5 things I hate about my childhood..

Once in a while, many of my Facebook friends keep posting the line "missing my childhood days" as their status message- I guess the reason behind this could be various, ranging from pressure-in-the-office to dumping-by-partner to back stabbed by friends-colleagues etc., only then can they realize about the patheticness of our collective miserable lives.But i must say that this is an occasional phenomenon (updating this status message) other time they are too busy uploading feverishly the pictures of their recently bought mobile-camera-ipod-car-bike, Sunday brunch,grumpy parents,trip to Digha-Puri-Darjeeling-New York (the latter for the more fortunate mortals among us )PDA with bf-gf and what not.

It made me think over some not-so-memorable factors about my childhood days which i don't miss anymore...

1. Private Tuition : The name says it all.It was nothing less than an epidemic.I am not sure the situation now but in our time, the most important man in our lives was our private tutor (or should i say men? in our town the female teachers in school didn't give tuition for some unknown reason so it was practically a male-dominated field); not our father,brother or new-found boyfriend. Students and their parents used to have sleepless nights on which tutor should be approached or for that matter how many even for one subject.Many of my friends had two or three teachers per subject (but strictly one or none for Bengali and English). Those who were less cerebral , they used to go to the dada-and-didis of the para (who were more pocket friendly and less ego-maniac ).Till class 10 the situation was somehow under control.But after that, it was a mad circus almost.There were so many categories for private tutors (and i am mentioning this only for science stream, didn't know much about arts or commerce)- those who give tuition for JEE and those who not.Those who give tuition for WBJEE , didn't give that for IIT or other engg entrance exams.For medical, there were some for state level medical exam, there were others for national level.Apart from them, some used to teach only in Bengali, some in English, some in both and they were always on- their- toes to find fault with the teaching method of the others.They had unbelievable timings,hefty fees, undecipherable pronunciations,unnerving egos and indispensable presence.

2. Mathematics : The less is said about it,the better.It gave me sleepless nights, countless nausea, tearful morning, frantic evenings and many more.But in our time, if one said the he or she is poor in maths or something like that, that person would be damned,doomed,cursed, ostracized etc. etc. Parents and teachers gave such dirty looks as he/she is caught red-handed for having illegal sex. But as i am grown up right now (at least bodily), i feel it's cool and liberating to say that i hate maths (even Farhan Akhtar had admitted it too).

So YES I HATE MATHS BUT I AM NOT THE ONLY ONE ! :)

3. Arts -and-Science : This world is divided on so many factors; Black-and-white, good-and-bad,curves-and-size zero, we-and-they but during our childhood days, the biggest division was among those-who-love-arts and those-who-love-science.The former group got such labels; if a boy took up humanities then he was labelled as" boro hoye kerani hobe noy to school master ar ki" and if the hapless person was a girl then "meye manush r oto science pore ki hobe,oto mathay nite parbe na".Even the science public had their own category too.If he or she was planning to go for general stream in college i.e. bachelor degree in Science then they are the 2nd class citizen in the sacred universe of science.If the cerebral genius was eyeing for JEE then he or she was one-ruling-lord-to-be-worshiped-in-a-pedestal by us-the less fortunate mortals (who neither love science,nor hate arts but took up the former as "father said so and mother nagged so and bubbly didi or bubai dada of some distant relative's offspring did so")

4.Horror of the horrors : I am meaning those sad-soppy-heart-wrenching-gut-churning stories which filled the front pages of the newspaper every time of the year when the results of secondary and higher secondary published.It was bad enough for backbenchers to see those chubby-cheeked, bespectacled ,utterly- disinterested- to -the- world- looking rank holders' photographs with their proud parents-grand parents-neighbours-dogs-cats on the front page (the most popular pose was mother-stuffing-rosogolla-into-the-mouth-of-the-first boy/girl and he/she-is-looking-helplessly-to-the-camera as if rakhi sawant is caught in the camera without her undies) and horror of the horrors was the story which featured how a poor man's boy/girl fared **.*% even he or she didn't have books, private tutors etc. etc. Now i am not against these,They were truly deserving candidates to occupy front pages but what followed was a scornful look from my father as he declared vehemently to my mother "Dekhechho, rickshawalla-r chhele ki koreche r amaderta ke dekho" and i ducked my head in shame (again i am not the only one).

5. No country for curvy women : In recent time, curve is a craze.Men drool and fantasize over Vidya Balan's curves in Dirty Picture promos. Je Lo's butt got insured.Bipasha Basu piled up silicons on her "assets".But back then, curves were synonymous to fatty, big butts were labelled as "ki boro *****" and rest of the comments were censored.So girls like me who were in the wrong side of size "M" were subjected to bullying among peers, lectures from teachers on dieting and all, admonishing from kakimas-and-pishimas on "shorir komano" and heart-breaks from the boys-on-whom-we-had-crush coz they used to give rides to miss skinnies on their bikes.

And i believe this right now is a fantastic time to be yourself, to celebrate and being unapologetic about your body.

And i certainly don't miss these factors of my childhood diaries.