A Tale of Signatures

A train of thoughts began when I saw the theme of this challenge. All kinds of throwback situations that have been as lessons of life.

A cringeworthy story, that embarrasses to this day and my mother never fails to use it to bring me back to the right path, in case of any digressions.

We lived as a joint family for years. In fact, today my mother’s apartment was once upon a time belonged to my paternal grandfather. Our joint family consisted of my paternal grandparents, my parents, my paternal uncle, paternal aunt and my maternal aunt who married my paternal uncle and my brother and paternal cousins who were quite small, at the time.

I used to go to one of the best schools in South Bombay, Convent Girls High School. To date, I have always been proud to have studied at that school.

My grandfather was a graduate in English with honors, of those times. I’m talking about a time between 1930’s -1940’s. He would help with my brother’s and my homework. We never took tuitions until Grade 10, which were supposed to be board exams at the state and district level.

When we came back from school, my grandfather and my mother, were the people always at home and would check our bags and homework and remarks in the school calendar. My dad maintained all kinds of hours and overtime at his work place. He had shift duties. He therefore would fly into a rage at the slightest of provocations. He was also very strict and intimidating as well. Overtime, he transformed so much, especially after his retirement. No one would be able to say that he had a terrible temper. My younger paternal cousins had taken to him so much. For them, stories about him and his temper were unbelievable.

My dad would scold my brother who was elder to me and that would scare me and I would regress and sit in one corner of the house, where no one would see me. To that extent I was a quiet child.

Having introduced to the background, let’s dive into the cringeworthy moments that always leaves me embarrassed today also, if my mother recalls the incident. My grandfather and dad are no more.

In school, we had unit tests, four per year with two semester exams. The final grade was a combination of the 4 unit tests and the 2 semester exams. We had 3 languages, History & Civics, Geography, Science and Maths which were a combination of Algebra and Geometry. My performance was generally good in all the subjects. However , my performance in maths would barely reach average.

I was quite horrible at Maths in school. I hated Algebra & Geometry. I used to have a terrible time with Integration and Derivatives and memorizing all those theorems in Geometry.

I don’t remember which grade I was in at that time, but in one of the unit tests, my performance in maths went below pass level and I was filled with fear. Being a good student, it was always in my head that I have to perform well. And getting the paper back in my hand which was showing poor performance. I don’t remember, my exact marks in that paper but it was below 10/25. And so it was fear and ego going hand in hand. Ego cannot accept poor performance and fear of what everybody will think and my dad’s temper. We had 2 days to get the unit test papers signed by the parent. It was mostly, my dad who would sign. Sometimes, on very rare occasions, my grandfather or mother would sign.

I couldn’t keep my mind straight. My mother and grandfather kept saying, that something is wrong with me and I kept saying, nothing is the matter. However, my fear and melancholy was obvious. Seeing my calendar, my grandfather and parents kept asking where is the paper. For 2 days, my excuse was that I couldn’t find it and seem to have lost it.

My signature was very similar to my dad’s signature. In fact my signature probably originated from seeing his signature. In fact my dad’s signature was easier than mine. And 2 days later, I replicated my dad’s signature on my maths paper and turned it in. After showing it in class, the teacher returned it and I kept in the bag. I felt relieved at being able to circumvent my dad’ temper and the embarrassment of poor performance, for only some time. Thanks to my grandfather’s prying attitude, he found the paper in my bag and lo, I was stunned.

My grandfather and mother only scolded me but my fear of my dad’s temper came true that day. He rarely hit me, but that day, he hit me. And forever, this incident went into annals of my history.

To this day, if I go wrong, my mother never fails to recall this incident to embarrass me and I’m back on track, never to give her an opportunity to recall the inciden.