It was my first trip to India and we were in a bumpy car driving back from Agra after having seen the Taj Mahal. It was nice – smaller than I imagined, but nice. To be honest, I was more excited about seeing temples and gurdwaras, things I couldn’t find easily in Lahore. And so when I was told that we were stopping at the Sufi shrine of Ajmer Sharif on our way back, I was slightly put out. But my parents insisted that it was a powerful place. In fact, it was so powerful that it was rumoured that you get whatever you pray for there. This changes things if you’re a 13-year-old boy.
The four-hour car ride suddenly didn’t seem nearly long enough. What did I want? More pocket money? An “A” on every exam I would ever take? Everlasting life? Perfect happiness? I went through a rotation of each as we traveled through what I assumed was a red light district since it looked so much like Hira Mandi in Lahore.
The closer we got to the shrine, the more I panicked. My family dispersed once inside and I found myself mulling my choices, overlooking cooking pots the size of rooms which double as donation boxes. Eventually I made my decision, and it felt completely right. I went through the arches into the inner sanctum, touched the silver lattice overlooking the graves of the Sufi saint, took a deep, calking breath and whispered: “Please oh please, let my parent teacher meeting next week go well. Especially Math. Amen.”
Satisfied, I nodded at our silent contract and joined everyone else to pile back into the car.
I was reminded of this fact when I accompanied my sister’s kids to their parent-teacher this weekend. I was visiting them for a few days and it was on, and so I tagged along out of interest. As we waked I could see the same quiet panic on their faces that used to radiate within me whenever the words Parent and Teacher were in the same sentence. I used to have spectacularly bad PTMs, so much so that at 13, I happily give up the prospect of perfect skin, six pack abs and billions of dollars all so that five minutes with my math teacher went less than homicidal.
But this time would be different. My sister went alone to most of the teachers (horrifying but clever idea that lets both Parent and Teachers vent without fear of giving the child PTSD), and it was my brief to take the elder one to Art, Chemistry, Biology and Physics. Save art, these were triggering subjects for me. My friends and I used to spends weeks curating the order we would let our parents follow at PT meetings. Always good to start on a positive note, so take them to History, or maybe even Islamiat. Then to maybe literature and geography. Only once they were in a good mood would I allow them near my math, Urdu or physics teachers, but always with a break in between for English. Art, like a mint after garlic, was last. Obviously my plans never worked and I would watch in wide-eyed terror as my parents made a beeline from the car to my math teacher, usually skipping art altogether.
In solidarity with my 13-year-old self, I promised I would be a “cool” uncle at this weeks PTM, taking the kids’ side and not the teachers’. But Mrs Eve of chemistry went really well, and so did Biology. As we walked out of a glowing physics review I began eyeing the kids suspiciously. Who even are you? How could it all be going so well? Could it be that not every kid had a bad time at PTM’s? Was it only me?
The last one was art, and here I cheerfully settled in, prepared to be feted by the no-doubt genius offerings of my niece. But Mrs. Mitchell looked like a prune in a dress, and launched into an passive-aggressive rant inflating the importance of her own talent at the expense of the children’s. I could she that has her own issues.
That it was the art teacher that turned out to be the Sleeper Agent turned my whole world upside down, and I saw first hand how much difference a good teacher (or lack thereof) can make to a child’s interest in a subject. To the kids, Mrs. Eve was a marvelous ball of light and so, therefore, was her subject Chemistry. But being around the artless Mrs Mitchell felt like gall bladder surgery, and it was no surprise that the kids took little interest in art.
I waited downstairs for my sister to come back from her meetings, keen to tell her the wonderful things I had heard of her brood. But she looked stern when we left, since the teachers she met had told her a different story, a fact she relayed to the kids. We all drove home in a silence that I knew well from my own PTMs. No, I realized, it really is an awful experience for everyone.
I left thanking my God I’m not a kid anymore, and then thanked him again for the car crash that had kept Mr. Faiz from telling my parents I had failed every math test all those years ago. It was, in retrospect, the only good PT meeting I ever had.
Write to thekantawala@gmail.com
The four-hour car ride suddenly didn’t seem nearly long enough. What did I want? More pocket money? An “A” on every exam I would ever take? Everlasting life? Perfect happiness? I went through a rotation of each as we traveled through what I assumed was a red light district since it looked so much like Hira Mandi in Lahore.
The closer we got to the shrine, the more I panicked. My family dispersed once inside and I found myself mulling my choices, overlooking cooking pots the size of rooms which double as donation boxes. Eventually I made my decision, and it felt completely right. I went through the arches into the inner sanctum, touched the silver lattice overlooking the graves of the Sufi saint, took a deep, calking breath and whispered: “Please oh please, let my parent teacher meeting next week go well. Especially Math. Amen.”
Satisfied, I nodded at our silent contract and joined everyone else to pile back into the car.
I was reminded of this fact when I accompanied my sister’s kids to their parent-teacher this weekend. I was visiting them for a few days and it was on, and so I tagged along out of interest. As we waked I could see the same quiet panic on their faces that used to radiate within me whenever the words Parent and Teacher were in the same sentence. I used to have spectacularly bad PTMs, so much so that at 13, I happily give up the prospect of perfect skin, six pack abs and billions of dollars all so that five minutes with my math teacher went less than homicidal.
But this time would be different. My sister went alone to most of the teachers (horrifying but clever idea that lets both Parent and Teachers vent without fear of giving the child PTSD), and it was my brief to take the elder one to Art, Chemistry, Biology and Physics. Save art, these were triggering subjects for me. My friends and I used to spends weeks curating the order we would let our parents follow at PT meetings. Always good to start on a positive note, so take them to History, or maybe even Islamiat. Then to maybe literature and geography. Only once they were in a good mood would I allow them near my math, Urdu or physics teachers, but always with a break in between for English. Art, like a mint after garlic, was last. Obviously my plans never worked and I would watch in wide-eyed terror as my parents made a beeline from the car to my math teacher, usually skipping art altogether.
In solidarity with my 13-year-old self, I promised I would be a “cool” uncle at this weeks PTM, taking the kids’ side and not the teachers’. But Mrs Eve of chemistry went really well, and so did Biology. As we walked out of a glowing physics review I began eyeing the kids suspiciously. Who even are you? How could it all be going so well? Could it be that not every kid had a bad time at PTM’s? Was it only me?
The last one was art, and here I cheerfully settled in, prepared to be feted by the no-doubt genius offerings of my niece. But Mrs. Mitchell looked like a prune in a dress, and launched into an passive-aggressive rant inflating the importance of her own talent at the expense of the children’s. I could she that has her own issues.
That it was the art teacher that turned out to be the Sleeper Agent turned my whole world upside down, and I saw first hand how much difference a good teacher (or lack thereof) can make to a child’s interest in a subject. To the kids, Mrs. Eve was a marvelous ball of light and so, therefore, was her subject Chemistry. But being around the artless Mrs Mitchell felt like gall bladder surgery, and it was no surprise that the kids took little interest in art.
I waited downstairs for my sister to come back from her meetings, keen to tell her the wonderful things I had heard of her brood. But she looked stern when we left, since the teachers she met had told her a different story, a fact she relayed to the kids. We all drove home in a silence that I knew well from my own PTMs. No, I realized, it really is an awful experience for everyone.
I left thanking my God I’m not a kid anymore, and then thanked him again for the car crash that had kept Mr. Faiz from telling my parents I had failed every math test all those years ago. It was, in retrospect, the only good PT meeting I ever had.
Write to thekantawala@gmail.com