The young girl of nine years had a stubborn mulish look on her face as she was paraded from class to class with a page torn from a handwriting note book stuck on her back. She never went back home and cried about this, neither in front of her mother nor while she was alone. It made her resolute to two things- one never to show her emotions in public and second to never let herself be put in such a situation that she has to face humiliation.
The little girl grew up to have a legible if not wonderful handwriting and went on to major in English literature as if to show that particular frame in time – “see me now! I can do better than you think I could”!
The wound has healed over the years and the scar is invisible. If and when I think of that episode I am filled with mortification! Just imagine if that had happened now, the teacher would have been sued if not jailed! But I think I should be grateful to that teacher because it was the first battle of my life and I won it hands down! It gave me the confidence that I lacked until then.
I have had many episodes in life where I have had to bear a lot of hidden innuendos. I had two ways in which I could have dealt with them – one by open confrontation or two by keeping quiet and bearing with it. I have done neither! I have tried to create a “recycle bin” in my brain in which I dump all the “trash” and do not look at it. But unfortunately I have not used “Shift+ctrl+del” so it’s still there and they do pop up once in a while to bug me and no anti-virus works here!
“Spare the rod and spoil the child” was an oft repeated maxim while I was growing up. But how many of us have the strength to bear the burden of the “rod”. There are many who must have been psychologically scarred because of such episodes. I had a wonderful family background which gave me the strength to fight back and change the episode to my advantage but what about children who do not have family support?
Now days life in school is so much better and fun than our days. At least legally there are a lot of laws which can help. But not all the evils of schooldays have been eradicated. Bullying is still a part of many lives; though teachers do not use the rod any more there are many who use psychological weapons to demean and harass a student and vice-versa (Students are more powerful now and have been known to harass teachers!) When you hear about the ragging that goes on in many colleges it makes you feel sick with anger and helplessness.
I feel people who perpetuate these kinds of events, are worse than murderers and should get life imprisonment! The murderer has taken a life but these people make you go through death umpteen numbers of times! Everyone has gone through at least one episode of discomfort in various degrees in their lives but it’s all about degrees! The little boy who ties a tin can on the tail of the little kitten would not repeat it if he were to be censured softly but many a parent think it’s clever or cute if he does so!
The one silver lining in the dark cloud is that there are lots of help available everywhere, such episodes are talked of openly and without the sense of shame it earlier had and it is actually a process of hardening and making us tough to face the real world.
These things do spill over to the domestic life and the reason I write this today is because I recently heard a story of domestic violence and the child had no go but to mutely ask for help through a poem and whether it got any help or not, is a part of a worldwide guilt. I believe all of us are responsible for all of us!
very interesting write up ...you area absolutely right when you say such crimes do happen and it is a question of degrees.
ReplyDeleteWould like to add that this is happening all the time - at home, at the workplace - I have seen bosses publicly deride grown up men severely in front of their colleagues - while like your teacher, their intent may be right, but what and how they do to correct the situation is incorrect. And they do not realize it ....
...Which also leads to the fact that we are also not aware that we are committing similar crimes all the time - whether with our spouse, children, siblings, relatives, colleagues - it may not be as blatant as bullying, but the emotional hurt created is the crime.
p.s. incidentally, you need to do simpler "shift+del" to get rid of all the nasty files the antivirus did not detect; shift+ctrl+del is not required ! :)