It was Vichitra’s first day at the French class.
The class was supposed to begin at 7:30 in the morning. He was ten minutes early, and was sitting quietly in the second row. Other students were also slowly trickling by – most of them looked like they were still sleeping, and they had sleep-walked to the classroom.
It was the new session of French semester which was starting that day. Everyone was pretty excited as this was a completely alien language to them.
The teacher entered the class right at 7:30.
As soon as he reached his table, he uttered something unintelligible.
‘Bonjour, comment ca va?’
The whole class went absolutely silent. But only for five brief seconds. It burst out laughing after that. It was more amused than surprised at his behavior. This was no way to treat poor people who didn’t even know the abc of French.
The French teacher was right out of a toothpaste commercial. He was a perfect caricature of an air hostess with the only difference that he was inside a classroom than in an airplane. He just couldn’t stop smiling. No doubt he was very gentle and well-behaved in the class but he looked malnourished. He just didn’t have the personality to be a teacher and that too a French teacher.
‘Je m’appelle Ajitabh. Je vais vous enseigner le français.’
This was too much to digest for the class and especially for one guy. Already everything was getting lost in the translation and this clown was ruthlessly crushing their innocent hopes of learning French.
Ajitabh just kept on speaking in French. For the first five minutes he didn’t utter a single English word. He thought that by doing so he was establishing his authority over the class, which he was often required to do due to his frail body and a toothpaste-commercial demeanor. On the other hand, the class was least interested in him. It was rather looking very bored.
There was a super short-tempered guy in the class. He was six-foot tall and when he spoke everyone listened to him. After relenting for some time he stood up and shouted at Ajitabh…
‘I want my money back. Ten minutes and I am still as French-illiterate as I was when I entered the class?’
‘Pourquoi?’ incredulously asked Ajitabh.
This angered the guy so much that right from where he stood he aimed to hit the teacher with his pen. If he had something more lethal nearby he wouldn’t have hesitated to throw it as well. Just as he was about to release the pen from his grip, a girl entered the class.
Ajitabh had already ducked under the table.
‘Sir may I come in?’
By this time Ajitabh had forgotten all French. He stood up and replied ‘Yes’.
It was then that Ajitabh subdued a little and started to explain French terms in English and vice-versa.
Chanchal was of course shocked to see the teacher ducked behind the table but she pretended as if she had arrived after he had stood up. She looked for an empty seat and found one behind Vichitra’s.
Vichitra hadn’t seen her coming as he was right in the middle of all this drama. The short-tempered guy was sitting right beside Vichitra.
The class continued until 9:00 and it was uneventful after that showdown between the angry guy and the teacher.
Vichitra still hadn’t seen Chanchal. His sixth sense instructed him that there were two girls sitting behind him. He thought of testing his just-learnt French in front of those two girls.
He turned around and blurted out in broken French ‘Salut, je m’appelle Vichitra.’
One of the girls snapped back.
‘Alors, il y a tellement de Vichitra’
She was a black belt in French. She was in the third semester. It was just that her French instructress hadn’t arrived that day and so she decided to spend the time with the first semester students instead.
‘Vichitra’ was the only thing that Vichitra could comprehend from her reply. He assumed that she was asking his full name.
‘Vichitra Kumar’
‘Je ne t'ai pas demandé ton prénom’ sarcastically remarked the girl.
Vichitra knew he had made a blunder and decided to keep quiet.
He turned to the other girl. Chanchal was not at all interested in talking to anyone at this point of time. She coldly stared at him and Vichitra understood it was time to head for home now.
© 2007 Ankur Shanker
Archives
The class was supposed to begin at 7:30 in the morning. He was ten minutes early, and was sitting quietly in the second row. Other students were also slowly trickling by – most of them looked like they were still sleeping, and they had sleep-walked to the classroom.
It was the new session of French semester which was starting that day. Everyone was pretty excited as this was a completely alien language to them.
The teacher entered the class right at 7:30.
As soon as he reached his table, he uttered something unintelligible.
‘Bonjour, comment ca va?’
