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Friday, April 13, 2018

Bullying in schools

Recent news of the 10 yr old girl posting her video on FB (one of the good reasons for FB) brings to mind my own experience. He was my classmate and friend so we would hang out together.
 High school in Pakistan was 9th and 10th grades
 He was from another village and our class positions were somewhat together (in exams/tests). So we had a lot in common and I had started smoking which he already did (but he was older by about 2-3 years). We had no desks in our class rooms, only one table and chair for the teacher. The students would sit on the floor (Bricks) and would need cleaning everyday which was done by rotation by students.
 Then one day he said something to me which was not good and I showed my resentment mildly. That day on for the rest of my stay in the school he started bullying (a word that only recently learned by me) He would say derogatory things about me and we would not sit together any more. I used to take my own (like other students) mat (bori) to sit on in the class. He would during  some time get hold of it and throw it on top of the room which was difficult to get it back. I do not recall fully now but he did write a kind of apology letter to me before we parted after graduation (1948)
    When I joined the (Middle School) school in Kakrali in May of 1944, I was still not familiar with Panjabi language but within a month or so I had picked up enough to understand but to my horror I discovered some of my classmates were finding it amusing to use "unparliamentary" language (bad words including abusive) in front of me thinking that I do not understand. Well it did not last too long but I remained shy throughout my four year stay in the school where I only spoke Urdu and not Panjabi. I wrote something about my Urdu "ability" on my Urdu blog but just to recover here, something: The totally paindooپینڈو people would read --hansnay lagi-ہںسنے لگے - (Started laughing) as hanasnay lagi. There was no concept of noon ghunna نون غنّہ. So I had to correct. In fact even teachers who would want to confirm proper pronunciation would ask me to pronounce it (feel good) and actually yes some teachers called me Urdu ki dictionary




Please visit my Urdu blog at خیالات و احساسات

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