One month after taking my final exams for V grade, I rejoined the school for my first day as a VI standard junior high student. I remember the day as clear as yesterday. It was very daunting. I felt like all my peers had grown up, and I was still a kid.
For my first day, I wore the same skirt I had worn for a month back as a V-grade student; my height had barely grown an inch. I couldn’t comprehend what had unfolded in a month when my PT teacher found the need to separate me during the morning assembly among a bunch of uniform defaulters (all girls). Later, after students had proceeded to their classes, following the morning prayer, she told us our skirt length was ‘problematic‘. And that we weren’t ‘good girls‘. She made us do 20-sit-ups and warned us that she’d take us to the principal the next time if we didn’t wear ‘decent‘ skirts.
First, the nerd and teacher’s favourite side of me was scandalised by the idea of being a defaulter. Later, learning I was problematic didn’t sit well with my insecurities as a girl months away from hitting puberty.
Another time, a substitute teacher came to our class. I was silently minding my own business. This teacher was very perturbed by the talkative boys in our class. She decides to punish three of them. Her punishment was to make them sit with three different girls, myself included. She made a point to declare that it was their punishment to sit with girls so that they feel ashamed of themselves. Whatever it was that teacher was implying, it made me very uncomfortable with myself and my girlhood. I vividly remember her smirking, eyeing the punished boys, almost expecting them to be embarrassed and awkward about being made to sit with girls.
But the most tainted memory is probably the one when a bunch of teachers put my character into question. It was our last year at school, and we were going to a nearby hill station for twenty-four hours for a picnic. I also got my period that day but went for the picnic anyway because I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life regretting having missed the last picnic at school. Basically, I let FOMO overpower my cramps. As you may have figured, it was a bad decision.
I survived for the most part, but during the evening, when we were supposed to return to the bus for a 6-hour drive back to school, the cramps became intolerable. Remember how I said I had only two real friends left when the crowd abandoned me? Yes, one of them was a guy, and one of them was a girl. Well, they helped me survive the day and journey back home. They supported me and held my hand when I needed them. We reached back to school, and a bunch of teachers —again — put me aside. It’s never a good feeling when teachers separate you, is it? Well, as you may have guessed, they accused me of making out. They questioned my character and let me know how I was a problematic girl with an indecent character.
Basically, what they said at the time was an amalgamation of everything I had heard before. I still don’t know what those teachers saw for them to assume I had been making out. But let me tell you, at that juncture, I was years away from experiencing my life’s first kiss. During the picnic, it was the first time a guy had ever held my hand. And he was one of my best friends who helped me walk for five minutes.
Yes, a lot of drama unfolded, but two teachers – a female and a male teacher, and the school principal came to my aide. Yes, I have been blessed with an amazing family who’ve always backed me. My parents and the two teachers motivated me. They said that, in life, if I’m right, I must always stand up for my truth. They also amusingly remarked how the concerned teachers won’t be able to affect my Board results, which I effing rocked, BTW.
But in that whole picnic fiasco, you know, what bothered me the most? That my best friend I was being linked to remained unaffected. Nobody questioned his character. He got out harmless while the teachers protested that I needed to be suspended for my lewdness. This doesn’t mean I wanted him to suffer. No, I was just surprised how that ‘supposed’ make-out made me a problematic girl with a questionable character, but he remained untouched and unbothered as if nothing had happened. That was the first time I actually realised that our society is inherently sexist in nature, and they’d find a woman at fault, no matter what. And a lot of this sexism is also internalised because the teachers who raised questions about my character were all women.
It’s been years since I left the school. The wound of being labelled a ‘problematic’ girl has healed and shaped into a scarred memory. It was sad what I had to go through, but worse things have happened, and perhaps, are still happening.
