Here comes trouble!
Laugh lines
By Amrita Dhingra

IT would be stretching the truth more than a fair bit to say all was sweetness and light between you and Amanda Spence when you got back from Tokyo. Still life wasn’t all that bad once you got back to the headquarters of the old firm. A feeling of security began creeping up on you over the two days you’d been there. A comfortable, warm feeling of well-being aided no doubt by the fact that another pending disaster had been successfully warded off and that now you only had to see Amanda twice a day. Though you had to be on your toes during these times, the rest of the time you were your own master.

Just to get the reader in on the standard procedure you ought to explain that these twice daily doses were strictly part of the boss’s schedule. He had briefings with the two of you in the morning just after he got in and once just before he left. Simple. Nothing to that and as you strode up to the elevator which would deposit you on his floor there wasn’t much on your mind. It was always good to see the old man and today would be no different. Even Amanda Spence and her schemes to do away with you had ceased to affect your nervous system in quite the same way.

You kidded back and forth with the elevator boy on the way up and once you got up to the boss’s sanctum sanctorum you waved a cheery goodmorning to his secretary on your way in. The latter half of this cheery greeting, however, was cruelly wiped of your lips as you entered the boss’s office. The sight of a man standing next to Amanda Spence besides the boss hit you like a hard box in the solar plexus. No wait a minute this couldn’t be happening! Who the hell was this chap? These meetings were strictly confidential! You walked up to the boss.

"Hello my boy! How’s it going?" the boss was a picture of geniality as usual. No doubt he was thinking of all those new ways to mint millions. You, however, had other things on your mind.

"Good morning Sir, Amanda". You look pointedly at the intruder. And then it comes to you in a flash. A flash and another hard punch in the solar plexus.

"Good morning. I’d like you to meet my new assistant...," Amanda gives a patently fake smile she reserves just for you and you interrupt.

"... Alan Stokes!!!" You try not to choke on the words but your voice comes out as strangled cry.

"So good to meet up with you again," says Alan Stokes, another exponent of the art of fake smiles.

"This is a surprise!" A shock, you should have said, but the strict protocol; the protocol of war, prevented you.

"A pleasant one no doubt," said Miss Spence, who was no doubt enjoying every minute of your discomfort. She had put one over you this time, for sure.

All through the following chit chat you were miles away. Years away. Years away when Alan Stokes had been a constant blot on your horizon at Business School. And now no thanks to Amanda he was back to haunt you. No doubt she knew all about your rivalry, no doubt she had a devious scheme in mind when she hired him as her assistant. What she didn’t know of course was that Alan Stokes, if given a chance would quite happily have the two of you sitting on the street. As a man he was one who was singularly unburdened by the weight of a conscience.

Would Amanda, a master at the art of fine calculations designed to give nasty shocks to rivals, be able to handle him? Amanda’s welfare, admittedly was the last thing on your mind at that point in time, your own welfare being in immediate jeopardy because you were sure she had added Alan Stokes to her staff for the sole purpose of getting rid of you!

You remembered quite well the sly face of Alan Stokes haunting you day and night in Business School, you remembered bitterly how neatly he had presented your paper and won your award. It was enough to bring any decent human being’s blood to boil, but there was of course nothing you could do at the moment. Silently gnash your teeth perhaps but nothing more.

So you sat there wrapped in the past and your own thoughts, dredging up bitter thoughts and memories. So much so that the boss had to recall your attention to the matter at hand. Leaving the dredging for later you returned to the repartee. There was to be, it seemed, an award ceremony for the boy scouts sponsored by your conglomerate. All Amanda’s idea, who is always coming up with these plans to enhance the public image of the company. Anyway, the whole plan was to have a fairly large gathering — shiny faced boy scouts, parents in attendance, a few TV crews — that sort of thing.

Finding no real reason to oppose such a scheme you fell in with it. Too busy thinking about all the hurdles you’d have to vault with Alan Stokes joining up with Amanda, you had no interest in the matter. It rankled sorely with you that the creep was on the loose and your hands were tied. Five minutes with Alan Stokes in a dark alley, that was all you asked.

A week passed, with no let up in your misery. An impending sense of doom seemed to loom in the air. You didn’t trust Alan Stokes, God only knew what horrendous tricks he’d play on the way to seeing first you and the whole company on the way to ruin. It did nothing to improve your state of mind when you visited the hall where the preparations for the award ceremony were underway.

There was nothing for you to do there anyway, Amanda with Stokes in tow, had everything working with nauseating precision. After wandering back stage and finding yourself underfoot you drifted back to where the prospective awardees were sitting in front of the stage. Now, sitting doesn’t begin to describe the bunch of fifty boys ranging from the ages of nine to eleven who had assembled there. No doubt once they had been sitting but now it was a pretty heterogeneous mass of scuffling, shouting and jostling.

