Dubey - The History Teacher

Higher Secondary
The final and the most crucial years of our school were from 9th Standard to 11th. That is when we made our first career defining choice – Arts or Science. The Non-Medical option had Higher Mathematics instead of Biology. Oh Yes ! Nerds like Hemant Hegde and Deepak Shah lined up for this class. There were some souls who opted for Higher Sanskrit instead of Hindi as well. Interestingly, Sanskrit was a very ‘technical’ subject and you had a good chance of scoring centum marks in it. It wasn’t subjective like English where you could write and write your arm off and still get a low score.
I was never an ambitious student and Arts served my purpose very well. Which means I missed the whole Dattani/ Kobi circuit and came firmly in contact with the likes of Ramji Sir, Dubey and the squat, dark individual who taught us Eco-NO-mics (forgotten his name  Please update if you remember)
I wish to wax forth on Dubey, the guy who taught us History.
Why was Dubey special? He was an ordinary looking guy (I have a picture! Will post shortly). He was about 5’8” or so in height, a nice girth, slightly balding, had a round face, wore glasses. He was quite Dickensian in his looks, a jolly fellow.
One thing was for sure, he had no special love for his subject. He knew his text book well enough, if it lay open before him, as it usually did. He liked to read out of it too, expertly as if it were a teleprompter.
Dubey and Movies
He loved referring to historical bollywood films. It certainly used to spice up his lectures and jolt us out of sleepy stupors. Sikandar-e-Azam starring Prithviraj Kapoor and Dara Singh was a big favorite of his. He loved giving examples out of it. The crowing glory of the film was the face off between the defeated Porus (Prithviraj Kapoor) and the victorious Sikander (Dara Singh). “How do you wish to be treated?” asks Sikander to the imprisoned former king of Hindustan. “As a king treats another king” replied Porus. We never heard the end of this. Once, the movie was being re-run in Jamnagar and Dubey gathered his entire History class to go and watch and glean historical lessons from it. I saw the movie years later on TV and there was precious little by way of history in it, though I am sure the students were mighty informed by the dance performances of Mumtaz in the film.
Other pet movie references of his were Akbar-Anarkali-Salim in Mughal-e-Azam, Noor Jehan - Jahangir in Taj Mahal, and Shahjehan – Jehanara in Jehanara. If Dubey had his way, we would have learnt our entire history off poorly researched bollywood flicks, and would have believed the kings of yore strode around in silk gowns and pearl necklaces and spouted poetical Urdu, and sang and romanced to music by Naushad.
Dubey and the Mughals
What Nadir Shah took away from India was a favorite topic of his. Millenniums had passed since Nadir Shah struck, but the angst of the loss lived yet in Dubey’s heart. He mourned personally for the likes of the priceless Takht-e-taus (peacock throne) and Koh-i-Noor diamond.
Dubey was particularly fond of the e or i used to separate the mughal name. It was NEVER Ibnbatuta. It was always Ibn-e-Batuta. When he spoke he put a little emphasis on the separator and paused dramatically at it, his face askew. If you wished to please Dubey, you said Ibn-e-batuta, Mughal-e-Azam,
Dubey the Prolix
Another distinguishing feature of Dubey was his insistence on long answers. We were being prepared for the time when we would be writing our MA exams, where nothing less than 4 foolscap sheets were accepted as an answer. (I did sit for my MA exams eventually and it is true – we were required to write long answers, and I did think of Dubey as I filled out my foolscaps effortlessly, grateful for the early training).
WHAT you wrote was quite a different matter.
You could fill the pages by sub-titling your answers, darkening and underlining them, and writing your matter in a large hand in a paragraph below it. It occupied more space and made your answer look neat.
You could go bi-lingual and repeat your options. For instance, when listing out the number of things Nadir Shah took out of India I wrote a paragraph on ‘Takht-e-Taus’ and a few para’s later, repeated the whole thing under the head ‘Peacock throne’.
You could just blabber. Several people wrote completely unrelated stuff. For instance, the screenplay of Bobby!
Lazy Dubey could be counted upon to NEVER read the long answers and marked your paper solely on the strength of the length.
Dubey and CSD
In middle of a class, during a lull, Dubey was quite likely to start quizzing some hapless defence kid about the availability of things in the Canteen. For quite a while he was on the lookout for a mixie. He would keep enquiring after it, the price, the brands, the number of attachment. We would be pleased at the change in the topic and encourage the inquiries to keep him off track.
When the Princi is away the teachers will play:
This is how our HSc. Classes worked. The whole class met for the mandatory English and Hindi lessons. Arts and Science would separate for other subjects. When we had History it was either Biology or Higher Math for them. Similarly we would separate for Geography/Physics, and Chemistry/Economics. As the science students had to have long stretches of 3 consecutive classes for their practicals and Lab sessions, we would have to endure long stretches of History or Eco or something. Luckily Dubey wasn’t very fond of these sessions either. He would conveniently clutch his jaw and plead a toothache. We were dismissed from the class and sent to the playground, while Dubey would relax in staff room. At times, when the Princi was away, we would see him making off towards the bus stand, his bag tucked under his arm. Ameeta and I would use this time to chat endlessly about stuff, and eat the killer kharabi (peanuts) available in a shop just outside the school campus. My brother and other boys would make a beeline for the cricket ground.
The memory of Dubey brings a smile to my face. He is sure to have retired now, his kids grown up and married. I hope he is living happily somewhere, some place in Uttar Pradesh.

