Teen Troubles

It must have been around midnight when the phone rang. I woke up with a start and my first thoughts were ‘I hope all is fine’. My mother had just survived a stroke and hadn’t yet fully recovered. My children were away from home – two in Bangalore and one in Ranchi. I picked up the phone and it was my son on the other end.

“Mummy! Note down this number and ring back”

“Is anything wrong? Why are you calling…”

He cut off the line mid-sentence. I hadn’t noted the number because he did not give me any to note down.

He rang up again and when I responded he began to straight away dictate a number.

“Wait a second. Let me get a pen and paper.”

“What were you doing all this while? I’ll call again.” The line went dead. I got a pen and paper when he rang up again and gave me a mobile number.

“What’s the matter Ra……..” He cut off the phone again.

I was fuming from within and decided not to call. My husband was fast asleep and why wouldn’t he sleep through the night? After all he had a super woman for a wife ready to tackle phone calls at midnight. The phone rang again.

“Mummy! Ring back, it is urgent.”

I was wide awake by now and rang up. He immediately picked up the phone.

“Our principal wants you and daddy to come here next week. He is threatening to throw me out of college if you guys don’t turn up.”

“What did you do?”

“Nothing mummy. Absolutely nothing to deserve this punishment. I’ll give you his phone number. Talk to him.”

He gave me a number which I noted down. I remembered the time when my father in law would chase him with walking stick in hand threatening to break his bones but this was something serious.

“When did he tell you this?”

“This evening”

“Why did you wait till midnight to tell me?”

“I am calling from my friend’s mobile. Incoming calls are free after midnight. I asked you for a mobile connection. You didn’t get me one.”

“Listen very carefully Rahul” I said, “I am not talking to anyone unless you come out with your side of the story. I need to know the facts. Otherwise you can ask your father to do the talking”

“Not daddy, he’ll never be able to deal with our princy. Actually what happened was that he fined me 200 rupees and I did not have money to pay up. I went after him apologizing like mad. He left without saying anything. He is now accusing me of not paying the fine. How am I supposed to know that he hadn’t forgiven me?”

“How did you assume that he had excused you?”

“You are arguing for the heck of it mummy. Half the money you send is used up to pay fines. Someone breaks a bulb and the entire floor is fined Do you know I am so broke that I do not even have money to call you from a booth. Here I am trying to make do with the amount you send me and get fined for the silliest of reasons. You don’t even try to understand.”

My heart melted at the thought of my son staying in a hostel in far off Bangalore stranded without a penny in his pocket.

“Now that you’ve told me, go to sleep in peace. I’ll talk to your Principal. I cannot come in person though.”

“That’s my mummy. I love you soooooo much.”

“What happened?” this was my dear husband who had been listening all the while. I repeated the conversation that I had with my son.

“Okay try talking to the Principal. If he doesn’t relent we can put him in a local college. It is not as if children who study here do not fare well.”

How very practical of him I thought.

The next day I did talk to the Principal. It was not as easy as I thought. The first time I rang up he was in a meeting. The second time he had gone on his rounds. The third time he was taking a class. Finally around 3:00 PM the next day I managed to track him down.

“Sir,” I began “This is Rahul’s mother. I was told that you wanted to speak to me.”

“Ma’am, please come over and take your son away. I am giving him his TC. We don’t need him in our college.”

I did not know how to react when I suddenly realized that he was dealing with the same age group as me - Children in their late teens. I decided to appeal to the teacher in him.

“Sir, I am sure you have valid reasons for taking such a harsh decision. I deal with college going teenagers every working day. And believe me sir, it is not an easy job. They are just out of school and are not able to deal with their new found freedom. But can we afford to be harsh on them? They are after all children and even if we scold them they still have no one else to turn to and will come back to us. I will stand by your decision but is there a possibility of letting him off with a warning? I for my part give him strict instructions to abide by your rules.”

That did it! The Principal found an ally in me and went on to tell me that he wanted the best for his students and did not want my son to get into bad company. He went on to say how difficult it was to tackle these teenagers. He finally ended by asking me not to worry about my son. It was the responsibility of the college to bring out the best in him. He expressed his desire to meet us in person and I promised to meet him as soon as possible. I had the rare advantage of understanding both the Principal’s perspective and the plight of a parent.

I rang up and asked my son to pay the fine and be careful in future. This was the first of many episodes that drove me nuts when my son was at college. Today he claims that he'd like to send his watrds to the same place if and when he heads a family.