Author: Bubun Mahakud
We had this pot-bellied, middle-aged Maths teacher Mr T Jani in High School. He had a peculiar way of congratulating those of his students who scored well in every Unit Test. “25 out of 25,” he would announce from his chair holding the paper that he had evaluated and said the name “Mr XYZ” whoever scored full. Trust me, it was the best feeling – walking from your bench in a class of around forty students to the front while they applause. I have been there!
There was another guy too. His name was Malaya. Slightly taller than me, dark toned skin, he was soft spoken. There were few other brilliant students – Debu, Amrit, Vivek and Devi. But Malaya outshined us all. There were times when I didn’t score 25. There were times when my friends couldn’t achieve that feat. Malaya was different. He was consistent. I have not seen Mr Jani ‘not smiling’ whenever he comes across Malaya’s name. I was so jealous of him. How come this innocent looking guy whom anyone could deceive beat us at every test? Not science, not social science, not English. Just Maths. In overall results, he would not even get a position of first, second or third. Basically, he was a guy, academically speaking, who was greatly gifted in Maths.
They say Malaya would solve equations just scribbling in his palm. Mr Jani would say he was a genius. I was curious. Every night I’d imagined of various ways to deceive Malaya and learn the trick from him. I have to score 25 every time in Maths because I didn’t want that clumsy, dwarf and girlish Debu Jena to top my class. However, my wish didn’t shape into reality. Malaya scored 25. Debu topped the class. Every damn time. High School Boys, I tell you, are very competitive and it gets into their nerves if something doesn’t go in their way. Days passed. Malaya was not one of the favourite pupils of Mr Jani because he never topped the class. Not even once. Not even among the top ten in my class. Because he was exceptionally gifted in Maths, everybody expected him to perform well in other subjects. Minus me. I told you I was jealous.
Soon we were promoted to a higher class. Things got really complicated here. This is where my actual story begins. Malaya and I came from Odia medium schools. Navodaya was a CBSE school. That means the medium of instructions would be English. In the previous class, since we were new and our batch joined the school towards the end semester of that year, they taught us in Odia. Now we were promoted to the next class. The transition of the medium of instructions from Odia to English adversely affected Malaya. Sometimes he would understand the concepts, sometimes he did not. Most of the time he’d look like a fool musing over basic concepts and his problem-solving pace slowed down. I am not saying he became completely alien to the world of Mathematics but the language barrier was a thing for him. These boys from government primary school were not good in English.
Over Months, Malaya’s performance dropped. Substantially. Soon he was put under the ‘weaker section of the students’ in my class who were looked after in remedial period with supervision from the concerned teacher. They were taught the basics which Malaya would solve in seconds if he understood the question. His performance would look ambitious. Again there would be tests. And Malaya would fail. Miserably. He did not get the question that he was supposed to answer. Thus, back to the ‘weaker section of the class.’ He was trapped in this vicious cycle. A genius among us who could learn advanced Mathematics from an early age was stuck in the basics again and again, repeatedly, because of the language barrier. Nobody understood his plight. I did. I was in the same situation too. Malaya was not good at other subjects. He was rendered a slow learner.
What I survived, Malaya didn’t. I hated it when Debu topped the class. I took it to my heart. I was competitive. So, the next summer vacation I asked my father to find me an English tutor at home and returned to the hostel as a better student. Malaya was the same. Dull in every other subject but Maths. Give him a problem, make him understand it in Odia and there you go… What Debu Jena would take pages to answer, Malaya did it in the back of his hand with a pen. I, sometimes, wonder what would have happened if Malaya was not thrown into our modern day educational system where one has to perform well in every subject, in English to go ahead in life? What if he was thrown into an ancient Gurukul type ashram where one could pursue what he was good at?
Anyhow, I scored better. Sometimes I topped the class too. I worked hard academically because he wanted to impress people. My father, my teachers, my friends and of course, I wanted to beat Debu. However, Malaya wanted no such thing. He was at the bottom of the class. He didn’t work hard. He didn’t have to. Because his brilliance in Maths was something innate to him. And now that was gone. Not gone, I apologize but overlooked. Forgotten and ignored. He deserved better. This education system didn’t deserve him. The guy with a beautiful mind was now full of self-doubt over the years. And seven years through Navodaya, he couldn’t get out of that. When a bunch of teachers tell you that you need extra supervision since you scored less, of course, you’d believe them. Nobody could realize his real problem. As we grew up we used to talk about how Malaya was a genius back then and now he has accepted himself as a weak student.
There was another guy called Soumyaranjan who came to my school in class ninth. He was like Malaya. Totally gifted mind in Maths. What I learnt by practising for months, he learnt it by a mere glimpse of the textbook for a few minutes. But unlike Malaya, Soumya was driven. He used to work hard. He found Maths interesting. When we used to play ‘FLAMES’ by scribbling Girls’ name on the back page of the notebook to calculate love percentage, Soumya could use that space to solve the differential equation.
As time passed, he chose Biology over Maths after class 12th because his family wanted to see him as a doctor. And guess what, he failed to be a doctor.
Different times. Different people. I have shared my bench with two guys who could have been the next Ramanujan of India.
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