Fresh terrors at Senior School
Sanskrit was a new subject introduced in Senior School . Even before class 6 started Pappa had attempted, and succeeded to a large extent, in familiarizing me with the grammar rules of Sanskrit. Owing to this effort of his, and this alone, I could understand the functioning of the language, and was far from fearing it.
My batchmates had just cause for hating this most scientific and masterful of languages: our language instructor. She was more of a discipline instructor. She had in the class, a Sanskrit monitor whose duty it was to maintain a notebook of daily record of defaulters in the class: those who hadn't brought the book or the copies (fair and practice) and those who hadn't done or completed the classwork or homework. At the occasion of any of these defaults, she would put a note in the diary, mentioning the nature of our default, which we were then expected to get signed by our parents. On the next day, she would check if the signature is there, and if not she would write another note saying the previous was not signed.
This note-writing business was a novel one for us Senior School entrants, and infused a right amount of fear in anticipation of one. Added to this was the bulbous physique of the teacher, with a face always set in a frowning pout. Every Sanskrit class she would march in, and plopping herself onto the teacher's chair, the discipline register, as she called it, would be the first thing she sought. After wishing her, we would sit in a very tangible silence, anxious to know if we were to be penalized that day.
One morning, in the final months of the academic year, I couldn't locate my Sanskrit fair copy in my bag. I had made a new copy on account of the first having run put of pages. To be on the safest of sides, I carried all Sanskrit related books and copies to school everyday. And when I couldn't find this new copy of mine, I freaked out. I looked for it everywhere, even in my friends' bag. My friends, taking pity on me, reminded me of the 'mantra' that our class teacher had taught us to practise whenever we lost something _ "Jesus lost and found", referring to the Biblical incident of Mary and Joseph losing, and then finding him. I began frantically chanting this mantra with utmost devotion.
Then when us 11 year olds didn't see my copy zooming in through the window or from somebody's bag, we decided to change the plea behind the mantra. Everything would rest on the mood of the teacher, which was usually rotten. So I chanted the same mantra, now for finding the lost good mood. My sceptical friend, and partner, Deepti, had doubted the functionality of the mantra from the beginning. But the question she raised was relevant and terrifying at the moment: what if, for a change, Ma'am is in a good mood today, and when you pray thus for her mood, her lost bad mood comes back to possess her?
I stopped chanting all together, and sat glumly, preparing myself for whatever punishment was to come my way. The bell for the Sanskrit period rang, and she stomped into the room, each of her footsteps accelerating my heartbeat. In the split second confusion of everyone sitting down on their seats, someone from a faraway part of the class, passed down a copy to me - my Sanskrit copy. I simply looked at her, stunned, and she mouthed a 'thank you' my way. Holding the copy with both my hands and boring it with my eyes, I could have cried out of relief, anger and joy.
I had fair reason to fear her so. In the beginning of the school year in 6th standard, I had not taken the diary note business very seriously. Neither did the other teachers; they gave the note and then forgot all about it. I had a couple of notes, all unsigned, when the Sanskrit teacher first clawed through my diary. She took a look at the page, and turned a nostril-flared stare at me. If I didn't recognize the situation to be potentially serious, I would have laughed at the sweaty face with the ox-nostrils, threatening to suck me up through them. I arranged my face into what I hoped to be a good mixture of fear and apology.
She wrote two notes: one describing my Sanskrit default for the day (I do not recollect what it was), and the other pointing out my default in getting the previous notes signed. This event must not have registered to the 11-year-old me, as gravely as it should have, because the next day I reached school with a diary bearing no parents' signature against the defaulter notes. When I realized this in school, (having forgotten the issue when I'd reached home) and shared with my friends, they suggested forging a signature. But having had a horrible experience with such a venture in early childhood, I decided to face whatever came my way, truthfully and bravely.
Sanskrit period came. Though I attempted at looking bold, strands of sanity were stripping away from me. A palpitable fear gripped me and grew in me as she walked into the classroom, accepted and returned our 'good morning', settled at the teacher's table and called for the dreaded discipline register. I was called up; I took my betrayer diary and walked up to her. She took one look at it, then at me, repeated the previous note with that day's date, and worded her verdict: Go to the Principal.
