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Wednesday, 11 July 2012

Private Tuition



The year 1972 found me just passing out from school with nothing much to do. (Please notice the stress is on nothing!) As the results of other school-leaving examinations were yet to be declared, the colleges were due to open only after some time. As was the wont in those times, I searched around for private tuitions.
A young gent of class I was my first disciple. He had four sisters ahead of him in the family hierarchy and being the proverbial “son” as well as being the youngest child of the family, he was quite a character.
At that time film star Rajesh Khanna used to be the super hero and the film “Amar Prem” had been recently released. One day my student, all of five, asked me, “Sir, have you seen yeh kya hua, kaise hua? My sisters watched the film yesterday.” For one of the rare occasions in my life I was left dumbstruck!
With some effort I tried to maintain a straight face and replied, “Let’s get back to your lesson, shall we?” Mind you, this was four decades ago and we call children of today “precocious”!








1 comment:

  1. Haha. Children love behaving like little adults. They have in the past, at present and certainly will, more so, in the future. :D But I'm pretty sure this 'young gent' must have had genuine interest to know what was going on in the movie, that was so talked about by his sisters. :P Can't blame him, poor kid.

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