The whole class went absolutely silent. But only for five brief seconds. It burst out laughing after that. It was more amused than surprised at his behavior. This was no way to treat poor people who didn’t even know the abc of French.
The French teacher was right out of a toothpaste commercial. He was a perfect caricature of an air hostess with the only difference that he was inside a classroom than in an airplane. He just couldn’t stop smiling. No doubt he was very gentle and well-behaved in the class but he looked malnourished. He just didn’t have the personality to be a teacher and that too a French teacher.
‘Je m’appelle Ajitabh. Je vais vous enseigner le français.’
This was too much to digest for the class and especially for one guy. Already everything was getting lost in the translation and this clown was ruthlessly crushing their innocent hopes of learning French.
Ajitabh just kept on speaking in French. For the first five minutes he didn’t utter a single English word. He thought that by doing so he was establishing his authority over the class, which he was often required to do due to his frail body and a toothpaste-commercial demeanor. On the other hand, the class was least interested in him. It was rather looking very bored.
There was a super short-tempered guy in the class. He was six-foot tall and when he spoke everyone listened to him. After relenting for some time he stood up and shouted at Ajitabh…
‘I want my money back. Ten minutes and I am still as French-illiterate as I was when I entered the class?’
‘Pourquoi?’ incredulously asked Ajitabh.
This angered the guy so much that right from where he stood he aimed to hit the teacher with his pen. If he had something more lethal nearby he wouldn’t have hesitated to throw it as well. Just as he was about to release the pen from his grip, a girl entered the class.
Ajitabh had already ducked under the table.
‘Sir may I come in?’
By this time Ajitabh had forgotten all French. He stood up and replied ‘Yes’.
It was then that Ajitabh subdued a little and started to explain French terms in English and vice-versa.
Chanchal was of course shocked to see the teacher ducked behind the table but she pretended as if she had arrived after he had stood up. She looked for an empty seat and found one behind Vichitra’s.
Vichitra hadn’t seen her coming as he was right in the middle of all this drama. The short-tempered guy was sitting right beside Vichitra.
The class continued until 9:00 and it was uneventful after that showdown between the angry guy and the teacher.
Vichitra still hadn’t seen Chanchal. His sixth sense instructed him that there were two girls sitting behind him. He thought of testing his just-learnt French in front of those two girls.
He turned around and blurted out in broken French ‘Salut, je m’appelle Vichitra.’
One of the girls snapped back.
‘Alors, il y a tellement de Vichitra’
She was a black belt in French. She was in the third semester. It was just that her French instructress hadn’t arrived that day and so she decided to spend the time with the first semester students instead.
‘Vichitra’ was the only thing that Vichitra could comprehend from her reply. He assumed that she was asking his full name.
‘Vichitra Kumar’
‘Je ne t'ai pas demandé ton prénom’ sarcastically remarked the girl.
Vichitra knew he had made a blunder and decided to keep quiet.
He turned to the other girl. Chanchal was not at all interested in talking to anyone at this point of time. She coldly stared at him and Vichitra understood it was time to head for home now.
© 2007 Ankur Shanker
Archives
6 comments:
beta french use kar rhe ho!!!
Hehehehe...now this one more like it!!!
dont worry ankur
Heh .. reminds me of my first French Class...but we did not have the heart to throw anything on our teacher!!
Just came back to track the progress.
Well can only say it has come down from average of 18-19 per day to 10.5 a day.
Not trying to demoralize you. I do understand you would be doing the same tracking as well but still external tracking could may be put some pressure on you to look for alternate avenues.
With this you won't make 5000. So you must come up with some thing new.
[Pauperji] Hehe..
[The Dryad] Yeah..
[Rohit Tripathi] Well gotta worry man! :-)
[Pramod Abraham] I am glad it reminded you of your first French class. By the way not every French class has one Shararati Jaat :-) Keep visiting and I hope you like the stories.
[Ankur Gupta] Patience man! Things will turn around... You always get something out of whatever you do and in this case i mean POSITIVE SOMETHING! :-) by the way keep visiting.
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