In the olden days, students used to stay in the teacher’s house and learn. At a young age, boys were sent to the teacher’s house. This system of education was called ‘Gurukula’.Prabhakaran was a boy of twelve. He was staying in his teacher’s house to learn Sanskrit. Prabhakaran was a good student and his teacher liked him. But the teacher didn’t show his affection towards the boy. Rather, he was stricter towards him. One day Prabhakaran was not very attentive in the class. This made the teacher angry. He beat him severely. Prabhakaran wept for some time. Then he wanted to wreak his vengeance on the teacher. In his rage, he decided to kill the teacher. He chalked out a plan for this; Prabhakaran would climb up to the roof of his teacher’s bedroom with heavy granite stone and drop it on the teacher’s head when he was asleep. So after taking the dinner, Prabhakaran went out, picked up a heavy stone, and climbed to the roof of the room. After some time his teacher and his wife retired to bed. Before sleeping they talked for some time. During the talk, Prabhakaran heard his name being mentioned. He listened to their conversation attentively. The teacher’s wife was equally fond of Prabhakaran. She was telling the teacher, ‘this morning you were very harsh on Prabhakaran. You beat him umpteen times, mercilessly. Is he not the best boy in your class? If you behave in this manner he will run away from here and you will lose a good student.’ The teacher replied, ‘you are right, I should not have been so cruel to him. But you know he was not attentive in the class. I was taking an important lesson and he was talking to another boy. When I saw it I lost my temper. Prabhakaran should not miss important lessons. So I beat him in such a way that the punishment may deter him from such indifference in future.’ On hearing this, Prabhakaran became very sad. It was with good intention that the teacher punished him. He was overwhelmed with remorse. The whole night he sat on the roof. The next morning after lessons, he approached his teacher when he was alone and confessed to him everything.

Q:

Why did the teacher not show affection to Prabhakaran?

• 1
  He developed hatred towards him
• 2
  He knew that Prabhakaran was a potential killer
• 3
  Prabhakaran did not have sympathy towards teacher’s wife
• 4
  None of these