On my Ini "TY"al days...

English is not my mother tongue.My English
vocabulary grows as and when I hear new words
all the time,right from my childhood.The below
incident took place when I was in class V (CIRCA 1990).

I hail from AECS (Atomic Energy Central School)
from kalpakkam,Tamil Nadu,INDIA.The school is
situated on the coast of Bay of Bengal.
When classes got bored I used to gaze at the bay.
(No babes at the bay, even if it had,
I was not in that age).

It was a mathematics class, Eighth period on a
Saturday(C.B.S.E schools works on saturday as well).
We were all geared up as it was the last period
of the week.As usual the maths teacher came and
taught some algebraic expressions.She asked
Shiva (The first bencher)to read a problem in the
text book, so that she can explain.

Maths Teacher (MT): Shiva can you read the
problem in Exercize 5.1?
Shiva : yes madam..

"Raju had some amount of money with him.
He spent 5 Rs on buying sugar
candy , gave 7 Rs to his sister suja and
remaining he gave it to his mom.
If the amount of money he gave to his
mom was 2 Rs, How much money
did Raju have ini'TEE"aly"?.

MT : What?..read the last sentence again?
Shiva : Sure .."If the amount of money he gives to his
mom is 2 Rs,How much money did Raju have ini'TEEEE"aly?.

The Maths Teacher with a grin face,asked subbu to read the last sentence

Subbu : "How much money did Raju have ini"TEEE"aly?

The Maths Teacher got vexed and narrowed down .
the question to the class.How do you call the word
which has the spelling " I,N,I,T,I,A,L".

(Now only we all got that something is wrong in
pronouncing the last word.Maths teacher was picking on persons
because volunteership was always missing in my class.
Unless one was put on spot,she would'nt get the answer).

MT: Krishna , can you pronounce the word?
Krishna : in"I"teal (happily)

MT could not control her anger and shouted at me.

Raj??? can you??
Raj: Sure!! ini"TY"al.

My maths teacher really got irritated, slashed me left and right in
her bamboo stick.She asked the entire class if anybody knows the
answer. There was a pin drop silence.

The fed up teacher commanded the entire class to kneeldown.
We all knelt down.Then she called Shiva(The first bencher)and
asked "What's your full name?"

Shiva: K.shiva Rama Krishnan.
MT : what is the first letter of your name called?
Shiva: S

MT got angry and said idiot, the single letter before your actual name

Shiva: K
MT : sssss..Whats that called?.
Shiva: in a shouting voice "KAYY".

The teacher got still more fed up and gave him
left and right with her bamboo cane.
I was very much relaxed (even smiled within myself)
at this time as I was not the only one
getting slashed by the cane.

Now, the poor teacher puts the question in a
different way to Subbu (M.Subramaniam).
Whats your inishal?.
Subbu hurriedly said "M".So whats "M"??.
Subbu in a low key said inishal.

MT : Hmmm...loudly
Subbu : 'INISHAL" (Shouting)
MT : Thats what I was trying to hear from you all..you geesy fools..

Everyone saw each others face.I was hitting my forehead with my palm"..cha..this is it"..hmm

By this time, the school Bell rang.We were seeing each other and also starring at the teacher now and then for any signal to go.But no signal from the teacher.After 5 minutes, She looked at her watch.She asked everyone to write the word "INITIAL" 500 times and show to her tomorrow and dispersed the class.

(Note: Similarly , I thought the word kneel down was a single word initially.We used to say "he/she is not kneeldowning madam"..I came to know kneel and down are seperate words,very much later.It was not our fault then.It was the way we were brought up..rather I was brought up.I think the education system is lot better now)