Mrs Sharma ( name & identifying details changed) was an English Teacher par excellence and the mother of a classmate from school days. Though she taught at another school, she gracefully accepted directing a couple of boys and girls from our class for George Bernard Shaw's classic play, Pygmalion. This was somewhere in the time of my tenth standard.
As we practiced regularly, I got very impressed with Mrs Sharma's repertoire of English accents, inflections and general grasp of the language.
One day during practice - and I cant remember what lead me to do this- I asked Mrs Sharma her age in the presence of all the boys and girls - my classmates- who had come to practice and watch the practice. Suddenly everyone became silent and waited for Mrs Sharma to answer.
In those few silent moments before she spoke, I felt her gaze piercing me. As I waited with a sense of tightness in my chest, every pore in my body was telling me that I was now in big trouble.
Then followed the rebuke of a lifetime. How ill-mannered of me, she said, that I dared to ask a lady her age. We were dismissed for that day.
The rest of the practice sessions thereafter were somber gatherings and the final performance of the play was appreciated at the school. In all fairness to Mrs Sharma, she was gracious in personally appreciating my performance as Professor Higgins. I could not bring myself to look into her eyes and shied away at the earliest.
Later on, in retrospect, I would often criticize myself that I was old enough in the tenth standard to know not to ask this sensitive question of a lady. Just how did I commit this faux pas!
As a few decades rolled by, this embarrassment was forgotten and I happened to get busy professionally.
One evening I received a message from my receptionist that my classmate had come at the appointed time for consultation for her mother. It was Mrs Sharma; and I knew before they walked in that this was the moment of my reckoning!
The consultation session proceeded to its logical end and I had the satisfaction of assuaging Mrs Sharma's anxieties about her orthopaedic condition.
As my classmate and her mother rose to leave my office, I smiled and asked Mrs Sharma,
"Madam, would you mind telling me your age now, especially now that I need to know this as a doctor!"
Indicating with a smile that she recollected that incident well, she extended her hand for a friendly handshake, and, in a soft voice, told me her age.
Obviously, I won't reveal her age for the fear of another rebuke!
Just so that you know, I found her to be as graceful as ever, and, ever young at heart!
As we practiced regularly, I got very impressed with Mrs Sharma's repertoire of English accents, inflections and general grasp of the language.
One day during practice - and I cant remember what lead me to do this- I asked Mrs Sharma her age in the presence of all the boys and girls - my classmates- who had come to practice and watch the practice. Suddenly everyone became silent and waited for Mrs Sharma to answer.
In those few silent moments before she spoke, I felt her gaze piercing me. As I waited with a sense of tightness in my chest, every pore in my body was telling me that I was now in big trouble.
Then followed the rebuke of a lifetime. How ill-mannered of me, she said, that I dared to ask a lady her age. We were dismissed for that day.
The rest of the practice sessions thereafter were somber gatherings and the final performance of the play was appreciated at the school. In all fairness to Mrs Sharma, she was gracious in personally appreciating my performance as Professor Higgins. I could not bring myself to look into her eyes and shied away at the earliest.
Later on, in retrospect, I would often criticize myself that I was old enough in the tenth standard to know not to ask this sensitive question of a lady. Just how did I commit this faux pas!
As a few decades rolled by, this embarrassment was forgotten and I happened to get busy professionally.
One evening I received a message from my receptionist that my classmate had come at the appointed time for consultation for her mother. It was Mrs Sharma; and I knew before they walked in that this was the moment of my reckoning!
The consultation session proceeded to its logical end and I had the satisfaction of assuaging Mrs Sharma's anxieties about her orthopaedic condition.
As my classmate and her mother rose to leave my office, I smiled and asked Mrs Sharma,
"Madam, would you mind telling me your age now, especially now that I need to know this as a doctor!"
Indicating with a smile that she recollected that incident well, she extended her hand for a friendly handshake, and, in a soft voice, told me her age.
Obviously, I won't reveal her age for the fear of another rebuke!
Just so that you know, I found her to be as graceful as ever, and, ever young at heart!
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