The 'Ikes of March

While trying to decide where to go on our long overdue, first, family vacation, my husband and I had our usual argument. I was boycotting America, he was ignoring Europe. He wanted to go the Far East, I wanted to go to India. I thought the Far East was too far, he thought India was too close.

“Isn’t the point of a vacation”, he said with all the jaded fatigue of a man who has been to India five times already, “to go someplace that isn’t like home?”

“India isn’t like home.”

“How do you know, you’ve never been!”

“Exactly.” And so it was settled. And we went to India. Or rather Delhi. And it was a revelation. And I will not write about why it was a revelation for this website because I have reached that stage in my life where I actually prefer to walk around without a bull’s eye on my back. It interferes with the sling. Suffice it to say that a good time was had by all, except the toddler (who insisted on singing Pakistan Zindabad every time we got into a cab), and the first thing I did upon my return to Pakistan was get more Indian visa forms so I can be sure I return there in time for the 2012 commonwealth games.

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The vacation served as a valuable energizer because both my husband and I were faced with a daunting task upon our return. Come August, it will be time for our eldest son to enter kindergarten, and a series of interviews and assessments for both parents and child were scheduled throughout March. The first, at one of Karachi’s alternative schools, wasn’t really an interview as much as an ambush. Parents were requested to come to the campus on one of three days to register. Once there, we were handed tokens and told to wait for out turn to be interviewed.

A same day interview was ok, because it wasn’t as if we had to rush home and cram for an exam, or teach the boy how to write the entire alphabet, except if we had known about it before we would have made arrangements for food and milk for the infant I had left at my mothers. As it was, the three of us waited for over four hours under a shamiana in parching heat. Children and those who had bothered to dress up wilted like flowers around us, we drank water, munched the channas that were the only edible item available on the campus that day, and reminded ourselves why we were interested enough in this school for our kid to wait around some more. It offered music and dance, it was against standardized testing, the boy could learn to ride a horse…

As each set of parents and candidate would emerge from the interview room they would be surrounded by eager parents hissing ‘what did they ask you’, ‘kya poocha’, ‘did she have to write her name’, but even curiosity was dulled as noon slid into the maws of late afternoon.

When it was finally our turn to be interviewed we were so drained by the wait it took us several seconds to vocalize our answers to the questions the principal posed to us. We were both so tired we’d play eye tag to decide which one should have to make the effort to speak. Our son did the smart thing and simply slid under the table after saying hello.

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Before leaving for our second interview we made sure we were all hydrated and provisioned, needlessly as it turned out because we were actually interviewed a mere half hour after the time we had been summoned. Ten points for that particular society school, which was only on our list because we knew lots of people who sent their kids their, and the boys best friend from playschool would be shifting there in August too. Perhaps because it was early morning, the second interview was a far cry from the fatigued, irritated exchange that had characterized the first one. There was much jovial laughter as the correct social reference points were used, and much congenial nodding of heads as we all realized we felt exactly the same about just about everything to do with education. Our son too was beaming happily when he emerged from his private assessment with a star sticker on his hand, going so far as to say ‘I think the aunty really liked me.’ This interview business, I told hubby as we walked out, really wasn’t as difficult as people made it out to be.

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By the time the fourth interview rolled along, we felt like pros. We played games while we waited, and bitched about how silly it was for the school to have candidates do worksheets in the auditorium while junior classes sang ‘parinday kitnay acchay hain’ and flapped their hands on stage. When we were called into the principal’s office and she asked us ‘what are you looking for in a school’ we wasted no seconds waxing eloquent about a safe, caring and intellectually stimulating environment for our son, who was special (yes all parents thought their kids were special but he really was). She nodded approvingly, we nodded because she nodded, and the kid screamed ‘lookie that bee’ and dashed madly towards her soft board.

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Later, when talking about the whole kindergarten admission experience with my father, I was stumped when he asked me if I’d done a comparative analysis of the schools on the basis of curriculum, student teacher ratio, cost, location etc. Sure I knew where the schools were, we had to get to them for the interviews didn’t we, but we hadn’t asked any questions about things like student teacher ratio and curriculum or even term and admission fees. Hmmm, he said, which I knew was a bad sign, and then I realized we probably should have made it a point to find out those things. In fact, as I yelled at my husband later ‘it was really very careless of you not to ask!’

“Mamma’, the boy whispered when I was done, ‘don’t talk to daddy like that.”

‘I can’t wait for you to start school!’ I hissed back. “Maybe then you’ll learn how to behave properly.”

He cried so then I put on a cartoon for him to watch so he would cheer up. We had another interview in the morning, and I didn’t want him to be tense or tell anyone he couldn’t color the gingerbread man properly because his parents had been fighting again.

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That night after the kids had gone to sleep and we had made up hubby told me children in Finland didn’t go to school till they were seven years old, and studies had shown they went on to become probably the best learners in the world. Finland Finland, I chomped down on the first morsel that rose to mind, didn’t they eat blood cakes there?

“Do they?” hubby said, “I didn’t know that.” I lost no time in pointing out that if he’d gone to a good school like me instead of some cheap metric shetric place he would have.

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Our son got a letter today. It was addressed to him anyway. Inside, it said he was being offered admission into the school beginning August 2006 and if we wanted to reserve his seat in the kindergarten class we should go ahead and give them the non-refundable sum of Rs. 60,000 within a week.

Education, I tell ya, we’d be nothing but animals without it.