THOSE SWEET LITTLE DEVILS

I had just wanted to have some extra money. Little had I known that my agreement to enlighten the minds of sweet, cute, innocent children of my locality would later turn out to be an "eye opener" about how very admirable the lovely kids really are.

I started with one girl who wanted to get the computer basics right along with C programming and HTML. That was alright with me, but very soon she wanted to learn the how to surf the internet. It was all very well till she came across Orkut, after that I needed add more, need I?

Ah well, she took up commerce and somehow her parents didnt feel she needed to learn computers anymore. Then I had a group of class 8 students who were all from different schools. Four children and four different schools. And that too CBSE and ICSE boards. I got to take their Maths , Chemistry, Physics and Biology. As if that wasn't enough, an aunty from a nearby home brought her Class six child. And boy was he bad! He did all except study. His excuses were as colourful as the rainbow. He could think up all the excuses that a person employed in the corporate world also wouldnt be able to cook up. They would range from "I am ill"(the oldest) to "I have lice in my hair. I need to scratch my head".

In those days I would think of punishments that wouldnt sound hard or as a punishment at all. For some of you who don't watch news channels too much, let me add that in those days corporal punishments at school were the favourites in TV news channels, and somehow my students could remember only that to discuss.

After that there came a phase when I started admitting small children to my tutions as well. One of them was so ill-mannered, he would ask me for "Kurkure" and "Frooti", and when he wouldnt listen to me and I would scold him, he would warn me that he would tell his dad!

And then there was another boy who only like one poem, Humpty Dumpty. He would come and listen to me but his "Humpty dumpty" book must be kept open. An incident with him involved his "pooping" in my studyroom. Gosh,I cant forget the horror of it all. Thankfully his mom was so embarrased, she stopped sending him.

Oh I missed out atleast two incidents when students came to checkout my classes and never bothered to give me a call if they wanted to study or not. One of them came to read for a whole month but her mom wanted a teacher to come home and teach, later she explained when I had called her up. She feel in a canal I heard, and I wondered was it because she had failed to pay my fees. God bless her.

Then came a time when I had to give some entrance exams and I knew that it was the end of my tution career. i notified all the parents before 1 month so that they could arrange some other teachers. Although my experiences as a tution teacher werent great, I was now able to understand why certain children control their parents with all that wailing and what not! I also learnt that not all children are cute little things.

Now that I have some savings I'll be able to use them for my coaching for MBA entrance exams.

If only I had one good little student.