Among the participants of this melee one figure stood out. A boy of about 11 with ginger hair and freckles to match. But it wasn’t his hair that got your attention, it was a complete lack of action. A passivity amongst a seething mass of schoolboy rowdiness. Passivity and misery. And almost as soon as you assessed his misery, you recognised him.

It was none other than Thomas Spence. Thomas Spence who had from his sandbox days done more than his fair bit to drive all attending adults into sessions with their psychiatrists. Thomas Spence who had a temperament that matched his hair. Thomas Spence the terror of the playground. Thomas Spence who led the hordes of boys into glorious, riotous mischief. Thomas Spence sitting quietly?

Your acquaintance with Spence junior had thus far been a limited one. A state of tolerance and nothing more. Mutual tolerance and a tacit acknowledgement that as far as Amanda was concerned the two of you were fellow sufferers. For though Tom may be the king of all he surveyed as far his activities outside the homestead were concerned, there was no getting away from the fact that the only person who could bring any measure control to his activities was his sister. Which was why he was sitting there looking martyred and world weary. No doubt Amanda had been talking to him again.

The dissonance of a captured spirit is a force to be reckoned with. An idea began to form and you sidled into the vacant seat next to Tom.

The next evening you arrived at the Hall well ahead of schedule and insinuated yourself as part of the backstage going on. Amanda was too busy to do anything about your being there except make one acid remark. The programme was something like this: your speech on behalf of the boss, the award ceremony, a long closing lecture on boy scouts delivered by Alan Stokes.

As you made your speech to the packed audience your eyes went to Tom sitting amidst his followers. His red hair had been brushed back, his freckled face was glowing and over-earnest, his boy scout’s uniform was spotless. But more than that there was a gleam in his eye. Here, the keen observer would have noticed, was a boy no longer weighed down by an elder sister’s bossiness. Here was a boy with things on his mind, a boy who was looking forward to the evening. You kept your speech short, noting with satisfaction that the juvenile half of the audience was already growing restless.

Followed by your speech was the distribution of awards and a box filled with a slice of sticky, delicious pie. As the last of the awardees filled back to their seats, Alan Stokes got out his papers, put on his oily grin and walked on to the stage. He did not notice that the very last of the awardees, a certain T.M. Spence, had stayed back on stage.

Now Alan Stokes prided himself as something of a Mark Antony as far as the rhetoric went. He cleared his throat and plunged into his speech. It was a long speech and before the first page and a half were over, the boy scouts began to get fidgety. They were clearly not interested in the merits of the system. They had had enough of incarceration indoors for one evening. And still Alan Stokes continued. The TV cameras rolled on and the audience applauded on cue whenever the sign was lit up.

By the end of the third page the fidgetyness had multiplied into a minor wave of unruliness. Meanwhile you and young Tom had not been idle. Tom was the champion boy scout at rope climbing and he was at that moment steadily ascending the curtain rope of the stage curtain. You went across to the applause signaller and nodded your readiness to him.

"...It is a terrible state of affairs in which juvenile crime and delinquency is on the rise..." droned on Alan Stokes.

At that precise moment, letting out a yell of youthful exuberance combined with a fair bit of Tarzan Thomas Spence swung across the stage on his rope. You pressed the applause button and kept your finger on it. Tom’s shoes missed Alan Stoke’s nose by an inch, the audience applauded gustily. The boy scouts returned their attention to the stage. Tom swung on his way back, Alan Stokes fell over to avoid him, the audience sat up and applauded even more lustily.

What followed over the next 10 minutes was pure unadulterated chaos. Tom outdid himself with each successive swing, his whoops and war cries roused the chafing spirits of the rest of the boy scouts who promptly forgot all parental warnings and took out the sticky cream pies.

These they proceeded to launch at the stage. As a moving target Tom was not a sure shot bullseye, the stationary, dithering figure of Alan Stokes however was a target after their own heart. Pie after sticky pie went splat on his face, on his expensive new suit. And the audience ever faithful to the cues continued to cheer and applaud. The boy scouts were nothing if not thorough.

Led by Tom they indulged whoops and yells and laughter, they pushed, they shoved, they stormed the stage, one of them tied Alan Stokes’ laces together, so that he tipped five times as he tried to make his way off stage. And all the while the applause rang out.

When the show was over and Amanda had established some measure of control, you’d made sure Tom was well on his way home with instructions to keep well out of her way.

Amanda of course was furious, Alan Stokes was last seen huddling into his car, the boy scouts — still delighted and only partially subdued — made their way home with their parents.

There was little doubt in Amanda’s mind as to exactly who was responsible for the fiasco, as she called it. Still she couldn’t prove a thing. Between the two of you, you managed to get the TV stations to show a heavily edited and very decorous version of the ceremony on the news.

You stayed back a while after Amanda left and picked up the tape the editor had promised you. As you walked towards your car, you couldn’t help but smile. You felt young again, young and light hearted. Life was worth living again. In Tom Spence you had found a comrade in arms. A comrade on whose noble and unstinting support you could count on.

