It was the tenth period on a Thursday, and the October heat had turned the CBSE classroom into a slow-cooker. Twenty-eight students of Class 10—mostly staring at the ceiling, the fan, or the last shred of their sanity—sat in Ms. Fatima’s Arabic grammar session.
By the end of the period, the board was filled with color-coded verb tables, the floor had pencil shavings and crumpled practice sheets, and the fan had done nothing to cool the room. But something had shifted.
Silence. Then hesitant shuffling.
Group 3—Riya, Ayaan, and a quiet girl named Zara—got d-r-s .
“Why can’t it just stay the same?” he whispered to himself.
And somewhere in the back of Ayaan’s notebook, the camel now had a speech bubble. It said, in neat Arabic script: Ana jamalun. Wa ana adrusu al-‘arabiyyah bubt’i. (I am a camel. And I learn Arabic slowly.)
The collective groan returned. But this time, there was laughter buried underneath it.
Zara smiled. Just a little. But it was enough.
Riya wrote: Ana darastu al-lughah al-‘arabiyyah . (I studied the Arabic language.)
“And now?”
“Turn to page 147,” Ms. Fatima announced, her voice like a calm, unshakable river. “ Al-Fil al-Maadhi wa al-Mudhaari . Past and present tense verbs.”
Ayaan wrote: Anti tadrusaana al-nahw . (You—feminine—study grammar.)
Ms. Fatima read it and her eyes softened. “You used the dual form,” she whispered. “Most tenth graders forget it exists.”
A collective groan rose from the back. Not because they hated Arabic—many loved the lyrical sound of it—but because grammar had a way of turning poetry into algebra.
What followed was a slow, reluctant choreography of scribbling, running, eating, and sleeping—all in Arabic. Riya was in her element, conjugating with her whole body. Ayaan turned running ( yarkudu ) into an exaggerated slow-motion chase around his chair. Even Kabir smiled when he realized that yadhhabu (he goes) and nadhhabu (we go) shared the same rhythm, just a different first letter.