Silly Tales

An affectionate Vice Principal

During high school, I used to bunk classes A LOT! Two of my friends, Jessica Zanifeer, and I were always the ones the teachers used to look out for during classes. The Vice Principal Mr Brown, on the other hand, was more like a friend to us. What the three of us used to do when we would bunk classes was to go and sit in Mr Brown's office and just stay there because we knew it would be the last place the teachers would look. Everytime Mr Brown would ask us what we were doing there, we used to say, “We were missing you, sir. If the teacher asks you anything about us…can you tell her you had called us for something important?” He used to have a soft spot for the three of us, so he would say, “Okay, but this is the last time! I want you to attend your classes properly.” That was something he would always say, but of course, the next day we would pick the class we hated the most and 'hang out' at Mr Brown's office!

Sadiyah Zafar
AIUB, Dhaka

Infatuation gone overboard

When I was in school, we used to have a cricket team that was very famous in the city amongst school level cricket teams. They were always the champions during tournaments and always got a lot of respect everywhere they went. They were so famous in school that all the girls used to go 'ga-ga' over them every time they would walk by, and don't even get me started on when they would start practicing! We were all like those little love-struck pre-teen 'fans'. So, one day we heard that they would be starting practice in a while. So, a lot of us got together and decided to bunk class to go watch them practice. Little did we know that they were going to be practicing with a hard ball that day (the red wooden ones used during test matches). We got all excited and started going towards the field where they practiced and what we did was keep walking past them to get some attention. So, when I was walking by 'in style', I suddenly turned and saw a big red ball charging towards me and before I could turn away it came and hit my hand and I felt my life flash past my eyes! I thought I was going to die! Since then…my 'cricket-team-liking' days have been over!

Anonymous
Dhaka

Awkward compliment

I remember a foreign teacher who was in our school for a couple of years. There was really no point of having her there as an English teacher since she wasn't too good at it herself. There was something about her that used to annoy us a lot. And to make matters worse, she looked like a 'shrimp'. That's right, a 'shrimp' and added to that, she would always wear orange clothes. So, we used to call her 'chingri maach' (shrimp) so that she wouldn't really know what we were saying. One day, out of the blue, she asked us what 'chingri maach' meant since she heard us say it a lot during class. We told her it meant 'gorgeous'. She was so overwhelmed by the thought of us calling her gorgeous, I could swear I saw a tear roll down her cheek out of happiness. A couple of days later, she bragged about the incident in the teachers' room saying, "The 6th grade girls are so amazing! They call me 'chingri maach' almost all the time! It's so sweet!" Of course, one of the teachers had told her what it actually meant. What happened next is exactly what you're guessing-- detention!

Laila Khondker
East West University, Dhaka