A Good Student

A picture of Jesni's class. She is the one at the back making 'bunny ears' over two other girls' heads.




When Jesni asked me the other day whether I had been a ‘good student’ in school, even if I had not been one, I felt I would have had to lie. Because Jesni is the type of girl you don’t want to disappoint.

“Yes, I was good,” I replied honestly. “But I don’t think as good as you.” Again, with all sincerity.

This made Jesni smile, which is a beautiful sight, for she has a finely drawn mouth with elastic lips that seem to stretch nearly to the corners of her eyes when she cracks a grin. For a 14-year-old, she carries herself with a rather regal bearing. Her English is nearly unaccented, and you can see her mental gears shifting and turning whenever she is enunciating her words, as if she would be mightily disappointed in herself if she made a mistake.

“Sir…thank you, sir. I hope…that I am…good,” she said with a startling gravity.

Our conversation had started because I had seen Jesni the previous Saturday at the Tirur bus stand. It was a little past nine in the morning, and I was on my way to buy a newspaper. I saw Jesni as she was boarding a bus and she happened to glance back and see me.

“Where were you going Saturday?” I asked the next week at school.

“To my home.”

“What were you doing in Tirur?”

“Tuition classes. Special classes I take in the morning from seven to nine.”

“Every Saturday?”

“No. Every day but Sunday.”

“Every day?”

“But Sunday, yes. Hindi. Social Science. English. Maths. Biology. Special classes so I can get more knowledge."

“Where are the classes?”

“In a building near the bus stand.”

“You are a very good student.”

Again, the smile and Jesni blushed. “Thank you, sir. I want to be a civil engineer. I must take lots of classes.”

“Well, your English is very good.”

“Thank you, sir. But it can be better.”

It turned out, though, that Jesni’s English was far better than my Malayalam. She blanched when I revealed the pitiful state of my Malayalam.

“But how long have you lived here, sir? Three months? And that little?” she held up her index finger and thumb in the international symbol for ‘tiny’.

“How about the numbers? One…two…three…” she said, with the desperate air of a crack teacher.

I shrugged my shoulders.

Jesni held up her index finger rigidly. “One…own-ay. Two…rand-ay. Three…moon-ay.” Her fingers shot up with each new number.

I tried to repeat: “Ow…Own-day-“

“No, no…own-AY. Own-ay.”

“Own-ay.”

“Yes! Yes! Now: two…rand-ay.”

We went on like this for ten more minutes until I had mastered the numbers 1 through 10 to Jesni’s satisfaction. “Now, what are they?” she asked, stiffening her nostrils and arching her eyebrows.

“Own-ay…ran-day…moon-ay…uh…nahl-ay…anch-ay…uh…a-ray…eh-lay…ate-ay…om-paw-tay…uh…and…pa-tay.”

“Very good, sir! Malayalam is easy. So easy.”

I thought maybe if I had the good fortune to have Jesni as my teacher, indeed I would find Malayalam easy.