"Keep it Up!" - A Tale of Unexpected Understanding

I recently posted an article on what inspired me to write my book, "Mission Inside Edge." Some of my friends from college were kind enough to like the post, and a few others were "kinder" enough (is that even a term?) to share their comments on the article. One of the comments was a highly encouraging "keep it up."

As entirely appropriate as the comment was as a means of expressing their happiness, it also had the unexpected effect of transporting me back about forty years to the time when I had first encountered the same comment. I was then in my third grade and had just been handed my mid-term report card. There was nothing particularly worth mentioning in that card, other than the phrase "Keep it up!" written in the "Remarks" column in my class teacher's neat handwriting.

In my fledgling student career up to that point, I had never been on the receiving end of any remark of any kind. On several occasions, my well-meaning mother had warned me against the consequences of getting "remarks from the teacher." And none of the consequences that she described to me in vivid detail had been good.

Naturally, I was devastated. Not only had I done something that had earned me my first-ever remark, but it had also been something so horrible as to deserve the highly cryptic "keep it up!"

The exclamation at the end of the remark also seemed to indicate that there was some kind of urgency to the whole matter. It seemed to suggest that if I didn't urgently "keep something up" (whatever that something was), the consequence would be too dreadful even to contemplate.

I timidly checked with my immediate neighbors in class to see if any of them had been the recipients of remarks, scathing or otherwise, from our esteemed educator. Unfortunately, none of them seemed to have been beneficiaries of that particular kind of benevolence. My nervous inquiries had served no purpose other than to sink me further into my puddle of confusion. To add to it, I was also now the target of many looks of horror mixed with pity that were being cast my way. I could see many of my classmates questioning their choices in life. "Why did we pick a guy who gets 'remarks' from the teacher as our friend?" they seemed to be asking themselves. I couldn't blame them. I was now the person that my mother had warned me about! Clearly, my mom had not been the only one who nurtured serious misgivings about remarks.

I never thought of checking with the "toppers" in class, of course. Had I done that, I'd have made the startling discovery that remarks such as "Well done!" and "Exceedingly proud of you" had been bestowed upon them as well.

I spent a miserable rest of the day in school. It was all the more baffling because, just two days before, I had taken home my Math paper with a perfect score for the very first time. My usually stoic father had been so moved to think that his son could keep his concentration up long enough to make no mistake at all in an entire paper that he had rewarded me instantly with an éclair that he magically produced from the depths of his office briefcase.

Recently, I had asked my son if he could recollect the toffee he had had that very morning, and the boy had looked at me as if I had been speaking Mandarin! And here I am with the distinct memory of the expression on my parent's face as he handed me that toffee nearly four decades ago.

How I had fallen from that high point in my career to being a "remarked" man, I could not understand.

Later that evening, I crawled my way to my school bus. I collapsed into the seat next to my friend, Santosh, like a man who has made up his mind to confess all collapses into his psychiatrist's couch.

'Rough day?' asked my discerning friend.

'Yes,' I whispered, struggling not to break into tears, so profound was the effect of that concern-laden question. Then, like a dam bursting, the heart-rending story of my fall poured out of me.

'Hmm,' Santosh said at length, as if the line of questioning he needed to pursue to dig deeper into the matter had just occurred to him.

'You are sure the teacher was smiling when she handed the report card to you?'

'Yes.'

'That's unusual! My teacher just shoves the report card into my hand as if she hates her job. There is more to this than meets the eye!'

I didn't reply. He thought for a minute more before coming up with this gem.

'This smile,' he asked, shifting earnestly in his seat to face me, 'how would you describe it?'

'What do you mean?' I asked weakly.

'Was it like the smile that Amitabh Bachchan has when he sees the heroine? Or the kind of sinister smile that Pran has when he points a gun at Bachchan?'

Before you judge me, please do remember that we are talking about "the 80s" here, and that should give you some context. Santosh, of course, used a more grade-appropriate word for "sinister," but I don't recollect what it was all these years later. At that moment, unfortunately, I could also not recollect the exact quality or texture of my teacher's smile to answer my friend.

'You should pay attention to such things,' my friend admonished me gently when I expressed my inability to respond to his query.

He turned away to look out of the window for a while longer. Then, suddenly, he spun around to face me. From the expression on his face, it was clear that an exceptionally bright thought had occurred to its owner.

'You know what?' he asked, rhetorically. 'I think that the remark is simply practical advice that the teacher wanted you to follow.'

'Huh!' I said, uncomprehending.

'Your teacher knows that you take the school bus back home, right?'

'Yes, but...'

'I think,' he said, cutting me off in his excitement, 'when she says "Keep it up," she means it literally.'

'What are you talking about?'

'What is "it" in this context?' asked my friend, patiently, as if he was explaining things to an eight-year old. 'The report card,' he said, before I could supply an answer. 'So, the teacher is simply asking you to "keep the report card up" when you are travelling back home in the school bus.'

I stared at Santosh for a bit. 'Could it be?' I wondered. 'What else could it be?' came the reply from the depths of my eight-year-old mind. I looked at Santosh with genuine admiration.