My School in Jamnagar

KV Af Stn, Jamnagar

Way back in the early 60s, when it was time for me to toddle on to school, there were only two good options. One was St. Anne's and the other was the Air Force Central School. I was initially sent to St Anne's and later shifted to Central School (later known as Kendriya Vidyalaya) in the Air Force Station. This changed the course of my life for better. It saved me from a parochial upbringing and brought me in contact with a more open, mixed world.

A group of local students took a bus from the town to the gates of the Air Force Station and took a walk into a different world. The school was full of, majorly, children of the defence officers. They came from all parts of India and brought with them a heady potpourri of cultures, languages and ideas. This remains, I think, the most defining feature of Kendriya Vidyalaya schools across the country.

In those days, my school was a single storied stone structure built in a T shape. The leg of the T was the main entrance with the Principal's office, the clerical staff and the staff room. I do remember, that the junior wing was built at that time. This had the classes from Nursery to III and a Stage with the Library behind it, and a cemented area in front of the stage to hold the school assembly in. I can still remember the spanking new feel of the new wing. While this wing was being built, some of the classes were held in huge tents. During recess, we used to climb on to the tents, as if they were mountains to be scaled, sometimes tearing them in the process. The teachers gave speeches in the assembly against using the tents to play in, not that it had an iota of effect on us.

Later on additional wings were built on the edges of the T. The right side had the Chemistry lab and the Bio Lab and some classes, the left had the Craft Lab and the Home Science Lab, with Music rooms and suchlike. The school grounds were roughly evened out, the bushes cut. The school area was demarcated by some wild bushes and trees. There was a weak fencing on one side, about 3 feet high, with rusting barbed wire. It was soon trampled down by eager students, and our school stood unhemmed by walls or gates. The school was surrounded by the residences of the Air Force Staffers.

A few minutes before the school was to start, the students poured in from all sides of the school, some walking leisurely from homes, some from the local bus stand outside the school gates, some popping out of the Army trucks (The Army kids had to share this KV, the Navy kids had one on their own campus). A big sea of humanity in blue and white.

Dumping bags in classes, we would make lines and attend the morning assembly, starting with 'Tamso ma jyotir gamaya' and going on with the prayer 'Daya kar daan vidya ka' and then singing the national anthem 'Jana Gana Mana'. At times we sang our school song 'Bharat ka Swarnim Gaurav'. Apart from the vedic shloka and the generic prayer where we prayed to 'parmatma' and not any specific god, our school was largely secular. Religion was left at home.

That was a wise move. The students came from all corners of India and were a medley of Hindu, Sikh, Muslim and Christian. If we enquired about the religion of a new student, it was more for information than for segregation. The nomadic students of defence forces were more interested in getting the 'stations-visited' background of the new students. I was a town-girl, as was my best friend, Jignasha. We were in the school from begining till the end, but I was a year ahead. We were used to the students leaving to go to some other station, sometimes in the middle of the school session. Likewise, bound by the transfer policies of Central Government, the teachers also kept changing. There were a couple of local teachers who were never transferred. Thus we coursed through school life, a few elements constant, many variable.

The constants gave us security, and the variables added to our life-experiences.

