Well, the first thing we adults must understand is that we need to look at the errant behavior in the right dimensions. When we start screaming and shouting or creating a big fuss in front of the family or the class, the error gets magnified manifold. The error will well be forgotten. But the shame and the ridicule that the child felt will remain etched in his memory for his entire life. Even a harsh word of rebuke can create a lasting impact on the sensitive psyche of the child. 

Maybe he will learn from it. Maybe he will always rebel against it. That depends on his personality and his attitude towards life.Yet, the errant behavior needs to be rectified. Only then parents and teachers can hope to create some sort of harmony in a civilized society.

40 odd years back, we had a history teacher. We were a class of around 19 girls. I don’t even remember the subject she actually taught. Neither do I remember the names of all my classmates now. What I do remember is that this teacher was perhaps exasperated by our casual attitude towards our academics. Homework was never done on time. If it was done, the home workbook was left behind at home. Or only half of it was done. Maybe the smart children could copy only half the answers from the brighter students during the break. Maybe one student could not get hold of any student’s book to copy the answers so he had conveniently left the book behind at home after finishing the homework. 

We all were children once upon a time. We all lied to some degree at some time or the other. We all really forgot our book at home because we simply did not care too hoots about history. Classrooms were boring. School playgrounds and lunch breaks were interesting. Home was even better. TV had not yet arrived at that time. So we played and played until dinner time. We laughed merrily and rolled around in fun on our beds with our cousins. We fought and we played like crazy.

And then we smacked our forehead because we completely forgot to pack our history homework notebook in our school bag. Our school bag is still carrying all the books that we had packed on Monday morning. The timetable changed every day but we never packed our books accordingly. Life was meant to have fun – not study.

Luckily for me, I lived pretty close to my school. So I zipped home – ran like a crazy girl in fact – and brought the book from my table and ran back to school. My parents were amused and were happy that we had such strict teachers who could literally beat some sense of responsibility into our fun-filled lives.

Now the other girls were not so lucky. She had already warned us several times that she would undress us in the class if we forgot to bring her books to school. Most of us did our best to stay safe. But one unlucky girl forgot to bring her book that day. No, she did not actually undress her but the doors and the windows were shut ominously. There was pin-drop silence in the class and the girl started crying hysterically. The teacher just touched the top shoulder button of the girl’s pinafore. And the girl continued crying as she cowered and crouched in a corner of the classroom. 

The teacher never had any intention of really undressing any child in front of the class. She just wanted us to be responsible enough to pack our books properly before coming to school. Yes, No girl ever forgot to bring her history books to class ever again. In fact, for as long as we studied in that school we always did this teacher’s homework on time. But the memory was a bitter one for all of us.

About 15 years later, my four-year-old kid was finding it difficult to adapt to his new school. We had just moved to a big city. I would go to pick him up in the afternoons. His admission process was delayed due to our move and he was taking his time adapting to the new scenario. He would unfailingly burst into tears when he saw me and would hug me tightly for several minutes.

After a few days, the teacher told me how she had to use a syringe to make him conform to the new routine. I had no answer for her stance. I was tutoring my child at home and I knew it was only a question of time before he was at par with the other students. Strange…..that the teacher did not realize such a simple thing!

A couple of years later, we had to move to another city. The school was lovely and even had a swimming pool. I wanted my kid to learn swimming as long as we were posted in that city. Free swimming classes were conducted after school hours for interested students. So I enrolled my kid in these classes. 

On the very first day, the instructor simply lifted this 6 or 7-year-old kid high up in the air and dropped him into the swimming pool. He will overcome his fear of water this way said the experienced instructor. I was new to the city and also to the concept of swimming. For a week I tried to cajole and coax my child to go for these classes just once more. Before the end of the week, he started getting nightmares and was screaming in his sleep. I hugged him tightly as we both wept with the bitter memories that we had created for ourselves. 

I did not know that a simple activity could create such a lasting negative impact on his mind.But children are children. They are naïve. My child has forgotten all about it because he was very young at that time. Mercifully a short memory is a good thing for all of them. But such incidents make us question our actions.

Did our ancestors believe in this kind of punishment? Maybe the guru shishya parampara was a personal relationship. The school was the guru’s ashram and all the shishyas had to do all household chores together and then study.

The Thorpikarnam or the Thoppukarnam was a beautiful form of punishing the errant and forgetful students. All they had to do was hold the left earlobe with the fingers of the right hand and the right earlobe with the fingers of the left hand and do several sit-ups. The number of sit-ups depended on the degree of errant behavior. And these sit-ups are not so easy to do continuously.

But they did serve a very useful purpose. These sit-ups improved the memory. The students could grasp knowledge with more alertness because these sit-ups improved the circulation of blood to the brain, heart, throat and other chakras.

They were made to do this in front of the class and this was perhaps the only form of punishment meted out to any or all the errant students of the class.  So no student was singled out at any time and the problem was solved effectively.The student forgot something. So the teacher just focused on improving his memory instead of blowing his errant behavior out of proportion. 

Maybe there were loopholes in the education system at that time too. Maybe we have evolved so much that we are totally against physical punishment in any form now. Maybe this is leading to another extreme scenario where our children are being overly pampered and catered to. Some senior students even use the feedback system to show the exit door to teachers. 

Questions like these will continue to haunt us. Answers will vary from person to person. But maybe it is time to revamp our thinking to solve the problem that we have in hand. We all will err. All errors are probably temporary and minor. The punishment should be temporary and should focus on solving the problem. And the thorpikarnam or the thoppukarnam seems to be ideal for that!