'If you ask me, I think it is great advice,' he philosophized. 'Your teacher knows that if you have the report card in your backpack and the backpack, as the name suggests, is on your back when you are in the bus, there is a good chance that the “sacred item” could be destroyed when some of the rowdier elements that travel with us push past you like a herd of stampeding elephants.' This, he said, with an eloquent flourish of his hand indicating some of our decidedly heftier co-passengers.

'I see,' I said, really meaning it. As one, we looked up at the overhead rack that was overflowing with backpacks, lunch boxes, water bottles, and many other unidentifiable objects that hopefully made sense to their respective owners.

'But,' I persisted, a doubt feebly raising its head once more in my troubled mind, 'my backpack is safely on my lap, isn't it? Why...'

Santosh put up a hand, as if to dismiss all argument. 'Who are we to doubt the wisdom of our preceptors?' He used a more grade-appropriate term for preceptors, but I blame the intense stress that my poor brain had undergone that day for having forgotten it.

'Come,' said my friend, philosopher, and guide. 'The journey is at an end, and we have not a moment to lose.'

With great decisiveness, he grabbed my backpack with his left hand. He stood up and pushed one of the rucksacks on the overhead rack roughly to one side. Ignoring the protests of the owner of the rucksack in question, he shoved my bag with extreme violence into the little gap that he had created.

With a look of great satisfaction at a job well done, he fell back into his seat beside me. I gazed upon him with adoration writ large in my eyes.

'You know what?' I asked, also rhetorically, 'I have kept the report card in the uppermost section of my backpack, too. I, obviously, hadn't known what the teacher had meant for me to do, until you explained it to me so well. But some sort of wisdom must have obviously dawned upon me, too, it would seem.'

'All the more better,' agreed my friend. 'Not only is "it" in a backpack which is on "top," but "it" is also on the "top" of that backpack. Like I always say, a double-scoop ice cream is better than a single-scoop one.' Then, smiling with wisdom beyond his years, he said, 'The universe gives you many signs, my friend. You just have to learn to understand its song.' He, of course, didn't say that exactly, but I assume he must have said something equally effective.

When it was time to get off at my stop, the universe seemed to be giving me yet another sign. One of the pachyderms that my noble friend had previously pointed out as a potential stampede starter yanked out his backpack from the rack, causing mine to fall right onto my lap.

'Could it be?' I wondered. 'What else could it be?' came the reply from the depths of my eight-year-old mind. For some strange reason, my mind's voice now came with a face attached to it - the face of my benefactor, Santosh.

There was a skip in my step as I traversed the small distance from the bus stop to my house.

The universe seemed to have become extremely generous, almost frivolous, with its sign distribution that evening, for what did I see when I got home? My father, rather unusually, was home early that evening. With a flourish, I swung my backpack off my back. With another flourish, I proceeded to hand that particular article of luggage to my éclair-distributing parent. With a third, almost extravagant, flourish, I indicated that my report card was housed within its confines.

I must confess that I had not exactly been expecting a shower of accolades from my father to wash me off my feet. He wasn't exactly the demonstrative type. But I had also most certainly not been expecting to hear him ask the following question -

'Why is it in pieces?'

'Huh!' I exclaimed, looking at the bits of parchment that he was holding out for my inspection. One look and I realized that truer words had never been spoken. It was indeed in pieces. Several pieces, in fact!

With a howl of misery, I bawled out my story. I confessed to how I had let my family down by being the first "remarked" man in its history. I narrated how I had suffered the looks of derision from all quarters that had stung me like barbs. I waxed eloquent about how Santosh had been the only one to cast upon me a look of benevolence, causing me to confide in my dearest friend. I explained in a choked voice how he had, in his wisdom, separated the chaff from the grain, and shone new light upon my predicament. I tried explaining to my father about the universe and its song but gave up midway when he did something totally unexpected.

He burst out laughing.

If "textspeak" were a thing back then, I'd have qualified his mirth as an "LOL" or even an "ROFL". But these certainly weren't even "era-appropriate" back then, if you know what I mean.

Later that evening, my father attempted to assemble the tattered remains of my report card and patch it up as best as he could with tape. He signed it right below the remark that had sparked off the entire drama and even wrote a note to the teacher describing why my report card looked like a badly assembled jigsaw puzzle. All the while, there was an amused smile on his face.

I still remember that smile all these years later.

Was the teacher amused the next day when I presented my report card and the accompanying note? I do not remember. What became of Santosh? I do not know. We lost touch over the years, but I won't be surprised if he has gone on to become a new-age baba and is explaining the song of the universe to adoring devotees somewhere. Perhaps, if I were to visit the Kumbha Mela, I may run into him. Back in the 80s, that's exactly where you went if you wanted to be reunited with long-lost relatives or friends. Or, is that where you were supposed to lose them in the first place? Bollywood can really mess with your brain!

So, thank you, wonderful friend, for asking me to "keep it up!" Thank you for taking me down memory lane and bringing a smile to my face. I think I know what that "remark" means now, and I definitely intend to keep it up.