I was in seventh standard when I opted for Sanskrit as my second language. Our Sanskrit teacher Mr Narasimha Iyer was nicknamed Narachamayir meaning ‘greyhaired’ by his naughty students. He would take classes for us four days a week in a room on the second floor of our school.
Mr Iyer was fastidious when it came to assignments and none of us dared skip homework, lest we got a nice pasting from our feared teacher.
On the completion of every lesson in the textbook, he would ask us questions one by one. Anyone who made mistakes on D-day was sure to receive a generous number of beatings.
Poor Sundaram, the only student in our Sanskrit class who was not in the same street with his classmates in grasping the subject, was Mr Iyer’s punching bag. We used to prompt him the right answers as he would otherwise stand mum when his turn to answer came.
Surprisingly, Sundaram did moderately well in all other subjects. Perhaps it was his mortal fear of Mr Iyer that resulted in his poor performance in the language.
One day, Sundaram didn’t make it to class and soon we heard that he was down with fever. We rued his absence since he was a good friend to everyone. Weeks rolled by, but there was no sign of our beloved friend and his prolonged absence worried not just us, but Mr Iyer too. It then emerged that our buddy was suffering from typhoid, which in those days all but snuffed out the life of the victim. Sundaram’s condition ran to seed, and we learnt that his body turned pallid with each passing day.
But even in the grip of the raging fever, what seemed to be bothering Sundaram was the beatings that waited for him at school. “Don’t beat me sir, I’ll answer the question correctly!” he would scream in his sleep unaware of his surroundings. A month and a half passed and he still hadn’t made it to school, neither was there any sign of him getting better.
The doctors attending on him gave up all hopes. Alas! Our cherished classmate succumbed to the disease. Our school remained closed that fateful day. As we exited the school, we observed our Sanskrit master sitting in a corner of the corridor resting his face over his palms, visibly fighting back tears.
Corporal punishment seldom does any good. Instead of encouraging students to do better, it often makes them dread coming to school. Not only does it affect the student, but also the teacher who inflicts pain. Violence is never an answer to anything. Mr Iyer learnt it the hard way.
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