Tue-ti-ti….tue-ti-ti—The Boy and the Maths Teacher
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| Image Courtesy: fineartamerica |
In 1995, at an Upper Primary School, in a
countryside in Kannur district, Kerala, South India, a young boy felt the dire
need to know what mutiny was. They had History as a subject, but as the
tradition of that school was, the teachers for some subjects would always be in
‘coming soon’ mode, as some of those Bollywood movie posters read. The History
teacher was on leave forever, and a substitute teacher, who generally taught
mathematics, was called for.
The mathematics teacher always told them to
remember dates, and the boy wondered what if one day, someone changed some
dates. The history and the present would be shaken, and there will be a chaos.
It was in one of her classes on Indian
History and Freedom Struggle she mentioned the word, mutiny. He munched on the
word for some time. The sound of it was especially intriguing. “Tue-ti-ti”. He
hummed in an alternate sound track. “Tue-ti-ti….tue-ti-ti.”
“An open rebellion against an authority,”
the math-turned-history-teacher explained the literal sense of the word. The
boy felt that there has to be a better word to explain the war. It was after
all, Indians fighting against the ruling British, for something that always was
theirs.
“Why is it called a mutiny, teacher?” the
boy inquired. The teacher looked at the boy, in return, and said something
inaudible. The boy shook his head as if he understood what the teacher had
said, when the sound of the teacher’s words hardly reached within five feet of
the boy, sitting in the third bench.
Later at home, he asked his mother about
the mutiny. She was a teacher of History, at a college. The mother was happy to
see her son asking questions on his subjects. She calculated that the boy might
be able to do really well in the year-end exams, if she could deliver a
detailed lesson on the mutiny. Finding time among other household chores, the
mother sat down to narrate one of the bloodiest episodes of Indian history. The
boy was happy with awe and wonder, satiated. The mother addressed both his
hunger for knowledge and the passion for stories.
The history teacher did not come. The
substitute teacher now had reasons too, which though, she did not reveal to anyone,
kept her away from the class of the boy. No one taught them History, anymore. Some
girls in the class grew agitated, as they assumed the reason of the substitute
teacher’s absence was the questions of the boy. No one knew which version of
the reason was the truth. In the year-end exams, though, the boy scored full
marks in history. Teachers as well as the Headmistress appreciated the boy
saying he knew things even the tenth graders did not.
The boy grew up. He is particularly
interested in reading fiction, novels. Somewhere in this journey into the world
of fiction and the craft of writing, though, he realized that his mind was searching
for the reassurance of facts. He was seeking answers to questions that haunted
him in his writing journey. In 2013, he found this silent urge was burning in
his mind. It directed him towards a quest into History.
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| Image Courtesy: Google |
How an individual’s story is tied up with a
nation’s!
The mutiny of 1857 is now dubbed as ‘the
First War of Indian Independence’, since mutiny was derogatory in its
implications towards the grand ideals the war upheld for the nation’s past and
future. When there is more to know on such a topic, a reference book on history
is the best tool to rely on. Therefore, I chose, The Great Mutiny, India 1857 by Christopher Hibbert.
Have you heard of the massacre in Cawnpore
River? Bollywood, apparently, has not
made a movie on this incident, yet. Many other events and references are
equally important, but an old painting, given in the central pages, along with
a few of other crucial paintings and photographs, hooked me to this book.
The door was open, and I turned my head
inside to look. I saw ghosts and bloody wars, treason and patriotism, struggling
to purify themselves with the blood of many. I saw people, many, with pride and
self-pity. I also saw kings and emperors clutching to what little they had been
left with.
Unlike the previous book reviews, in which
I had prioritized novels, this one, would be purely non-fiction, in fact a book
on history. I am expecting that this would be useful for academicians,
students, as well as general enthusiasts of Indian History. There is one more
thing. I will tell you later.
This is history. It isn’t over, yet. So, Wait.
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