WHEN 'YES' MISSES SOMETHING

 

“Spoon-feeding, in the long run, teaches us

nothing but the shape of the spoon.”

E. M. Forster

 

There are two students of mine. Let me rename them, for this Post, as ‘Sanskar’ and ‘Dhruv’. Trust me, I am not renaming them according to  the meaning of these new names, or the actual names. They both are fine students, brought up by fine parents, and, yes, being sent to fine schools and colleges. Presently, they are in their final year of college. I had requested one of my friends, a Chartered Accountant, to teach these young boys ‘GST’ (Indirect Tax). As my friend is a busy professional, I did not want my boys to disrespect his time… I wanted to ensure, that the boys had discussed the timings for this week-end with my friend. So, I sent this message to my boys, last evening:

“Hello Sanskar and Dhruv, I hope you both have discussed the timings with Sir for this week-end. Please do, if you haven’t.”

“Yes Sir, done,” replied Dhruv, immediately.

There was no reply from Sanskar till the time I went to bed. So, I messaged him privately:

“Sanskar, have you confirmed the timings with, Sir?”

I went off to sleep before I could get the reply to my message.

I saw the message sent by Sanskar at 9:33, this morning:

“Yes.”

I smiled (through my annoyance-mixed-with-care) and wrote”

“My dear boy, does, ‘Yes Sir’ cost any extra sum of money, leave alone along with a ‘Good Morning, Sir’?”

This time, my Sanskari boy, replied instantly:

“Good Morning Sir (followed by three red hearts)… Sorry Sir, I had just woken up at that time.”

“No, No, my boy,” I concluded with a smiley and a red heart, “You have woken up now!”

Interestingly, young kids, these days, have, also, forgotten many other routine things. These kids belong to some great schools and families. But, I notice some funny things… One of them is, that they have forgotten where to write capital letters. For them, whether or not it’s a new sentence, name of a person, country, Deity, or anything where most of us were taught to use capital letters – yes, it’s only small letters everywhere… Funnily, even when they write their own names and surnames!

For some time, I empathized with these young kids, reminding myself, that it’s the lockdown and Pandemic effect. But, now, I lose my cool with them, and find myself screaming at them, “You can’t blame it on the lockdown, anymore… You better wake up.”

I was happy to see the effect of my screaming, this morning… My boy, Sanskar, had just woken up!

 

GERALD D’CUNHA

Pic.: Ketut Subiyanto

 

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