to sketch. Haaa, I could get full marks for this question. I was so confident. Hence I spent most of my time drawing a good portrait of Kasturba Gandhi. I drew it with great love and care. Shading it properly. I dressed her up in a nice sari and I remember shading it to make it look like khadi. To make it more realistic, I even gave her a nice long ladle. Perfect. I was so pleased with it. When the papers came back, my heart sank. My lovely drawing was crossed out with a bold red pen and there was a huge zero placed next to it and next to it was written, "Meet me after class."
French Connection
I think I managed to not say anything stupid while in college. This incident was however forced out of me, by the situation I was in. I had always had trouble with languages. Kannada gave me a hard time and I have had trouble with Hindi too, in school. I thought I would be done with languages while in college, but here I am, stuck with french. I studied it for two whole years and still I cannot speak much. The first three semesters, i managed to pass after numerous attempts and copying. During the fourth semester we have an oral exam, where we go into the room one at a time. The french professor would be accompanied by a visiting professor from another college. I had mugged up the basic greetings like good morning, thank you etc. I had also mugged up the common holiday greeting like merry Christmas, happy new year etc. My trump card was knowing how to say, "desole je ne sai pas"(sorry, I don't know), and I made sure I flaunted this skill after most of the questions he asked me. Hey, so what if I didn't know the answer. I was at least saying that I did not know, in pure french. Anyway the final question was a picture. It showed a guest at a hotel complaining to the manager about the sad state of his room. The room looked like it had been vandalized. We were supposed to create a dialogue based on this picture in maybe two or three lines. Damn, how on earth do I come up with a dialogue in a language I do not know. I had to be fast as the professors face was showing signs of irritation. I said, what the heck and what I blurted out was, "la moi hotel room le destruction." Please dont ask me what it means. I don't know if it made sense and I don't know if it actually does, to this day. The visiting professor had the look of shock. My professor shook his head and said, "Its really sad that you have come so unprepared." After saying this he shouted, "NEXT." I was out of there in a hurry and remember regretting not saying "merci"(thank you), as i exited. I never thought much about this incident until the results came and guess what, I passed. I am pretty sure, it wasn't by my merit, but maybe because he did not want to deal with me ever again.
Kannada Indeed
When I started my 5th grade in Bangalore, Kannada was a mandatory third language. I could never speak Kannada, forget reading and writing. Thankfully, the saving grace was that we were not required to pass in order to move to the next class. We just need to have it as a class. Thank God for that. Anyway, I have absolutely no memory about the class, except the fact that the teacher used to hate me because I made a lot of noise and fooled around. I don't remember what I did for the mid term exams but I remember taking the final exam. I got the question paper in hand and I couldn't read. Now what do I do? I remember my dad or mom always telling me that I should always attempt all questions, an advise I follow even to this day. So I did attempt, and what I did was, as the answers, I write each question backwards. For example, if the question was "Do you speak Kannada really well?" my answer would be, "Well really Kannada speak you do." Let me remind you that the paper was not in English. It was pure Kannada and I had a nice time drawing each letter one by one. I think I managed to rewrite the whole question paper backwards just within the given time frame.
The Hibiscus Incident
My dad had got transferred to Trivandrum and I was supposed to take an entrance test at a well reputed school in Trivandrum. I was supposed to join the 6th grade. The exam goes pretty well and I did not score well, but just about enough to make it through. Looking back, I get the feeling that one particular answer could have blown my chances. The question was simple: "What is the Hibiscus Plant?" I was maybe 10 or 11 and I had not heard the word hibiscus before, but hey, I was not doing to leave that question just because I did not know it. I finished the rest of my paper and spent a lot of time thinking. I thought and I thought what sense I could make of this damn word. After pondering for a long time, I arrived at the conclusion that such a word did not exist. Funny that I was even convinced. It could be a spelling mistake, couldn't it? In those days the question papers were typed and anyone could make a typing error, and that was what I was betting on. So what could it be? Hibiscus...hhmmm.. sounds like biscuit, so could it be? Ahh yes... this must be it. It must be biscuit miss-spelt. So anyway, my answer was: "The hibiscus plant is a type of plant found on the hills, whose extracts are used to make biscuits." I did not get my answer paper back and at that time I did not care. For curiosity sake, I would love to see that paper now just to see what comment the teacher had left.
The Gandhi sketch.
Everybody studies something or the other about Gandhi and most of us have at least read a part of "My Experiments with Truth." We had a lesson in our English text, in the 7th grade and it was from this book. I remember it being an easy lesson with nothing really difficult. Come exam time and one of the questions was, "Give a character sketch of Kasturba Gandhi." Now, I love doodling and have always loved it. All my notebooks have more doodling than notes. After I had read the question, my eyes saw only the word "sketch" and nothing else. I was happy because the English teacher had asked us to sketch. Haaa, I could get full marks for this question. I was so confident. Hence I spent most of my time drawing a good portrait of Kasturba Gandhi. I drew it with great love and care. Shading it properly. I dressed her up in a nice sari and I remember shading it to make it look like khadi. To make it more realistic, I even gave her a nice long ladle. Perfect. I was so pleased with it. When the papers came back, my heart sank. My lovely drawing was crossed out with a bold red pen and there was a huge zero placed next to it and next to it was written, "Meet me after class."
French Connection
I think I managed to not say anything stupid while in college. This incident was however forced out of me, by the situation I was in. I had always had trouble with languages. Kannada gave me a hard time and I have had trouble with Hindi too, in school. I thought I would be done with languages while in college, but here I am, stuck with french. I studied it for two whole years and still I cannot speak much. The first three semesters, i managed to pass after numerous attempts and copying. During the fourth semester we have an oral exam, where we go into the room one at a time. The french professor would be accompanied by a visiting professor from another college. I had mugged up the basic greetings like good morning, thank you etc. I had also mugged up the common holiday greeting like merry Christmas, happy new year etc. My trump card was knowing how to say, "desole je ne sai pas"(sorry, I don't know), and I made sure I flaunted this skill after most of the questions he asked me. Hey, so what if I didn't know the answer. I was at least saying that I did not know, in pure french. Anyway the final question was a picture. It showed a guest at a hotel complaining to the manager about the sad state of his room. The room looked like it had been vandalized. We were supposed to create a dialogue based on this picture in maybe two or three lines. Damn, how on earth do I come up with a dialogue in a language I do not know. I had to be fast as the professors face was showing signs of irritation. I said, what the heck and what I blurted out was, "la moi hotel room le destruction." Please dont ask me what it means. I don't know if it made sense and I don't know if it actually does, to this day. The visiting professor had the look of shock. My professor shook his head and said, "Its really sad that you have come so unprepared." After saying this he shouted, "NEXT." I was out of there in a hurry and remember regretting not saying "merci"(thank you), as i exited. I never thought much about this incident until the results came and guess what, I passed. I am pretty sure, it wasn't by my merit, but maybe because he did not want to deal with me ever again.
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