As you have probably already noticed, I am catching up with my ideas or drafts from my earlier years of blogging. This particular one was not started however I had written a similar post dedicated to my grandfather from my father’s side. This post is however dedicated to my maternal set of grandparents and especially Achachan (Malayalam version of Grandfather) and because of its own various reasons. I don’t know about how it happens in your family or at your place, but in mine, whenever school days paved way for the annual holidays, my mother would parcel me to her home. When I reached my high school days, this was more important as her parents were retired teachers and sending me there also meant private tuition at no extra cost. My Achachan taught English and History while Ammachi taught Geography. Achachan had retired from a government high school while Ammachi as a HeadMistress from a private establishment. They were equally respected and adored by their students and their kids and families. Achachan had also offered English tuition at our home as a continuum for his practice and he enjoyed sharing his knowledge with his students.
Achachan had acquired or collected should I say, years of question papers for the high school classes, especially the 10th board exam which we call the SSLC examination. As usual, I had reached our home during the first week of the annual holidays of 8th standard, if passed, I would be in 9th Standard. Staying at my mother’s house was a course in personal discipline because both my grandparents had a strict timetable that they followed from dawn till dusk. They woke up, ate breakfast, prepared for lunch, had tea breaks, welcomed guests, had dinner and went out shopping and did everything as a part of a meticulously planned schedule. From day one, you will be effortlessly pulled into the schedule and would be performing as if you were always part of it. Such was the success of their lifestyle. As any grumpy teenager would do I started my days hating it and by the end of the holidays, I would be enjoying it so much that I dreaded going back to my home where nothing like this even existed! This continued for my 9th Standard holidays as well where they started the prep for the board exams.
Achachan would wake me up around 6 am in the morning and would make me a cup of black coffee while he made one for himself and Ammachi. I would go around the house with the broom to tidy up the space and then I have to start learning subjects like English or History, Geography or anything except Maths. I was asked to read out aloud and learn from the textbooks. In retrospect, I believe there started my auditory way of learning which has continued to date. Then around half 8, I will have breakfast with Achachan and then we will have an hour and a half of English practice tests. Sometimes, if his tuition students came in the morning, I would be admitted along with them, if not this would happen during the evening sessions. Regardless of the time of the day, I got to do a zillion English practice tests including vocabulary, pronunciation, grammar, writing and reading. Speaking tests were not there as the exams were written ones.
Achachan would buy me a notebook, actually 2, one for writing and the other solely for grammar purposes. I learnt the basic articles, to writing a letter, essay, and answers to the lessons in the notebook. He had a special talent for making us understand complex text in very simple terms. Having trained for the previous 2 summers, I was pretty confident by the time I reached the SSLC standards. He would give us each a separate question paper and made us read out our answers, He timed us to see how much time we were taking to complete these questions and would give us practical tips on time management for our exams. This truly helped us and we tried to match it for our other subjects as well. Achachan never used canes, or sticks, or rulers to beat us, but effectively used his tone to make us understand the seriousness of what we were trying to achieve. He was very interested in Christian music, so often we used to hear him sing, hum or even play his piano or mouth organ Christian tunes in English or Malayalam on a daily basis. He taught us grandkids his favourite hymns and we all could sing around 200 of the 300 hymns in the CSI hymn book effortlessly. All thanks to him and his patience and for believing in us.
At the start of this post, I wrote that this post is dedicated to Achachan. This note is to say Thank You Achacha, too. For every word I write or speak or even think in English, I am eternally grateful for all the training and lessons you have me all those years ago. You made me love the language, and use it efficiently and am now trying to share it with as many as possible. I may not have been able to say this to you in person, but Achacha, you are an influencer in my life and I promise to try to keep up with your standards. To those who are wondering how much I scored for the SSLC exams, I scored 49/50 i.e. 98% for 1 paper and full marks for the second paper. He made me do the English papers for the Plus Two or Standard 12 public exams as well and I scored high marks. To conclude my list of using English, I lived and breathed and studied in the UK for over a decade and completed my PhD in Engineering. Nothing of these achievements would have happened if Achachan had not been a teacher in my life. Once again Achacha, thank you. May you continue to enjoy good health and peace in your old age. Until we meet again, take care.
Yours lovingly
Your first granddaughter.
¬RoshniSoulsearches¬ 