A Day with Vihaana

                 



                     
                                                     

          Vihaana banged the book on the desk again. A couple more times. She was imitating me. I had banged at the desk when she was falling asleep during the worksheet time. She was not like other children in the class. She was ‘different’.   It was my initial few days as a trainee in a kindergarten. That day I was in KG II D for the first time. Neeta ma’am, the class teacher, was a friendly and nice lady.              

        Vihaana was sitting on the first bench. Her hair was pulled back and tied from both sides.  She was taking off the rubber bands, playing with it, tying them again. Her hair looked trashy. She looked hardly satisfied with it.

         Neeta ma’am paid least attention to this one girl. While ma’am explained how the worksheet had to be done, she kept playing with her notebook, coloring it with crayon all over the pages. Ma’am finally snatched the notebook from her hands and kept it on the cupboard. That brought her out of her senses. She roamed about the cupboard, as if obsessed for the notebook. As if an animal was obsessed for it’s child. Whatever, I thought. I should give her the book. Just then Neeta Ma’am said to me, “ Just leave her.” But I could not see the child acting like that, I gave her the much obsessed over book. She grabbed it. I read the name on the book – Vihaana Chatterjee. I liked the name but the child, indeed, was ‘different’- that is what they say for children like her in polite terms.

         Vihaana was still not doing her worksheet. I tried to make her sit straight and make her do it. She looked at me angrily as though warning me that she would scratch me with her “paws”. Neeta ma’am said, “Leave her.” She scribbled and scratched in the books and curled her hair. After sometime, she got up and asked me whether she could go to the washroom. I said that she had to do her worksheet first. She went back with an angry face only to return after few seconds. Now both her hands were between her legs. She came to me with a slight hop and asked the same question. I knew she just wanted to take a break from the worksheet. I nodded and the little figure walked normally to the washroom.

          Neeta ma’am told me that it was useless to pay attention to Vihaana.  The Kindergarten work is so demanding.  It’s better you don’t waste your energy over children like her. That’s the way to keep your nerves cool.

“But she is aggressive”, I said. Ma’am, who had worked in this most reputed Kindergarten of the city for a decade, replied, “She is not normal. All the children were examined by a Psychiatrist in the beginning of the session and of all the children, this girl was diagnosed abnormal. But thanks to her rich parents, she continues to be in this school which is for normal kids. Her parents just won’t put her in the place she deserves. They have paid heavy donation to the school and here the headache is on me and now you. “

        “That is the power of money, you know, “I said sarcastically as I thought bitterly about the girl’s parents. Had she been a poor child, she would go to the school for challenged children, she was supposed to be there. But thanks to her rich parents, she is enjoying at the poor teachers’ cost.

      Throughout the day, Vihaana banged the desk, picked and kept the crayons from the box and dreamed on. I did not dare to go near her for the Maths worksheet. I was afraid she would scare me off again. She came to me many times for going to washroom thereafter. Sometimes, she was scratching her bottom or twisting her fingers inside her nose. I was irritated to hell. Children are supposed to be cute.  They are supposed to be innocent and harmless. And here was this girl!

 Then came the outdoor games period. We took the children to play zone. Vihaana tried to get into other children’s group. But she showed no signs of adjusting. She kept lingering around. More than once she approached me, crying. She wanted to complain about some child who didn’t let her play. I shrewdly changed my direction and escaped her. That isn’t really the kindergarten teacher’s fault. Towards the last period, like this, one is drained of patience to hear such complains. She should take some home for her parents.

         The bell rang. By 3 o clock, they were done with their classes. Vihaana was even more restless now. She hurriedly packed her bag or rather stuffed it. Rickshaw waalas and parents asked for their children. A lady wearing really fashionable dress was standing by. She said to me, “Vihaana.” So this was the mother. Doesn’t look like a parent really, I thought. She was indeed quite smart looking. I should have expected that.

        Before I reached Vihaana, she rushed out of the class with her bag. She pushed other children and I had to shout at her but then I became conscious of her mother’s presence. The lady took her child in her arms, lifted her and kissed her and sparkled with smiles. At that moment, Vihaana was very different from the child whom I saw in the morning. The child who fumed at me as if she would bite me, was now chuckling in her mother’s arms. Vihaana had born the imprisonment all day for this moment. And for me that was a beautifully rare sight. After a day of toil at work in a kindergarten, eyes occasionally catch such rare glimpses of love that is registered in the mind forever.