At 10, a hard lesson in vanity

Subhash Chandra

It was a special day. I was woken up early. After my indulgent father had given me an oil massage, I had a hot water bath with some rituals. My devout parents put me through an elaborate rigmarole of puja administered by the family panditji. Attired in brand-new clothes, a kumkum tilak, a sacred thread wound around my wrist and feeling upbeat, I strutted off to school.

Our class sat cross-legged in the light filtering through the green canopy of a mulberry tree. Though I dreaded maths class, surcharged with an air of unusual confidence that day, I solved the sums correctly, and instead of the usual snub, earned a pat from the teacher. Next was my favourite class, English. The teacher gave us a passage from a short story to write in good hand (sulekh). Being good at it, I was keen to prove my mettle that would earn me the coveted ‘very good’ or ‘excellent’ for cursive writing. 

With the panditji’s hymns and mantras still resonating in my ears and the taste of halwa lingering in my mouth, I set about the task in earnest. After having done more than half the page, I looked pleased with my effort. Some more lines to go and I would show (off) my work to the teacher and get my reward, which I thought was a foregone conclusion. At this point, I stole a glance at my arch rival, the maths wizard, sitting across in the adjoining row, who always mocked me with when the teacher lauded him with a shabash and chided me with ‘why your brains always go nuts?’ The English class used to be my best bet to get even. And today my spirits were soaring high. Noticing the shoddy, shabby lines on his notebook filled me with perverse delight. To provoke his jealousy, with a sardonic smile, I held up my notebook and turned it to his side to show him the neat page. Having thus stoked my ego, I got busy finishing the task. 

But then I had a stroke of bad luck. As I poked my nib-holder in the small tin inkwell for a fresh draught of ink, by a freak but not uncommon accident, a lousy little lump of half-dissolved ink-crystal got stuck on the nib and landed smack on my work. My new dress also got stained in the resultant mess. I was crestfallen. My imminent moment of glory had turned into one of abject misery. And naturally enough, I was now drowned in tears. All my peers and rivals showed their work and went for aadhi ghanti (half-time) break, but I remained glued to the ground, dejected and defeated, for a long time. 

That October day was my 10th birthday. And that day I had learnt an unforgettable lesson — Pride Hath a Fall — the title of the story we had been asked to write the passage from.