usha

I don"t really remember when Usha got into our class....Might be in seventh? or was it in eighth?...must have been in mid seventies...not very sure....No wonder, since i rarely paid any attention to the goings on in the classs....I was always a backbencher, had the reputation of a shirker,skipped school at least one day a week, and studied only those subjects that interested me and managed to scrape through others, and cleared my tenth with a liitle help from the government of andhrapradesh in form of moderation marks,with a precarious,36/ in maths.....

Usha Padmanabham was a newcomer,..turned up in the middle of the academic year,as her father ,-an L.I.C employee-got posted to Bandar on transfer...., They were tamil brahmins,, had little knowledge of telugu,and her parents were worried over whether she could cope up with this mid term joining ,and by the fact that she was new to studying in telugu medium.......Usha always sat in the side front row,strategically placed to be in full view of the teachers, as she tried to grapple with the studies........A thin girl with two long upturned plaits in ribbons, and two big bright almond shaped eyes in a good humoured face..


Later i was surprised to see Usha on our own street...They were staying in rented portions in the area, quite near to our own house..........Once or twice i visited her at home,and I could recollect her father as having been a thin ,short,energetic man,who spoke rapidly and also quite loudly and flitted in and out of the house wrapped up in a towel if it was mornings ....(.must have been doing his pooja) and lungis in the evenings.....Her mother, a large woman with the same good natured face of Usha used to give us a big smile and just that.........since she could not manage even one word of telugu......

It was not as if Usha had no prior knowledge of telugu, since she could speak it well, though with a heavy accent and few faux pa,where she freely mixed up genders, and tenses....and cared not for whether she was speaking in first person or second person... She came prepared,-I think was trained beforehand- managed to clear subjects comfortably --science, social studies, maths-had no trouble with english and hindi,but quite predictably, met her waterloo in telugu...and her nemesis was none other than our redoubtable Lillee teacher....

Lillee teacher was already retired,serving on extension and it appeared quite plain that she should have rested...I personally thought she looked over seventy ,tired, as she hummed and hawed,,,and as irritable as only very old people can be and it fell to Usha" lot to train under her......It used to be very funny to watch Usha as she stood up with a resolute shake of her head -ribbons and all--to submit her notes and assignments to Lillee teacher... Madame screwed up her eyes and went through the papers with a grim expression..Then she threw them down in disgust, demanded a rivision,, and wailed to the world how long she had to keep dealing with these stupid girls, and called Usha an arava gadidha..Which, in plain telugu meant a tamil donkey...The class watched in half sympathy and half amusement..for everybody knew old Lillee teacher was never stingy with her expressions and liberally used them as she chose.........Usha never batted an eye lid. She calmly picked up her notes, went back to her bench, sat down and carried on in the same good humour...

In time we completed our tenth..,Usha gradually picked up telugu and in junior college opted for telugu literature...Her parents decided to continue at Bandar without trying for transfers,..I on my part , went away from bandar and the last time i heard of her,she did her B.Ed in Telugu,and was working in a reputed school ,as a telugu teacher...=D>