Nothing worth having comes easy
As a class eight teenager, back in the
year 2000, we had a project submission as a part of our coursework in science. The
class of 60 students got divided into 12 groups with five members each. We had to
choose any two crops and provide a model along with charts explaining the key
points and I nonchalantly agreed for the easy chart writing part without
pondering much. We settled down to sugarcane and cotton cultivation in India.
When I took this home, my father was very
excited and said he would help me. Ensuring the details about the project he conceptualized
the idea for presentation. Being an avid Hindu reader, he suggested that I
could prepare the chart just like a newspaper's front-page. Excited, I conveyed
it to the other group members for which they agreed and fed me with information
to fill in the chart. As simple as it sounded, I went shopping, bought two
white charts started drawing borders, copied all the information given by my
friends into it in a vertical order. After an hour, Viola! It’s done. While
rolling it up, I felt some sharp sting in my ears, and turning back, I found my
father’s hand pinching my ears.
Well, that’s how it all started. He
asked me to do a rough draft first, chiding me for doing the project in a
shabby way. I had to restart everything with my dad sitting beside and for each
sentence I wrote, I got a knock on my head. One knock for writing in Bombay to
Delhi direction (that’s how he calls it), the other knock was for not spacing
out the words equally, another for a careless spelling mistake, one more for
letting a drop of tear in the chart leaving it smudged. Oh! Getting knocks seemed
as an unending process and I never knew writing in a chart would be so hard. He
kept on correcting me, with no concern about my tears or stress. What started
as a playful event at dusk turned out a nightmare and did not end until dawn. I
went sleepless and my mom who sneaked in at times to give snacks was also
chucked out. Despite my dismissing sore looks, he remained stern and didn’t
give up on the backbreaking task. All I did was, to soothe my skull and
continue writing with tears flowing through, careful enough to not let it fall
on the chart.
It was a Sunday morning. Once all the
columns were finalized with proper headings, dad gave a nod for making the fair
copy. This time, I was not in a cheerful mood. I carefully took the scale, measured
the height and width of the chart, marked spots for borders and drew lines
after checking the measurements twice. The whole chart was meticulously planned
and executed with full focus to look like a newspaper. It had an emblem,
edition, place, date, headlines with a picture, snippets column, even a
cartoonscape followed by statistical reports and carried an advertisement column
placed down right in the chart. My dad, grabbed some cotton, stuck in the
chart, drew a cotton flower then wrote a fancy name for a cotton product as an
advertisement. He also glued my mom's handkerchief in the headline’s column, stating
the uses of cotton. The sugarcane chart was no lesser challenge for my dad's ingenuity.
I gradually started to see what my dad had in mind. I had no clue that a
project done so painstakingly could lead to such a marvellous outcome. At the
end of the day, after the long haul, I witnessed two perfectly made charts entitled
as "The Sugarcane Times" and "The Cotton Chronicle" which was
so flawless looking exactly like a newspaper print.
Monday morning, I marched to school deliberately
holding the newspapers (aka charts). I noted the uniqueness in my charts among
others displayed works. When our Science teachers assessed our work they were
quite curious about my charts and while announcing the results, our teacher
appreciated everyone for doing an outstanding job and she gave ten on ten to
all the groups. The class shouted in glee, but then she paused for a second and
said, my group alone would get a half mark extra for the effort I had put on my
chart. I felt greatly honoured with my group cheering aloud for me. I stood
with a small tear rolling down my cheek silently forgiving my dad, but never to
forget the lesson.
Nothing worth having comes easy
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