One class, taught by a teacher, was so different. Hemashri talks about her and her daughter’s experiences studying Ozymandias, three decades apart, and the stark differences between them. In her weekly column for Different Truths, she finds a real-life Ozymandias in government offices.

It was another PTM session, but the same old suggestion: that our daughter can perform better. She cannot be labelled dumb, yet she is not the typical studious type. She finds her other activities more engaging. Textbooks are dull for her, perhaps due to her indulgent mother. To meet her teachers, we went to the other building. In the lift, my daughter showed me, “Ma, she is Gitu ma’am! She is such a wonderful teacher. She taught us Ozymandias, and she is the wife of an ACS officer. As we got closer, I felt like saying ‘hello’ to her. When I told her that she was our daughter’s favourite, she replied, “But I have taken only one class.”

Our girl replied, “Ma’am, you taught us Ozymandias, and it was such an interesting class. I enjoyed it.” Just one class, and the lady won my girl’s heart! Really interesting! That reminded me of my first encounter with Ozymandias, some 28 years ago!

It was in 1988 that I enrolled in the higher secondary first-year class at Cotton College after completing HSLC in a Government Vernacular School. We were a large class of around 75 to 80 students, running from one building to another for our classes. In the English class, a professor came, short and thin, with a Hitler-like moustache. He started the poem Ozymandias. Before the class started, he asked anyone who scored more than 80% in English to raise their hand. There were quite a few, and I, too, raised my hand. Then he gave a lecture stating that those coming from government schools may have scored more than 80 per cent, but in general, they decide not to pursue it because they have a poor command of it. He had asked each one about the medium in which we studied. After the lesson on Ozymandias, he started asking us the meaning of some of the words in the poem. I was sitting next to a beautiful girl when I asked her name and found the teacher pointing at me and asking me the meaning of the word ‘sneer’. Before I could answer, he again said, “I told you those from the vernacular medium may have scored well, but you all have a lot to learn.” I felt very annoyed by his belittling comments. He seemed to be an Ozymandias-personified figure. Daddy did not want me to study the arts, but that was what I wanted. When I finally took admission in the Arts stream, he told me I should study English Literature. English was an engaging subject for me, but I had not decided what I should study for graduation. This professor, in the very first class, made me somewhat allergic to English. There was another lady professor, pimply and perennially pregnant-looking, who made English classes toxic for me. She would come, sit in her chair, and keep reading the lesson herself without ever explaining anything. In the first year, I started bunking my English classes because we had a hectic schedule of Economics, Mathematics, and Statistics classes. These two unique teachers helped me decide not to major in English.

In a Statistics class, I once saw a teacher express her annoyance when a student asked her to explain in Assamese. She spoke to him very rudely. He was a brilliant student who was the best graduate of our batch!

My daughter and I studied the poem “Ozymandias” at two different ages. The essence of the poem remains the same. The words:

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;

Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!

These remain relevant and valid for all ages and generations.

 In just one class, a teacher won my daughter’s heart by explaining Ozymandias. Three decades ago, in another classroom, an Ozymandias professor had robbed her mother’s interest in English Literature in a single class! Oh! What a teacher can do in just one class.

Ozymandias Lives on

The real-life Ozymandias that I have to endure in my world outside the home has a red nose and reddish eyes. Arrogance, my Lord, pure unadulterated arrogance to the tip of their noses, while their purpose and mission is to serve commoners. Their bloodshot eyes show off the rage and scorn that these Ozymandias feel inside their tiny peanut-sized hearts.

These fat rats have erased the lesson of Ozymandias. Yet the message remains relevant and universal across generations.

I do not know whether time has erased their lesson on Ozymandias. I recall the closing lines of Shelly’s poem:

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

One class changed it all for both of us, mother and daughter. Oh, Ozymandias!

©Hemashri Hazarika

Photos from the Internet

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Hemashri Hazarika

Hemashri Hazarika is an Officer of the Assam Civil Service since 1997. Her research on Assam Civil Service brought reforms in 2015. A first-class Postgraduate in Economics from Gauhati University, she was awarded JRF/NET by UGC in 1997. Her experience as a bureaucrat has sensitised her to human sufferings. A solutionist by passion, she takes an active interest in issues related to Governance, Development, Women, Children, etc. Reading, Writing, Speaking and Painting are her hobbies.