Those were the days, when we were the students of class 5, eons away in the past. The school at Calcutta was like a family where we not only studied various subjects; we also learned the subtleness of strict discipline. Any aberrations would be dealt with agile strictness.
Teachers were by and large friendly, but never failed to show furrowed eyebrows, whenever we over stepped. I recollect a few instances of unique behavioral patterns that unfurled between students and teachers. Join me, as I narrate a short story of a dear friend, Bhombol and what transpired in the class when he met one teacher in particular, Pachonbabu.
As primary section students, we had to take a second language over and above English. My father had a transferrable job, and he hopped across the Indian sub-continent. We tagged along, in pursuit of education, changed schools often, so I took India’s national language – Hindi. And thus started our singularly eventful Hindi classes.
We were six or seven students who took the Hindi class every day across the week.
One of them was Bhombol, thin with medium height. Long black hair encircled his head like an umbrella. Slanted brown eyes peered out of those grey lined sockets.
A mole angled on one of his cheek bones. The school monogramed shirt used to hang over his fragile shoulders. Sickly legs ended up to black school shoes, laces dangling and invariably his socks used to flare out after losing the elasticity. He did not speak much, and his protruding teeth clamped his lips shut making things worse.
Our Hindi teacher was Pachonbabu. A frail dark skinned man with oil splashed spiked black hair. Guess, by birth he had deep wrinkles on his forehead which shaped to a gorge over his twitching eyebrows; it meant he was perennially unhappy. His pointed finger at us, popped out of his full sleeves shirt and those yellow white teeth cracked in expletives telling us whatever we did was always wrong. Pachonbabu had a very special liking, a sort of surgical love for Bhombol. This mostly non animated person felt the wrath of the teacher.
He asked him questions that were bound to remain unanswered, and then came “Get up, Out!” More followed but the most interesting aspect of Bhombol was when it became really physical.
Pachonbabu used to lunge forward, grasped Bhombol’s narrow neck and with unimaginable force pushed him out of the class. The force was so immense that Bhombol being light weight used to take off in air, head bent, swept the air around, arms stretched to balance. As he cut through the air, one of the pillars supporting the roof sunshade came in the way. Bhombol used to evade the pillar by turning right or left, missing it, but with a deftness that we came to know, years later, only shared by the fastest animal on earth.
Yes, Bhombol had Cheetah’s skill.
Bhombol turned midair, missed the pillar and careened at an angle towards the verandah. He flew, turned, and landed on his shoes, made a full one hundred eighty degrees and stopped. His expressionless face looked at his teacher, with a calm vengeance.
Today, after forty or more years when the three of the five classmates meet, we look back and acknowledge Bhombol’s flight control that we applaud every day. Thanks to National Geography channel and Wild life documentaries, we ponder the brilliance this friend of ours had, when we see the same competent movement on the grasslands of North Africa, the Sahel, eastern and southern Africa.
The only difference being, Bhombol missed the beams of the school like a jet fighter and Cheetahs, hunting springboks, both turning and changing directions MIDAIR.
We salute Bhombol for his extraordinary aerodynamics that consistently orchestrated in the mundane settings of the school day in and day out. Pachonbabu’s rage aided Bhombol to adopt the feline talents that I am sure he may have used in evading dangers of life.
Well, do you have a similar experience? Love to hear …
Disclaimer: This post in no way supports child beating or violence in Schools or in any other place. Names have been changed, to secure personal privacy. In case, names match with someone, it will be coincidental and not intentional. Readers are requested to cooperate.
SPITFIRE GAUTAM 