School Times by Ruskin Bond

Author:Ruskin Bond [Bond, Ruskin]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Rupa & Co.
Published: 2010-07-31T16:00:00+00:00

Undershorts and Roses

Muzaffer Izgu

A story from Turkey

'All my classmates and the teacher were staring at me.'

What it means to be poor in a school full of affluent children . . .

MY FATHER DIDN'T WANT ME TO ATTEND SCHOOL, BUT MOTHER very much wanted me to go to school. Father got angry with her.

'How can I look after my family of six in this city? Let him work too. What will he do if he goes to middle school anyway? Let him peddle sesame buns or stuffed clams. How much money does Shahan's son make a day, after all!' he said.

Mother always quoted our teacher in the village.

'Didn't Cebbar Bey say to educate this boy, because he has a good head?' she said.

Father yelled, 'Middle school is very expensive, costs lots of money!'

Mother replied softly, 'I'll economise, reduce expenses.'

This was why if one of the teachers at school said, 'You need this kind of notebook, that kind of file cover or such and such atlas,' my heart skipped a beat. It cost so much money for notebooks, file folders, pencils . . . Especially my books. . . . When mother asked for five hundred lira, my father yelled his head off.

'So he goes to school. So what will he be?' he shouted.

'He'll be a man,' my mother answered.

The atlas, that big book with the maps, it cost a fortune. Mother was amazed and so was I. And those two-hundred page notebooks the mathematics teacher required . . . Good grief! That's how most of the five hundred lira went.

My music teacher said, 'Flute.'

I couldn't get one. If students could get one, it was fine. Our teacher gave lessons. Then they could get the top grade, 'ten' in music, especially if they played their flutes together and made our school proud at the evening entertainment.

My friends obtained them, something like a shepherd's pipe, but I couldn't buy one. 'Let them give me an average grade of 'five.' I'll memorise do re mi and recite it to the teacher,' I said to myself. Anyway, the teacher didn't force everyone to buy one, only those who wished to.

But our physical education teacher didn't say, 'Let those who wish get them.'

He said, 'I'll see you all in shorts in one week.'

Shorts! I didn't know what sort of thing shorts were!

Our teacher added, 'If I see anyone without shorts at the end of the week, don't blame me for what happens!'

The second class, in talking about the physical education teacher, said, 'Uhuu, he'll even beat you up. . . .'

I was afraid. At the break, I asked the schoolmate who sat beside me. He said that shorts are like underpants, short underpants. . . . Girls wear white shorts, boys black. Physical education classes mean discipline. Discipline first begins with what you wear, that is, black shorts. In addition to the black shorts, you have a jersey. They don't like coloured jerseys; they have to be pure white.

He told me that right now we'll take

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