Rules are important but so is bending them
That winter morning, my daughter and I entered the school office with a bow and a courteous, “May we come in ma’am?”
School etiquette turns up dutifully even when one goes to school as a parent. The lady in-charge of the school office blinked to clear the persistent vision of a sheet of paper she was poring over. She held us with her eyes for roughly as long as it takes a school bus to stop - pick a child or two - and rumble on.
The time before ‘Yes, come in’ was apparently used to mentally assign to us one of the various reasons for which parents accompany children to school before the morning assembly. It can be said that parents are also a class unto themselves and often approach the school authorities for predictable issues such as application for leave, mistakes in evaluation, a bullying classmate or permission for skipping tests. In our case though had we penned an application to the principal the subject would have been: Permission for taking the physics class test before schedule due to sudden sickness. I had accompanied my daughter both as an interlocutor and as a chaperon.
In spite of sickness and parental discouragement, the child had insisted that she had to take the test as in the event of remaining absent, she would have to settle for an average score. I wished the lady a polite good morning and made the entreaty on my daughter’s behalf: ‘Ma’am, actually we have come to seek your permission. Could you permit my daughter to take her physics test scheduled in the fifth period today earlier than the others? She has stomach ache and was throwing up last night.” I looked at my daughter as she stood in a pose of obedient rigidness with her arms stretched at her back - her ear latched on to my words and eyes anxiously staring at the lady from a downcast head. “Sorry sir, rules don’t permit. She will have to take her test with the rest of the students.”
I had done my home work and dished out my reply, “In that case ma’am, I’ll pick her up soon after the test in the fifth period.” “No, please,” came the voice of stern authority, “Rules don’t permit that. Children are not allowed to leave before school is over. And what’s left after the fifth period?” “That’s precisely the point,” I said, adding “Only the sixth and the seventh classes, the last one being hobby class.” The lady shook her head in desperation as one would at an obtuse learner unable to understand a straightforward equation even after two rounds of explanation.
I forestalled her verbal denunciation: “Could you, at my humble behest, ask the principal if she could treat her as a special case?” At this, the lady grudgingly rose from her seat and left. I gazed at my daughter again who through a sudden transformation of perspective began to resemble a star bound to rise and set according to the school almanac without any latitude for human exigencies such as sickness.
The lady was back with a sparkle of vindication in her eyes. “Sir, the principal says that the school does not make any exception to rules. You can take your daughter back.”
I looked at my daughter the third time. Her face resembled a vacant meadow like the deserted playgrounds after school hours. Feeling dejected, I said: “Ma’am, I’m afraid I can’t afford to leave her for the whole day in this condition. I can understand your citing rules when a child is insincere and shows indiscipline but here the case is just the opposite.”
Out of school, we had a little father-daughter one to one. “Child, you come to school to learn so many things but I am afraid they are not teaching you something very important.” “What’s that papa?” my daughter asked inquisitively. “Rules are important and help regulate life but in some situations tweaking them a bit may not mar the spirit.”
THE LADY WAS BACK WITH A SPARKLE OF VINDICATION IN HER EYES. ‘SIR, THE PRINCIPAL SAYS THAT THE SCHOOL DOES NOT MAKE ANY EXCEPTION TO RULES. YOU CAN TAKE YOUR DAUGHTER BACK.’