The perfect example

I work with children's books. Often, when I find that a concept is not explained very well by the authors, I think of ways to make it simpler and more understandable. Sometimes, I try and remember how my teachers had taught me that particular concept when I was in school, and try and apply it in my editing.

Recently, I was working on a chapter on magnets, when I came across a paragraph on magnetic keepers. It brought back some rather unpleasant memories.

My Physics teacher in school was Mr. Banerji. He was incredibly popular among the students, but I did not like him. Mainly because every time he asked a question in class, he'd say "If you know the answer, raise your hand. Except Sayesha." (I was that girl, remember?) And to put him down, I'd still put my hand up, and he'd conveniently ignore me. He knew I disliked him, and it gave him great pleasure to annoy me.

Very qualified and experienced, he was known as the 'examples waley sir' ("the teacher with the examples"). In his teaching, he used to give very good examples to explain concepts, and even I had to admit that Physics was fun because of him. He had very fun examples for pretty much every concept he taught. The class used to actually applaud some of his examples!

One day, he was teaching us about magnetic keepers. We were not quite getting it. And he kept repeating the same thing again and again. I realised that he probably had no examples for this one. This was my chance to annoy him.

"Why don't you explain to us with an example, sir?" I said with an 'innocent' smile. The whole class murmured their approval.

He looked at me, and I could see that he hated me for it.

A moment's pause.

"Ah!" He said. "Okay, I have the perfect example!"

"Sayesha!" He exclaimed. I jumped. What what what??

"Sayesha is the perfect example." He motioned me to stand up. I did so unwillingly, looking around suspiciously, wondering what was in store.

"Now our Sayesha... she has a lot of energy, doesn't she?" The class giggled.

"She is too hyper. If left unleashed in the classroom, she will go quite berserk with joy, run around crazily and break all the benches and desks, isn't it?" The class nodded with giggles, still very curious as to what he was getting at.

I was too busy taking offence at the usage of the word 'unleashed'.

"And after a while, she will lose all her energy and sit down, very very exhausted, isn't it?" The class was imaging the whole scenario. What's worse, I was too! The only difference was -- they found it hilarious, I found it insulting.

"But what if we give her a 'path'? And we make it a rule that she can only run around that 'path', and we ensure that there are no desks and benches in the path. She will continuously run around that path, but there will be no destruction, and she will not lose so much energy."

The class was nodding vigorously now.

"Well, a magnetic keeper works in a similar way. A keeper is a soft iron bar used to join the magnetic poles. By using the keeper while the magnet is being stored, a 'path' is provided for the magnetic flux to continuously circulate through the magnet. So there won't be any flux leakage. Clear now?"

The class applauded. They actually applauded as I stood there, feeling rather silly. As for me, I just wanted to punch whoever came in my 'path.'

"Sayesha, you may sit down. Hope the example helped you to understand the concept." He smiled that devilish smile of his that I disliked so much.

I sat down, my face red with anger and embarrassment. I had figured out why I was chosen to be the example, but I had still not figured out why I needed to stand during the entire duration of his explanation.

"Amazing example na? Banerji sir is too good!" My desk partner turned to me and said excitedly.

My vocabulary did not include the legendary "What the..??!!" at that age, and so I had to be content with just gritting my teeth, and looking at her with eyes that would bore a hole in concrete.

'The Sayesha example' as it was known for the rest of the year became a legend, much to my discomfort. Even during last minute revision before exams, I heard the phrase being uttered too many times for my own comfort.

And now I hate magnetic keepers.

And I hope that in some part of the world, his kids are being made to stand and used as examples in class.