MoodsAndColors

The Crystal Haze

The day’s events have exhausted me. There is too much excitement to contain. So I decide to sit and write.

I am wrapped in questions, problems, solutions and exercises and some more exercises. There is no end to it. Even in my dreams I am explaining how a report is written differently than an article and how Keynes differed from classical economists. What make everything more complex are the extra questions of mathematics, which are, simply beyond my comprehension and which Dove insists that I explain her. Now how on earth am going to crack them! Not able to grasp that her mom has limits, she refuses to take help from anybody else. The whims of a preteen are sometimes simply baffling. Gripped in the time crunch my guilt deepens as I am really not able to do much.

Exams over, it's time for Dove to visit her school to check her answer sheets for any errors that might have crept in totaling etc. When she comes back she is in tears. She has just fallen short of a mark to make it to a scholar. Ironically, more painful is the fact, that her mathematics teacher has awarded her three marks extra and she goes back and gets them corrected. It is too big a temptation but she has overcome it, else her Mom would be angry. But now in front of her mom she breaks down. All her dreams and hard work through the year are shattered. I appreciate her. She has done the right thing. She remains my star. However, nothing can console her now. Her disappointment has not ebbed. But then some of life’s lessons are learnt the hard way. Work harder next year. With a resolution to practice mathematics regularly the matter is closed.

Today is Dove’s result. Though the dad daughter duo can fetch the result I decide to take a half-day from my work. My decision is not free from my guilt, that I could have given her more time. We rush through the maddening Delhi traffic. Somehow we are able to make it on time.

Her teacher congratulates us. We thank her with a wry smile. Not able to digest our dryness, the charming class teacher congratulates us once again but this time she adds another word to her congratulating note. Scholar. I hurriedly scan through the report card. My eyes are fixed on the column where the heading Scholar is ticked. How could that be. She was running short of the stipulated percentage. I am no Ramanujan in mathematics but then simple percentage calculation is not beyond my capability. She clarifies. Dove was considered as a special case for the award. All the teachers have vouched for her and requested the Principal to grant her an extra grace mark. So scholar she becomes! I am too dazed to comment. All the haze has evaporated and what remains are the sparkling crystal colours.

“Honesty is the cornerstone of all success, without which confidence and ability to perform shall cease to exist.”  Mary Kay Ash

28.3.07 16:12