Without protesting, I took my diary and walked to the Principal's office. At the Principal's door, I was asked to wait. So I waited, for more than two periods, and when I showed my face again, she gave me audience. All I had to tell was there in my diary, no explanations needed - I showed it to her. She read through the page and turned a murderous glare at me. She wrote a longer note to my parents in her Principal's green ink, bruising me all she could with her words. I came back to class with an indomitable case of hiccups. Today, I didn't forget or take the matter too lightly. It was all that was there on my mind.
But I was too shocked to devise a plan to present the matter at home with least damage. But I believe all the consternation showed in my demeanour, because when Pappa came home, he asked how school was, and when I said it was fine, he asked what had happened at school. There I broke down. I fished out my diary with that one traitorous page bearing assaults in all colours of ink. I took it to Pappa, and with a comeback of the hiccups, my eyes recommenced their leaking. He didn't scold me. He wrote a note responding to the Principal's, apologizing. The heavy day ended on a comforting note.
The next day I couldn't gather the courage to present Pappa's reply to the Principal. She was known for her notoriety as a strict disciplinarian. The fear of her and the general resentment against her, had found their way into a rhyme, concocted by the blacklisted and oft-reprimanded students - a harmless rhyme with the words silly and billi employed to rhyme with her name. I had had no reason to fear her to the magnitude which was prevalent in the student body. I respected and feared her, as I would, any head of the institution. But the incident instilled a downright phobia of even passing by her closed door, as if I were a fly venturing too close to a spider's web.
In later years, and in the Principalship of other Sisters, when Pappa was nominated to the managing committee of the school, I used to get called to the Principal's office, occasionally. This was to relay an invitation to some or the other school programme from the school to Pappa. But every time I was told, "The Principal wants to meet you", I missed a beat and felt the tense eyes of all my classmates on my back. I wouldn't let my guard down until I walked to the office, braved the entry, received the envelope, and was dismissed by the Principal. Then I'd breathe easier, and my classward steps would be lighter. When I entered the class again, my smile would silently communicate to my friends that all was well.
Sr. Lily, like every other strict disciplinarian, was not a pure evil person. She even let go, without so much as a warning, some gravely deviant wrongs. I was the recipient of one of those rare events of no-action.
It was the Christmas Day celebration, just before the winter vacations began; everyone had let their hair down, everyone was infected with the spirit of jubilation. The Santa-disguised senior seemed to be throwing out joy, rather than just 50 paise toffees. Finding the mob of toffee-crazed girls unmanageable, they were shunted out from the auditorium, to the ground and were promised that Santa would continue her generosity from the terrace.
Now the school terrace was a place inaccessible to the students, and to the teachers too, I believe. This, however was a golden opportunity; if I dared just a bit, I could have a few minutes of top-of-the-world terrace time. While the mass of bodies flowed out onto the grounds, an accomplice and I fell behind, saw the door to the roof opened, and Santa and a friend were let onto it. We waited until Treasa Didi, who opened the door for the students, left, and then tiptoed in through the door.
I have no memory who the Santa and her friend were, nor do I remember my partner in crime who chose the terrace over toffees. Those were moments of elation and pure joy. Satisfying ourselves with the view of the auditorium's expansive roof and a few glimpses of the school boundary walls.We kept ourselves away from the parapets so that the expanding mass of toffee seekers on the ground didn't see us. The Santa and friend were too busy to notice us, and even if they did, they could be entreated against complaining; but showing ourselves to several girls, at least few of whom would be religiously rule-following tattletales, would be as good as jumping off the terrace.
As the seconds, filled with equal measures of caution and joy ticked past, our super-attentive ears caught the door creaking open. We froze with dread, unsure weather to hide, or act cool. And who walked in? None but Sr. Lily. She had a smiling hangover from the celebrations in the auditorium, which is saying something, because she never smiled. When her eyes fell on us, the smile faltered a little and the eyes slowly travelled over to the parapet where Santa was sowing celebrations.
It was a Christmas miracle! She must have decided not to deter her spirit of jubilation with an instance of punishment; she must have decided to make us feel lucky, to make us feel that we escaped unnoticed. We lost no time executing her unspoken decisions: we bolted to the door and ran down the stairs, two at a time into the grounds. We camouflaged ourselves in the jumping, stooping and shouting crowd, still fearing that her eagle eyes would spot us and mark us for punishment in the new year, not believing our sheer dumb luck.
