For a fine cut....

It was one of those days in the hospital, when I was in pain and mentally at a record low. My Mom was holding my hand and chanting prayers to Dhanvanthri, the God of Health, reading from a little sloka book.

I have high regard for prayers, as they are pure expressions of goodwill. If you've ever sent a prayer my way, you've earned yourself a kiss (er... a handshake if you're a guy!). Still, if you ask me whether I believe prayers can help in healing, I would say, "Not really, though I guess the possibility exists." See, I'm an agnostic at heart.

That's why I asked my Mom, "The next time you pray, ask God, why me. Ask Him what I did to deserve this." She didn't say much at that time. But a day later, she recounted some things she'd told me before. My Mom believes that I am destined to do great things. In my Mom's dictionary (as well as mine), that means I will do service to mankind - helping a lot of people directly or indirectly. Of course, all Moms think their sons will do great things, but every astrologer who's seen my horoscope and every palmist who's seen my palm has told her the same thing, and my Mom puts great stock in such things (but I don't).

And then she wrapped it up by saying words to the effect that God sets the sternest tests for those with the most potential.

Ouch! How does she do it? She'd just scored a bull's eye. You see, that's my philosophy, too, and I'm positive I've never spoken to her about it. Not the God part, the rest of it. Put in Mechanical Engineering terms (yes, I'm incorrigible), use the hardest tool for the finest cut. For shaping the finest jobs, you would use a diamond tool. In other words, if you're a teacher or mentor figure, the better they are, the tougher you must be to help them realize their potential. Explaining how deeply this is ingrained in me merits a small story.

My elder brother went to the same school I did, and he would often tell me about a horrific chemistry teacher. He ended up hating the subject because of her, and tended to perform poorly. I had this gargoyle-type impression of her, reinforced by stories I'd heard from a lot of people. When she finally started teaching my class, I found out that she was every bit as ruthless as people said she was. There was not a shred of leniency in her homework and exam corrections; she made unreasonable demands and expected everyone to cope up, and punished them when they didn't; the slightest misbehaviour inside her class or outside in her range of vision was swiftly dealt with.

I still had no trouble with chemistry, it being one of my stronger subjects. One incident sticks in my memory: the teacher had asked a question in class that nobody could answer because it was not in the text (not that anybody would have read the text in advance of the class!). So, she asked us to find out the answer for homework and submit it the next day - with a rather high minimum length of writing. It was an interesting question, and fortunately I had my brother's IIT-JEE reference books, so I did a little research and penned the answer with some flourishing language in order to fill up the sheet. I duly submitted it in class the next day, only to find that nobody else had done it, as it was outside of our syllabus.

After a lengthy diatribe to the class, she read out my answer. Complete with english words that many people in the class probably never heard, and references from IIT-level texts. I sank lower and lower in my chair. The class already hated me for consistently getting the first rank; I wondered if I would get lynched anytime soon. But wait, that wasn't the worst of it. You see, I'd made a good impression on her. How her eyes glinted that day! Ah, those evil eyes!

A year passed, and one day I found myself unceremoniously summoned to the chemistry lab.

Her: You missed the chemistry practical class yesterday.

Me (bewildered): Yes, I was sent to that inter-school quiz contest.
(See, we won it and it was announced in the assembly earlier that morning. So she very well knew why I missed the class.)

Her: If you are missing a practical class, you have to take permission from me in advance and schedule a make-up session.

Me: But, it was the Principal who sent me to the contest, so I assumed that was permission.
(I'm fourteen years old, for heaven's sake. What teacher would punish me over a technicality when I'd missed the class in order to win laurels for the school?)

Her: That only means I would give you permission to miss the class without argument. I'm giving you a zero on that experiment.

I was stunned, but offered no argument because technically she was right. It was exactly the kind of thing she would do, but I seriously didn't think she would be that heartless, as it costs her nothing to let me attend the make-up sessions specially set aside for such situations in the academic calendar.

That term, I scored 451/500 in total on my exams. A bright new girl in our class had scored 452. Calculation revealed that the zero in the lab class had cost me 2 marks overall - which meant that zero had cost me my first rank, breaking a seven-year streak. I didn't care that much, because I acknowledged my mistake (however small it was), and I knew I should have done way better than 451 (which, by the way, is exactly the kind of attitude that people mistake for arrogance - sorry for repeating this). But the story spread like wildfire, and people were extremely sympathetic. Me, I was grinning, for I'd figured this teacher out. I knew what she was doing. I already suspected that she'd graded my exam papers even more strictly than she normally does. Basically, she was pushing me to do better than I usually did. I appreciated the sentiment.

She was probably the most hated teacher in the school, but not by me, and as the years passed, she would talk to me on occasion. I remember very well, we had a free period in which she sat in our class just to ensure we didn't get too loud. I had a long conversation with her then about science and spirituality, and things like pranic healing etc. which I was familiar with because of my Mom. I always got the feeling that she was trying to tell me something important that day, which I didn't quite grasp exactly, but understood at some level, in my heart.

Thus, I have this to say, if there is a God: Hi. I understand. I don't hate you.