Monday, August 29, 2011

Day of water and fish

Incessant rains in the city forced even the trains to come to a halt in the city today. This came as a surprise news to me early in the morning. How will my co-teacher reach the school came to my mind immediately? After speaking to him, realized that he was fighting his way through such pretty constraints.

Alright, back to correcting papers. These were Math papers which hadn't been xeroxed properly and given to the kids. It was difficult to make out anything that was written on the papers. Sigh. A lot of time had been spent running around during that exam helping the kids read the question. When I entered the data into the tracker, realized that achievement on word problems was a brilliant 17%. Such a joyous moment for any teacher. They weren't the easiest problems on the planet but still. Just shows that there's a long way to go with the class.

Just as I was keeping the papers away, I heard a resounding crack behind me. I turn around and there's water gushing out from the fish tank and my feet are wet. The glass wall has given way. Ah yes, we have a fish tank in our house. Even when we didn't have drinking water, we had the fish tank courtesy our weirdo landlord. There are 3 huge fishes in a big fish tank in our hall. They are grumpy looking and apparently cost Rs.80 grand a pair. According to our voodoo loving landlady, they are auspicious and react to the mood swings of the landlord and house environment. They are supposed to change color when someone's sick in the house or when there's fighting in the house.

So clearly, today they realized the flooding outside in the city and decided that their own hall needs to be flooded. Within a minute, our drawing room was pool of water with mattresses and bags hurriedly removed. I spent the next 30 minutes holding the glass wall tightly so that water wouldn't gush out. I dialed, people came and things happened. Fish were to be transferred into a water drum. They clearly didn't like the idea. There was minute when we had a giant fish flapping around on our floor. Such a life-changing moment. I burst into laughter into the ridiculousness of it all. Here I was, soaked, arms aching, ankle deep in water and trying to save these grumpy, priceless fish that we wanted to get rid of. Such are the joys of living.

Managed to get myself to school in time. Spent the day explaining the social studies paper to the kids. When I was exhausted, went with a religious fanaticism to a leadership forum in the downpour. Was pretty soaked by the time I reached there. On the way back, waded through ankle deep water clogged roads.
Back home, a smile appears on the lips when I think about the day gone by. Any shortage of water in my life has been compensated for. Not much time to muse more. Work needs to be done for parent-teacher meeting and other plans need to be put in place.

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