My batchmates had just cause for hating this most scientific and masterful of languages: our language instructor. She was more of a discipline instructor. She had in the class, a Sanskrit monitor whose duty it was to maintain a notebook of daily record of defaulters in the class: those who hadn't brought the book or the copies (fair and practice) and those who hadn't done or completed the classwork or homework. At the occasion of any of these defaults, she would put a note in the diary, mentioning the nature of our default, which we were then expected to get signed by our parents. On the next day, she would check if the signature is there, and if not she would write another note saying the previous was not signed.
This note-writing business was a novel one for us Senior School entrants, and infused a right amount of fear in anticipation of one. Added to this was the bulbous physique of the teacher, with a face always set in a frowning pout. Every Sanskrit class she would march in, and plopping herself onto the teacher's chair, the discipline register, as she called it, would be the first thing she sought. After wishing her, we would sit in a very tangible silence, anxious to know if we were to be penalized that day.
One morning, in the final months of the academic year, I couldn't locate my Sanskrit fair copy in my bag. I had made a new copy on account of the first having run put of pages. To be on the safest of sides, I carried all Sanskrit related books and copies to school everyday. And when I couldn't find this new copy of mine, I freaked out. I looked for it everywhere, even in my friends' bag. My friends, taking pity on me, reminded me of the 'mantra' that our class teacher had taught us to practise whenever we lost something _ "Jesus lost and found", referring to the Biblical incident of Mary and Joseph losing, and then finding him. I began frantically chanting this mantra with utmost devotion.
Then when us 11 year olds didn't see my copy zooming in through the window or from somebody's bag, we decided to change the plea behind the mantra. Everything would rest on the mood of the teacher, which was usually rotten. So I chanted the same mantra, now for finding the lost good mood. My sceptical friend, and partner, Deepti, had doubted the functionality of the mantra from the beginning. But the question she raised was relevant and terrifying at the moment: what if, for a change, Ma'am is in a good mood today, and when you pray thus for her mood, her lost bad mood comes back to possess her?
I stopped chanting all together, and sat glumly, preparing myself for whatever punishment was to come my way. The bell for the Sanskrit period rang, and she stomped into the room, each of her footsteps accelerating my heartbeat. In the split second confusion of everyone sitting down on their seats, someone from a faraway part of the class, passed down a copy to me - my Sanskrit copy. I simply looked at her, stunned, and she mouthed a 'thank you' my way. Holding the copy with both my hands and boring it with my eyes, I could have cried out of relief, anger and joy.
I had fair reason to fear her so. In the beginning of the school year in 6th standard, I had not taken the diary note business very seriously. Neither did the other teachers; they gave the note and then forgot all about it. I had a couple of notes, all unsigned, when the Sanskrit teacher first clawed through my diary. She took a look at the page, and turned a nostril-flared stare at me. If I didn't recognize the situation to be potentially serious, I would have laughed at the sweaty face with the ox-nostrils, threatening to suck me up through them. I arranged my face into what I hoped to be a good mixture of fear and apology.
She wrote two notes: one describing my Sanskrit default for the day (I do not recollect what it was), and the other pointing out my default in getting the previous notes signed. This event must not have registered to the 11-year-old me, as gravely as it should have, because the next day I reached school with a diary bearing no parents' signature against the defaulter notes. When I realized this in school, (having forgotten the issue when I'd reached home) and shared with my friends, they suggested forging a signature. But having had a horrible experience with such a venture in early childhood, I decided to face whatever came my way, truthfully and bravely.
Sanskrit period came. Though I attempted at looking bold, strands of sanity were stripping away from me. A palpitable fear gripped me and grew in me as she walked into the classroom, accepted and returned our 'good morning', settled at the teacher's table and called for the dreaded discipline register. I was called up; I took my betrayer diary and walked up to her. She took one look at it, then at me, repeated the previous note with that day's date, and worded her verdict: Go to the Principal.
