An Unusual Teacher

Friends, here is a children's story with a twist in the end. Thanks.

Nanu, a student of Class III, was seated alone in his classroom with drooping shoulders and trembling lips. Everyone else had gone out to play. It was the recess period. And the season was the joyful autumn when major festivals like Deepavali grace the calendar.

Alas! The mind of the eight-year-old was far from joyful. Why? Because Ranjana Madam had taken a sudden Maths quiz yesterday. Today, Nanu received his checked answer script: 2 out of 10 marks with a comment in red ink: “Nanu, if you pay less attention to your art and more attention to your maths, you will do better.”

Yes, Nanu was a born artist. And he did not like Maths. Life, however, did not seem to be fair to Nanu. Why did he have to do maths when he could draw the ‘Gulmohar’ tree that grew with gay abandon right by the school building? All this while, Nanu’s tiffin box with his favourite ‘paneer’ sandwich and chocolate biscuits lay untouched.

A sudden movement on his desk caught his eye. It was a tiny red ant. Their size belies their ferocious bite. Slowly, a heavy weight seemed to lift off Nanu’s shoulders. Instead, a sly smile crept on his face. He rose from his desk and set to work.

When the bell rang, the classroom filled with the chatter of returning students. The next period was Science, also taught by Ranjana Madam. As her stern figure marched in, a heavy silence fell. Every student sat perfectly still; they were all a little afraid of her.

Madam walked to her big chair and sat down with a flourish. But the moment she touched the chair, she jumped up as if she had been shot from a cannon!

The reason was simple: a bite from a small army of red ants feasting on the tiny biscuit crumbs Nanu had carefully "painted" onto her chair. And within two minutes, Madam was rushing out of the room toward the teachers' lounge to find a tube of antiseptic cream for the sting.

Nanu kept his face perfectly blank, but his heart was light. He realized that while Madam knew everything about Maths and Science, there were some lessons only a "born artist" could teach. As he finally reached for his chocolate biscuit, he decided that from now on, he would pay more attention to his Maths—but perhaps Madam would learn to pay a little more respect to the "tiny" things in life, too.
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