When I was in the lower classes there was an Indo-Pak (1965) war. As Jamnagar was a strategic location, we were in a thick of things. The town faced blackouts and curfews. We papered our windows and closed the doors and ate our dinner in a dim lamplight. No torches or lights to be used at night. The school had emergency drills and we were taught to hide in trenches when the air raid sirens went off. That was huge fun (for us). The school was even closed for a while. When we returned to school, the campus kids bragged about watching aerial dogfights and finding empties of bullets on the school ground. There were stories about spies being caught. It was nothing short of thrilling. In fact, when the war broke out, my brother and cousin were watching the old hollywood flick Hatari. The screening was stopped and patrons were requested to go home.

For our annual day functions and sports day functions, the commanding officer of the station was the default Chief Guest. He usually arrived in defence regalia, his smiling, well groomed wife in tow. He would deliver rousing speeches, hand out the tropies and vanish. For our formal parades we got the Air Force band to provide us the marching tunes, with drums and bagpipes. We even got inoculation and medical checkups at the Air Force medical centres. I have a feeling that these were privileges that we enjoyed, I do not think the station had any obligation to send the band over or see to it that children got a medical check up.

As I grew up, the school just got better. I left Jamnagar for 3 years from 1970 to 73. I returned to my home turf and claimed my old best friend, Jignasha and got back to Class IX. Our lone board exams were in 11th, so it was masti time. We could choose arts or science at will, not based on any interference by school. We had the option of studying in Hindi or English medium. Right from 9th we were left with just 5 subjects with optional subjects like Mathematics, General Science and Sanskrit disposed off in a school test. We had none of the attendent pressures that the kids these days face. A career was still a distant option, to be tackled after college. This was fun time, hanging out with friends, ragging teachers, studying at the last minute. Try as I might, I dont recall any negetive thing from those times. It could be my memories playing tricks, or maybe we really were happy.

I left the school in 1976 and visited once in a while for the next 3 years while I was in college. Later I left Jamnagar for good and hardly ever visited again. This year (2007) nearly 30 years later, I visited the school again.

Why does our school have such a grip on our psyche? Thirty years later, having been through a marriage, a divorce and 2 children, having worked hard at a career, pursured countless interests and friends.. nothing gripped my heart as much as the sight of my school. It was a like my childhood came back to me in a tidal wave, overcame me, and drowned me in emotion. The school now had a proper gate with a boundry wall all around, hedges lining the path. The junior section was in shambles and the chowkidar told me it was shut off and condemned. There was a new building behind the old school. A basketball court had come up and there was a new place for assemblies and stage.

I stood on the tiptoe to take a look at the canteen outside the school where we used to buy snacks, the line of kikar trees under which we ate our lunch. The classroom windows had no grill or bar in our times. We used jump out of the windows in a hurry to reach the playground quite routinely. These days the kids cannot do that any more. Students used to come into the school from all sides in our time, as there were no boundry walls or gates, now they have to walk in the gate only. It was so easy to bunk classes in our days. We could sneak out of the school and hide in the houses of some campus friends. Alas ! there is a gate and a chowkidar to prevent that. Playtimes are now restricted. In those days, you could stay over in the playground, missing classes till some alert teacher sent a runner to retrieve the absconding child.

However, some things never change. Our school was situated very close to the airstrip. The planes had to fly low over the school while taking off or landing. The noise generated by this was sudden and deafening. We were accustomed to the situation, while new teachers were not. It was nothing but sheer pleasure to see the teacher jump out of his skin when the 'plane flew low. As for us, it was a dare to take the sudden noise without flinching. I was pleased to read on an orkut community of my school that this still happens. Only instead of Gnats, it is the Sukhois now.

It is foolhardy to expect the things to remain the same. Sumaari the school sweeper has passed on. Solanki sir has retired now, and he could not recognise me immediately (I am not longer a fifteen year old girl). Bhatt Sir (he still teaches) couldn't register me at all, and gave me blank looks. I recognised him instantly. He had just joined the teaching force when I was in 10th. I was hardly ever in his class, and he was too chicken to complain. What to do.. his class was right after the lunch period, and Ameeta and I usually dawdled at her home on the campus, and missed it.

My Golden memories.. one may build walls around my old school, put in bars and grills on the window and condemn old buildings, but my memories will stay in mind as they are. Imperishable, Beautiful.