Without protesting, I took my diary and walked to the Principal's office. At the Principal's door, I was asked to wait. So I waited, for more than two periods, and when I showed my face again, she gave me audience. All I had to tell was there in my diary, no explanations needed - I showed it to her. She read through the page and turned a murderous glare at me. She wrote a longer note to my parents in her Principal's green ink, bruising me all she could with her words. I came back to class with an indomitable case of hiccups. Today, I didn't forget or take the matter too lightly. It was all that was there on my mind.
But I was too shocked to devise a plan to present the matter at home with least damage. But I believe all the consternation showed in my demeanour, because when Pappa came home, he asked how school was, and when I said it was fine, he asked what had happened at school. There I broke down. I fished out my diary with that one traitorous page bearing assaults in all colours of ink. I took it to Pappa, and with a comeback of the hiccups, my eyes recommenced their leaking. He didn't scold me. He wrote a note responding to the Principal's, apologizing. The heavy day ended on a comforting note.
The next day I couldn't gather the courage to present Pappa's reply to the Principal. She was known for her notoriety as a strict disciplinarian. The fear of her and the general resentment against her, had found their way into a rhyme, concocted by the blacklisted and oft-reprimanded students - a harmless rhyme with the words silly and billi employed to rhyme with her name. I had had no reason to fear her to the magnitude which was prevalent in the student body. I respected and feared her, as I would, any head of the institution. But the incident instilled a downright phobia of even passing by her closed door, as if I were a fly venturing too close to a spider's web.
In later years, and in the Principalship of other Sisters, when Pappa was nominated to the managing committee of the school, I used to get called to the Principal's office, occasionally. This was to relay an invitation to some or the other school programme from the school to Pappa. But every time I was told, "The Principal wants to meet you", I missed a beat and felt the tense eyes of all my classmates on my back. I wouldn't let my guard down until I walked to the office, braved the entry, received the envelope, and was dismissed by the Principal. Then I'd breathe easier, and my classward steps would be lighter. When I entered the class again, my smile would silently communicate to my friends that all was well.
Sr. Lily, like every other strict disciplinarian, was not a pure evil person. She even let go, without so much as a warning, some gravely deviant wrongs. I was the recipient of one of those rare events of no-action.
It was the Christmas Day celebration, just before the winter vacations began; everyone had let their hair down, everyone was infected with the spirit of jubilation. The Santa-disguised senior seemed to be throwing out joy, rather than just 50 paise toffees. Finding the mob of toffee-crazed girls unmanageable, they were shunted out from the auditorium, to the ground and were promised that Santa would continue her generosity from the terrace.
Now the school terrace was a place inaccessible to the students, and to the teachers too, I believe. This, however was a golden opportunity; if I dared just a bit, I could have a few minutes of top-of-the-world terrace time. While the mass of bodies flowed out onto the grounds, an accomplice and I fell behind, saw the door to the roof opened, and Santa and a friend were let onto it. We waited until Treasa Didi, who opened the door for the students, left, and then tiptoed in through the door.
I have no memory who the Santa and her friend were, nor do I remember my partner in crime who chose the terrace over toffees. Those were moments of elation and pure joy. Satisfying ourselves with the view of the auditorium's expansive roof and a few glimpses of the school boundary walls.We kept ourselves away from the parapets so that the expanding mass of toffee seekers on the ground didn't see us. The Santa and friend were too busy to notice us, and even if they did, they could be entreated against complaining; but showing ourselves to several girls, at least few of whom would be religiously rule-following tattletales, would be as good as jumping off the terrace.
As the seconds, filled with equal measures of caution and joy ticked past, our super-attentive ears caught the door creaking open. We froze with dread, unsure weather to hide, or act cool. And who walked in? None but Sr. Lily. She had a smiling hangover from the celebrations in the auditorium, which is saying something, because she never smiled. When her eyes fell on us, the smile faltered a little and the eyes slowly travelled over to the parapet where Santa was sowing celebrations.
It was a Christmas miracle! She must have decided not to deter her spirit of jubilation with an instance of punishment; she must have decided to make us feel lucky, to make us feel that we escaped unnoticed. We lost no time executing her unspoken decisions: we bolted to the door and ran down the stairs, two at a time into the grounds. We camouflaged ourselves in the jumping, stooping and shouting crowd, still fearing that her eagle eyes would spot us and mark us for punishment in the new year, not believing our sheer dumb luck.
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