School days – learning ABCD of Bengali in Standard VIII

It may seem strange to many that I began to learn ABCD in Bengali when I came to Standard VIII – that too, it was lower level Bengali. It was an embarrassment but that was the prevailing culture of the school and was as per directives of the authorities.
And – since it was a totally new concept in this Missionary School to impart lessons in Bengali and Hindi languages, new teachers were recruited.

For Bengali, my teacher was Shri Bimal Nandi – he was a freedom fighter and had worked in the team of legendary Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. For Hindi, there were two teachers – one was Shri Singh and the other Shri Nagar. While Singh was robust, his colleague was equally lean and thin. We called them Laurel and Hardy behind their backs.
Anyway – the induction of these language teachers was a sort of mini revolution in the school because, while the dress-code for others was strictly English style with trousers, full shirt and tie (for women teachers it was gown) – in the case of these three teachers, it was totally Indian dress.

Bengali teacher would come in dhoti and punjabi and the Hindi teachers in galabandh and pajamas with jawahar coat.
Our Bengali teacher was a dear – he had very neat handwriting and would use red ink to leave his comments. One of these was – ‘fanki diley, fankay poribey.’ (Translated it meant – if you dig a grave, you will fall into it’.)(to be continued)
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