The Victim THE VICTIM Yes madam, I have finished writing the 10th copy of the letter.

Sabir felt the pain of continuous writing from the tips of his fingers to the co re of his brain. Cursing his misfortune for having been listed among the studio us students of 10D, he kept his English notebook before Ms Catherine. Wait a minute, said Ms Catherine without taking her eyes from the pages of the mag azine she was reading. Catherine was known for her voracious reading. She had a very good command over English. She trained a number of students over the years for various competiti ons and most of the trophies which adorned the school office went to her credit. Seconds moved like hours for Sabir. All his friends had gone home. All alone, all all alone among the gaping pieces of furniture, he waited for his madam to c omplete her avaricious process of reading. Thank goodness. A deep sigh of relief came from his lungs when he saw Ms Catherine folding the pages of the magazine. She kept it safe in her blue vanity bag of imported leather of magnificent sheen and took the disfigured frame of the noteb ook Sabir had kept on her table. Did she have a scornful frown when she turned over the soiled pages of the notebook? Come and stand near my table. She ordered Sabir when she started scanning the wor k submitted. One. Two. Nine and Ten. Excellent. You have completed a wonderful job of writi ng the answer 10 times. Though troubled, Sabir enjoyed the rosy smile on her face thickened with pancake . Her meticulous eyes got disturbed by the footsteps pattered along the corridor. Good evening Ms Catherine. That was Mr Raj, the principal. Mr Principal was on his usual rounds. He had made it a point that he should be the last person to leave the school every day in the evening. What happened to this boy? Why is he staying back? enquired the principal. Ms Catherine showed some extra interest in discussing with him the errors she un derlined in that mocking bright red in the pages of her weak students notebook. Tense is not maintained properly, sir. Active voice has been used in place of th e passive, sir. No prepositions. No articles. Adverbials lack their grammatic al order, sir. No syntax. No semantics, sir. He should drill the lessons, sir. Mr Raj was perplexed at the verbosity of the situation and a bit impressed with the commonality of the trial and the verdict. Why did he now ruminate on teachers having 20 years of teaching experience and t hose having one year experience multiplied by twenty? Could we leave the boy and have a talk over a cup of tea? He asked his over enthu siastic colleague. Ms Catherine followed her principal. She was always trying to pace one step ahe ad of that simple man. It was a long discussion. Piaget and Vygosky shook hands with each other. Noam Chomsky interrupted with the concept of innatism. Pavlov, Skinner and Thorndike frowned at one another. By the time creativity and social constructivism over p owered behavioural changes, there came a call. It was Sabirs mother. She was st ill waiting for the boy. SURESH.V