Under the Tamarind Tree

Then

All things bright and beautiful

All creatures great and small

All things wise and wonderful

The good Lord made them all

Whenever I hum my favourite hymn these days, I always think the same thing over and over again – that its's too late now to have my breakdown.

St. Hilda's had clawed its way into my heart again and started weaving its strange mixture of melancholy and meanness as soon as I entered its green gates.

And so now it's too late to have my breakdown.

It's also too late to turn up drunk at school meetings, smoke excessive cigarettes or set cars on fire like my dear friend and fellow disgraced Professor, AJ Singh. He now resides at St. Martha's Hospital for Neurological Science.

Sometimes in the mornings during that time when I am awake but unable to really stir, I imagine Prof. Singh sharing his feelings of 'childhood neglect' with a pinch-faced prick who would then reassure him that he is on the path of 'healing' and 'redemption.'

During this deep, healing session, in the other side of the country, St. Hilda's will be ringing its morning break bell, and I will be walking down the slate floor of the old corridor as I have done for most of my childhood.

I will still be thinking I must be in some horrible dream while I simultaneously say my good-mornings to shiny adoring faces who blend into one another, and look the same to me.

Sometimes I wonder If this en masse of pasty faces could give me my breakdown? But, no, I am to my endless disappointment, irritatingly sane.

I don't even get up late.

I make my bed every morning and take a shower, dressing with care; neat hair, ironed clothes and vital parts decently covered. Old school discipline that I could never quite get out of me, no matter how hard I tried or how bad the days got.

Post my punctual arrival at school, I will pretend for the rest of the day that I am so happy to have actually left my exciting career, my beautiful apartment and the city I had made home for more than 10 years to spend my days teaching empty-headed, vicious teenage girls the fundamentals of Physics in this small town that poses for a city.

These girls, I know, will do nothing with what they learn from me, except perhaps drop my name in a conversation sometime.

For almost a year now, I have been head of the Science department at St. Hilda's School for Girls, the envy of the other teachers and almost always the favourite teacher of any class. – all thanks to my smile, which I am told resembles that of an angel in the picture that is hung in the school chapel.

Anyway, angel or not, my smile is clean of rotten and yellow teeth unlike most teachers here and the little devils can smell out the air of sophistication that reeks from my expensive but well-used clothes.

To add to my advantage, my classroom control is fabulous, thanks to all those years of helping my once best friend Madhu sharpen her acting skills. After all, every good teacher must have a flair for theatre.

In fact, I have done such an amazing job here as teacher- most -adored that not even my envious colleagues believe all those absurd accusations of plagiarization, harassment and that ridiculous theft charge that was my undoing.

They would rather believe the calm, well-mannered, beautifully dressed and pleasant-looking Ms. Sheila Raman, than the scruffy screamers on the evening news, or even newspaper headlines in respectable papers like The Daily News, where my previous friend Vani Ganapathy runs the show and never bothered asking me my version of the story when the scandal erupted and ruined me.

Perhaps she was happy to see my downfall, I know I would be gleeful to see her climb down a notch or two.

Horrid way to think about an old friend one might say, but you see, by now the meanness bottled up inside me from all my years away from St. Hilda's has resurfaced in all its glory. And so it is that I began to wish ill of them all; why should bad things only happen to me?

Like I said, it's too late now to have one of those breakdowns or even try to ingratiate myself anywhere else.

Anyway, before I knew it, I began thinking of that unforgivable line we crossed that day, all of us together; and the punishment that seemed so severe then, more severe than the parents getting to know and the police being called in.

I had once believed that the worst that can happen to me had happened and somehow over the years I began to think I had exhausted my quota of ill-luck, and nothing bad was in my future.

And so it was, that I taught my final class that windy Friday. Even the back-benchers pretending to be too cool to care about banal things like school laughed at my jokes. I took a good look at these students who were once so dull that the rest of the teachers had given up on them, thinking they would be stragglers forever. They were now bright, attentive and laughing the loudest and my heart lifted for a moment. I thought for just one second there, that perhaps maybe I was at peace.

There were lots of professors like me in my former university. However, the students were equally, if not more, smart. And, they could help themselves without the aid of a humorous teacher who paid attention. Not so at St. Hilda's, where I knew I would be remembered forever by some of my students.

And so, as I walked through the corridors of the school that Friday and said my good mornings, I found myself smiling easily and humming again my favourite hymn.

The first time I heard it sung in morning assembly on my first day ever at St. Hilda's, I had felt my heavy homesick heart start to lighten and I had started to forget everything dark and lonely that lurked somewhere nearby.

And so, when I began to sing this beloved hymn again that Friday, I finally realised that somewhere during the course of many mornings just like this, my fake smile had turned real and when I said good morning, I really meant it.

St. Hilda's had been my home for many years growing up. Many years later, when everything bad had happened and I had lost my other homes, it was still there; a little shabbier with rougher voices but still the only home I had left on this earth. And, it had welcomed me back with open arms.

However, like everything else in St. Hilda's nothing good could last and somewhere deep down in my sick, contended heart, I had never forgotten this. And so, when the past came calling like a school bully who had only temporarily gotten bored of tormenting you – I was not caught unawares.

Like I said it's too late for a breakdown, or anything else for that matter.