As a young boy whose senses
went to hyper drive in Science classes, I always surmised that just like how an
apple falling on the brain filled pate of Newton led to the discovery of
gravity and rendered all of us prone to its rather dull laws (imagine a world without
gravity!! Newton, you killjoy, you should have slept somewhere else), Einstein
must have been jolted into the formation of the theory of relativity when a
snotty brat of three or four, a distant relative removed twice over, fell on
his head.
Science teachers
never bothered me with questions in class, for they always faced ‘The stone
wall’ whenever a question was raised to my mug. The answer, delivered in a
stare as vacant as the audience of an award movie and uninterrupted stony
silence which ticked into minutes always ended with the exasperated teacher
shouting in frustration “Do you know the answer or not, stop drooling in the
class and answer...” To which the stone would rotate its head precisely 35
degrees horizontally to the left, 70 degrees to the right and come back to its
original position. Once the fear of the stone wall was put into the teacher’s mind,
the legend grew and he and the rest of his tribe left me alone.
While the good part
about being left to your devices in a science class was that the world of
science opened themselves up to you to your own imagination, the flipside is
that the evaluators always insisted that the paths to derivations of complex
theories were to be exact or at least similar to the paths defined by the great
scientists themselves. This meant that my poems for solving E= MC2 and other incomprehensible theorems were not
acceptable in the hallowed grounds of science. The teacher who evaluated my
paper cursed me in the name of Einstein that day. Something about him rolling
over in his grave – ‘Yeah right !’ I said to myself. The said teacher’s
pedagogy was lethal enough to put him there.
In science class, you
get to see different kinds of creatures. The top of the food chain is always
the apex predator – Teacherosorus Rex, whose absolute power over the class were
bestowed on him by the center of the universe and Supreme Predator – the
Principal. But Since we are referring to micro ecosystems, Teacher is the one
to count. Below him are the Studiosaurus. These are dangerous cretins who live
under the shade of the Rex. They are up to date with all that is taught in the
class and sometimes what is to be taught in the future too (they had the space
time continuum equation down pat – the dorks probably could travel in time !!)
They snigger and feed on the scraps of meat the Rex tore off the sheep on a
daily basis.
The sheep form the
majority in any class. Easily identified by averted gazes and reluctance to
stand up and face the music, the sheep are the fodder which keeps the ecosystem
lively. While any rare question thrown to a Studiosarus will be answered in
precise clipped tones pleasing to the ears of the Rex, The sheep will try to
fluster their way out of the inevitable.
There is a method to it.
Observation was the only available weapon against boredom in the age before
texting. The sheep are wily in their own rather unimaginative manner. If I may
ask the reader to set your mind in slow motion, this would be the sequence of
events.
1. Teacher forms the vilest, most difficult to
answer question(sometimes the answer would not even exist; but he will throw it
anyway in the hope that someone will answer it for him so that he can get the
next Nobel prize and torment little kids with his discoveries) and throws it in
a general direction.
2. Only in slow motion is the visualization
possible because all of this happens so fast, a scene reminiscent of Neo
dodging bullets in the Movie – The Matrix. Question hurled, the Studiosaurus
who happen to be sitting on the side will try to catch it – but the missile is
past his grip (it was never intended for him anyway- where is the fun in that?),
sheep avert their gaze to infinity and beyond lest the question latch on to their
souls through their eyes. They sway away from the question, instant relief
visibly relaxing the faces of the escapees. The loathsome question goes on
further to hit the class wall and bounce back to the Rex. Oh the walls were
mottled with the shrapnel of misdirected questions.
3. This is the gruesome part, when the Rex loads
the question loads the question on to an assassin’s rifle and points it
directly at the most scared looking sheep who is trying to avoid his gaze so
much that his eyes are literally at the back of his head.
4. Point of contact and announcement. The question
hits the hapless sheep on the face, splatters its gore all over him and to add
to the misery, the sheep’s name will be announced in class by the ferocious
Rex. The naming ceremony will be followed by a staccato verbal command to
‘Stand up’ and face the end of the world as the poor sheep knows it.
5. Slaughter is too mild a word for what happens
next. The meek one will stammer his way into a wrong answer, to be sharply
ridiculed by the roar of the predator. Then he will try to bluff his way out,
inventing one faulty theory after another, to save his precious behind. But as
a rule, even if the sheep had mugged the confounding theory by heart, the
knowledge will be locked in the deep recess of his mind and the key lost till
the class gets over. All in fear of the mighty gaze of the apex predator. The
carnage is too gory to be put in words... I am sure anyone who has set foot in
a class has been witness to this scene.
The lowest forms of life
found in a class room are the Dung. Yes dung – as in solid waste material from the Netherlands of an animal. Called so because they are inert, they have no need to process
anything as they are already processed and they are generally left alone to
their own state for fear of stirring up their strong disagreeable stench. All
predators shun the dung for two reasons. The studiosaurus wouldn’t be caught
dead with one for fear of intellectual erosion and the Rex leaves them alone
because – well, who would want to willingly stomp their feet on feces anyway ?
I was a proud member of this minuscule clan who lived vicariously with the help
of their extremely sharp eye sight. On one rather humbling instance, it did
land me in trouble. During an exam, I photocopied the answer sheet of the helpful
soul sitting next to me diligently and exited the exam hall with joy in my
heart until I came by the information that my subject was physics and his –
Chemistry.
The dung beetles are
similar to a dung but they are smarter as they devise ways to scurry themselves
out of the class right after the attendance is taken. If they cannot get out of
the class, the beetles will transmogrify into dung till they get a chance to
escape. Since they are smarter than t a dung, they exist a rung just above the
lowest in the system.
And lastly the one
species of class dweller who is above all. Even the Apex predator is no match
for the abilities of 'The apparition' . They are ever present but never present
because their muster numbers will be shouted along with others by proxy magic. The Apparition
can be seen in public only once or twice in an academic year, and when they do appear in
flesh and blood, mayhem ensue among the dwellers thinking the newcomer was yet
another Rex, bent upon exacting their pound of flesh from the survivors.
Whoever says science is
a mystery, you can say that again mister.
