Heal The Words

"She is very naughty..."

".. she cannot do anything... caught cheating in the half yearly and was expelled!"

"She is just in class four now... what she would become by the time she reaches class ten!!"

My colleagues commented... including me, of course, on the girl...  dark complexioned, dull hair, short height.. name .. leave it. However, I taught mathematics in that class. She was really horrible, restless in the class. Their sweet spoken class teacher could not handle her along with her other notorious (we termed them so!) friends. I still remember they brought party cake and celebrated in the class room!! Then, by the year end I was really surprised to see her annual examination answer script! Yes, hats off to her .. I hardly found another answer script, which was so neat and clean, like hers. Of course, she scored 80 plus marks.

Coincidentally, just in the next year, I was the class teacher of class five, she was promoted and allotted to my section. Yes.. her core character did not change. She remained as restless as before, disturbed other students. One of her partner even complained me about pulling her skirt down during tiffin period!

One day, in the month of March, all the teachers were standing on the playground while the students were leaving for home at around 2 pm. One of the teachers have come to tell me that someone has been waiting for me near the gate. I had come to know that the mother of that said girl wanted to talk to me for some problem as I was her class teacher. I went forward to have the talk and saw the girl too, waiting with her mother.

"Sir, Paridhi ne project submit kiya kya ?", her mother was anxious to know whether her girl had submitted her mathematics project on time.

"Yes, .. days back", I answered. The girl was still smiling with no worry in her face. I knew, she had been scolded, punished by many teachers several times with no result! 

"Sir, yeh ladki mujhe pareshan karke rakhi hain... uski behen bhi isi school main hain, lekin uski itni complaint aaj tak nehi mili.."

Suddenly I recalled her saying in the previous year that her girl becomes more adamant.. "ziddi", once scolded upon.

I softly tapped Paridhi's back and said with a smile "No.. she is very good girl, she might have done some mistakes in the past but she realises it well. I am sure she will make you proud one day."

All of a sudden I saw few drops of tears in the girl's eyes. She tried to hide her face from me.. in vain. Ohh.. this was the girl who kept laughing after hardest of the punishments... I touched her soft core... I understood. May be those were the words she had been missing for ( may be ) a long time...! And she was healed!