James, as you might imagine is not the name of any pet I owned, but was the name of my science teacher during my final year in school. My school being St! John the Baptist High.
He was a very good teacher except for a distinct peculiarity. He was teaching me for the first time even though he had been in our school for many years. That is the reason why I did not know much about him, except that he was very strict and demanding. Right from the first day, he started giving me a preferential treatment. I have yet to fathom the reason for that treatment.
When I say preferential treatment, do not go overboard, and start imagining, that I was his pet student or something like that, which I was not. He started the day by asking the students to introduce ourselves, which we all did in due course. After the introduction came the surprise. He wrote down a simple question on chemistry, I think, on the board and asked us to raise our hands, if we knew the answer. I like a fool raised my hand, and got caught in his web for the whole year. That was my first mistake. He requested me to give the answer, which I did with grace and confidence. That was my second mistake.
The next day he again asked us a question and many of us raised our hands, myself being one, again, I was asked to answer, which I did with aplomb. That was definitely my third mistake. By this time I had started feeling bugged, since he was behaving as if I was the only student in a class of 50 pupils.
The next day he again asked us a question and many of us raised our hands, this time I was not one of those with raised hands. Possibly, this could have been my fourth mistake, because he again asked me to give the answer, which I did, with disgust written all over my face. That day he kept on bombarding us with questions, a few of which, I answered, and then I stopped answering his questions, which now, that I think of it, was my fifth and final mistake. I got two cuts on my right hand for the first time for this disobedience, since I knew the answer for that particular question.
From then on, it became a fashion, the fact that James would come to the class and write down a question on the board and without turning back would call out Pillai !, and I would stand up and keep my silence. He would ask for the answer to a few other students and then reach a student whom he had taught previously named Vaidya, who would invariably give the answer. The cuts were administered with regularity, the first and the strongest being reserved for me.
This went on for the whole year except for one day in the fag end of the year. As usual he asked a question and started with me, note over here that I was always the first to be asked, which I decided as usual not to answer. Unfortunately on this day even Vaidya could not answer that particular question and so he kept on asking the whole class and finally found that nobody knew the answer. At that time I knew my time had come to salvage some of my reputation. James decided that he would not administer the cuts, and asked us to sit down. I did not want that, and so I asked him to be fair, and give everybody their due. He did give me a harder cut, but I had forced him to give a cut to his favorite student also. After all the students had been administered two cuts each, I informed that I knew the answer and proceeded to give the answer with gusto. He was totally confused by my answer.
The next day we were back to square one. he would start the class by calling my name, as if he was saying a prayer, give me the two cuts and carry on with his teaching, which I must admit he did very well. But, now the energy behind the cuts were not as high as before, and on a few days he had actually passed up the chance to give me those two beautiful cuts.
At that time I felt sorry for him and even asked him to give me the cuts. He always obliged.