And if that wasn’t enough the video tape in your hand would be the censure of your collection. A delight for all time to come. For it was a video tape featuring exclusively the spectacle of a certain A. Stokes being smacked with cream pies as he made his speech. Surely that’s reason enough to be over the moon!

Let children sing the song of "freedom"
By Indu Maitra

MORE than the teachers or the students, it is the parents who worry about homework given to the children. The demand for homework mostly comes from the parents. One simply wonders why it is so. Perhaps, parents look at homework not only as a means to educate their children but also to keep their children occupied for two to three hours so as to keep them away from mischief. Parents even judge the standard of a school or of a teacher by the amount of home work given to the students.

The most surprising demand is the one for holiday homework. These two words are contradictory as ‘holiday’ and ‘work’ don’t go together. Holidays are meant for fun and frolic and are an opportunity for the children to enjoy themselves. They give a sense of freedom from the fear of studies and books. At a higher level, giving assignments and homework is quite understandable because of the tough competition a child has to face. Why should parents ask for homework even at the primary level? Too much of homework tramples and stifles a child’s creativity and freedom. Aren’t we encroaching upon the child’s right to freedom (essential for his natural growth) by making him sit in the classroom for six hours and then within the four walls for another spell of three to four hours?

In the present system of education and schooling, perhaps, homework has become a necessary evil but at least during the holidays we can give children time to breathe, or to go bouncing into the world of nature. They should have time to explore the world around them independently, time to annex new vistas of knowledge and experience blissful joys of childhood that comes just once in a lifetime. As experience is man’s age-old teacher, let parents supplement the bookish and formal education at school with an educative experience that is combined with pleasure and love. Why remind children of studies, classes and homework even during holidays? Aren’t 10 months of the year, with six hours everyday, in school enough for that?

Let parents tactfully arouse their child’s sense of curiosity and satisfy it too by answering his queries intelligently. Parents should take him for outings and read story books and informative books. The simplest of situations at home and outside provide parents an opportunity to teach their children something useful, if they make an effort. Involving children while planning outings can serve as a good lesson for them. It will inculcate in them a sense of responsibility and teach them how to organise things. Observe them and see what interests them.

Give them total protection and security when it is needed, but at the same time withdraw into the background yourself to see how they behave when they are on their own. After 10 months of formal education, let children have informal education at least for two months.

Hardly does the session start that the demands from the parents for the syllabus start pouring in. Parents feel that by making the child learn and revise a set syllabus they have achieved the complete education of the child. Why choke a child’s mind with stereotyped syllabus and homework? If a child can learn addition with his concepts clear, just 20 sums a week will give him enough practice and it will give him pleasure too. Making him sit and do 100 or more sums just for the sake of keeping him occupied will lead to an aversion for studies.

Setting syllabus and testing students is the domain of the teachers, it should not be trespassed by parents. One mother complained that the teacher gave a surprise test to the class and the parents were not informed about it. After a long and heated argument, it was found that the child had scored 19 out of 20. Her complaint was that had she known about the test she would have prepared the child for that and he could have scored 20 out of 20. For the one extra mark she would have made the child study for two to three hours more which would have been criminal on her part. The teacher was happy with the child’s performance but the parents made the child feel guilty for not getting 20 out of 20.

Books are prescribed as a means for imparting knowledge but completing all the lessons just for the sake of completing the syllabus, without considering the child’s pace and ability to assimilate is not justified. The syllabus should be flexible and should be left to the discretion of the teacher.

Another parent complained that the last 10 to 12 pages of a certain book in the class were not covered by the teacher and the teacher failed to complete the course. In the course of the argument, the parent said, "Now the child is completing the rest of the pages on his own and I don’t even know how he is doing it because he does not allow me to help him". Though the parent was complaining, in my heart of hearts, I appreciated my teacher for the good job done by her. This shows that the teacher has a correct approach and was able to make the concepts so clear that the child did not even need anybody’s help and was able to complete the rest of the worksheets independently.

This is true education and this is how the child should be initiated into the field of education. This type of education is definitely deep-rooted and lasting and will go a long way in helping the child settle successfully. He will develop an attitude for learning things independently from every available source.

Learning and going to the school should be a pleasure for the child. Spoon-feeding or thrusting of knowledge in the mind of the child should be attempted neither by the parents nor by the teachers. Instead, as guides, they should create a situation or activity that involves child in such a way that knowledge dawns upon the child’s mind as an intuition. After a hectic day in school, let the child learn to recuperate the lost energy by relaxing and making his mind and body calm and quiet, strong and poised so that he goes to school next day fresh to learn new lessons.

Give your child time to assimilate whatever little he has learnt. Give your child experience, situation and exposure so that he is submerged into an ocean of knowledge and yet he does not feel drowned. Let him imbibe knowledge drop by drop and let his "self’ and his personality open up petal by petal.