At the Common Admission Test (CAT) coaching centre, I teach English and Rajeev, Maths. This Wednesday, Rajeev had a class at 6:30 in the evening. Around 6 p m, I was in office making English material for a forthcoming test. Students started coming in at 6:20 and by 6:35 the class was full. No sign of Rajeev. 6:40, 6:45... Nalini, the counsellor, called his number but someone else picked up. We got seriously worried. Finally, at 7 p m, with students inspecting the door repeatedly, Rajeev walked in. Lo and behold, he was drunk. He could barely stand straight and when he walked, he shifted from one foot to the other. Nalini and I, the smiles gone from our faces, journeyed from disbelief to alarm in seconds.
“Hi everyone! How are you?” Rajeev said to us, grinning a wide smile that gave him away — if proof indeed was needed. No sooner he arrived than he made for the washroom down the staircase. Nalini and I looked at each other. I giggled, but she was serious. That set me right. It was funny and grave at the same time. It was a riot.
At any rate, Rajeev could not take a class in that condition. Nalini was so frazzled that I offered to teach that batch English and have Rajeev take my regular class the next day. Well, sure but we had to convey this to him, and if I remember my William Congreve right (Yes, I Googled him), “Hell hath no fury like a tosspot warned!”
When Rajeev returned, he hugged me tight. Major awkwardness alert! I said: “Dude, are you okay?” “Yes yes, I am okay,” he said funnily, the slurring stretching his words. “Why don’t you let me take your class today?” I asked gingerly. “No, no, not at all. I am fine, just a little happy,” he said. Happy? Is that what they call it nowadays?
Rajeev made his way to the front of the class. “Two is to three is equal to x plus y is to x minus y,” he said by way of a simple ratio problem. Now I was thinking hard. If I asked him to leave, it might escalate matters and create a scene. If he continued teaching, we would become a laughing stock. Oh no! Rajeev is a nice sort who was probably out with friends and had one too many. But something needed to be done, urgently.
Nalini called our senior promoter. He told me to take the class and ordered Rajeev to leave the premises at once and see him at his house. Rajeev, thankfully, did as told. Things settled down. During the class I wondered if I should say something to make up for what happened, viz, it was an aberration (which it was) and would never repeat itself. But once the class was in flow, the incident seemed to not matter enough to bring it up.
The next day, Rajeev, Nalini, a director and I assembled at the promoter’s place. The promoter had convened an “urgent meeting” to “discuss matters”. There is a whiteboard at his residence. On it was jotted the previous day’s date in an illegible scrawl. The “W” of Wednesday was a “U” with wings. “This is what Rajeev wrote when he came to my place yesterday,” the promoter laughed. Rajeev, of course, didn’t remember a thing. His brash assertion that he was wholly ready to take the class came a cropper.
What happened exactly, Rajeev asked me. I told him it wasn’t as bad as he thought, and that he behaved rather decently for someone drunk. Abashed by our coolness, he apologised and promised it would never be repeated. That was that. Later, thinking about it, I was frankly at a loss in locating the “big deal”. Sure Rajeev is a teacher and as such he should not come to class heavily, or even nominally, drunk. But he is also just a guy and all of us must be allowed – make that, sanctioned – the occasional indiscretion.
At a time when we as an institute are battling anxieties about new students and ways to recoup investments, it is nice to have an adrenaline-pumping situation once in a while. No, seriously. We have been conducting seminars in different colleges and organising demo classes to encourage students to come and try us. We are a small establishment currently and if we don’t get enough numbers soon, how on earth do we scale operations?
Most of our time, therefore, passes debating strategy, big numbers, the long-term play. This lumbering undertaking commands all our attention and, concomitantly, stretches our worries incessantly. In the face of such sotto voce bothers, an action-packed, drunken crisis with the potential to flare up is – as crazy as it sounds – rather welcome. Heil ye worshippers of Bacchus!
The author has switched too many jobs in the past and hopes he can hold down this one
