A new Hindi teacher had joined the school recently. Miss Das was a portly lady who wore crisp, colourful saris with matching bangles and nail polish. Rumour had it that she was divorced but Singh hadn’t been able to confirm this. Today she was wearing an off-white silk sari and a dark brown blouse. The thin white bangles on her wrist tinkled ever so slightly in the silent, sombre pauses which opened up between the prayers and pledges. He had spoken to her once during a staff meeting, but it was a formal exchange about syllabi and lesson plans to which Singh had little to contribute since he didn’t teach those forms.

There was an announcement about changes in the timetable. The new timetable came into effect after the break. Teachers were asked to pick up copies of the revised schedule from the school secretary’s office.

Singh and Awasthi sat in the staffroom grumbling about the changes. Awasthi wondered why Singh was so worked up since he didn’t take any classes in the first place. Singh disliked friends making snide remarks about his teaching habits. After all, he didn’t poke fun at Awasthi’s couldn’t-care-less style which forced boys to turn up at his place for extra coaching. Still, he kept his mouth shut. His son was in Awasthi’s class and took tuitions from him.

Singh hated it that Hindi didn’t make the grade as an ‘important’ subject. It was not maths or science or English. No wonder Awasthi drove to school in a car while all Singh possessed was a battered moped. He found the lack of power and importance rankling.

He tried to distract himself by looking at the classroom allotments. He ran his forefinger along a line of small squares and ticked off the relevant ones. All his classes had been moved to the ground floor of the main building. Because of construction work, many of the junior classes had also been temporarily moved into that building.

It was square-shaped with a big open courtyard in the middle. Having marked off his classes, Singh looked to see who was on the floor opposite. Usually it was occupied by the 10th standard but it had been shunted off to a different location to make room for the juniors. As Singh scrutinized the sheet of paper, his grumpiness lessened and the hint of a smile appeared on his face. The floor opposite was going to accommodate the 5th standard. Miss Das taught Hindi to the entire form.