School days!

In some classrooms one could hear children talking in whispers in the classroom as the teacher wrote on the blackboard, while in others one could hear the incessant chattering voices if the treacher was not present. The class leader more often than not joined the pandemonium by shouting at the kids to 'discipline' them and threatening to write their names on a peice of paper that he threatened to give to the class teacher. It was generally a futile attempt as more often than not the leader would lose the paper or the teacher would be more interested to start a new lesson than listen to complaints. The more adevnturous ones would venture out and play 'leg cricket' or some other crazy game. Some good samaritan would come running into the classroom and announce at the top of his voice 'principal madam aa rahe hain'. Few skeptical souls would have a look and confirm it is again by announcing at the top of their voices. Then a transformation would occur: suddenly all the bags on the chairs would be shoved into desks, all paper planes recovered and safely put away in the darkest corners of the desk, lunch boxes closed, and books taken out for an additional special effect. Principal madam would come, scold the entire class telling them that they are the most indisciplined class in the entire school and invariably pick two or three poor souls make them stand up on the bench for a class or two to show that she means business. In extreme cases where one of the guys goofs up badly and comes in AFTER principal madam would have his/her ears twisted. After she left a pall of silence would descend on the class, people would start talking to their neighbours in whispers and slowly the noise levels would be back to the normal before principal get back to her office.

The big peepal tree in the centre of the school stood like an old sage, written under it were words written in stone, 'united we stand, divided we fall'. During the breaks, the guys would invariably team up and run upto the favorite spot to play the game in fashion. Some would go to the banyan tree next to the road and swing across the road clutching the roots. A few would hunt for 'seetaphal' or 'raw tamarind'. The thrill of finding the hideout of another group's stashed raw seetaphal under the leaves to allow them to ripen was the best in the world...meeting a few snakes on the way just added to the excitement. Poor attempts to camouflage the hideout with other tree leaves would be promptly discovered and ruthllessly plundered.
Wednesday PT would be more of a routine where we had to swing arms like some trained monkeys to please bhagwan sir (yes it was his name!) who would come and hit you if you dared to move half inch away from the perfect line. Toughest punishments were reserved for those who feigned headache or stomach ache..poor guys would be humiliated before the entire school and then made to stand right under his nose, next to the deafening drums... to whose tunes we had to dance.

One incident I could never forget...it was my final exams and mangoes in the aunty's house were tempting. After finishing the exams hurriedly, bahadur, me andDRama decided to pay the unknown aunty's house a visit. Since the house was locked, we scaled the wall and plucked a few mangoes. Greed they say is the root cause of all evils...A few good mangoes fell inside the house and brave bahadur went in and picked them up. He failed to notice our unkown aunty lurking in the corner, who grabbed him by his shirt and yelled,'This is it. Iam tired of you brats. Iam going to complain to your principal'. DRama and me jumped from the wall and ran for our lives. However we missed a small thing. We left our exam pad and papers with our names boldly written so that nobody could ever try to steal it were left at our beloved aunty's house. She promptly grabbed them and waved them at us. We ran back and pleaded from a safe distance that she was a nice lady and she should return our things as this was the first time we ever tried 'taking' the mangoes and would never do it again. However, our prayers fell to deaf ears. But when DRama realised that his exam pad was not in her hand but was some 10 feet away, he ran the sprint of his life and vanished with a big grin on his face. This hardened auty's stance and no amount of our pleading could cool her. We were taken to principal madam, who scolded us and made us stand outside her office for an hour. We were finally left with a dire warning, that we should bring our parent if we wanted to get the progress card. It was the longest 10 day wait of my life. On the day of results, as was the practice, she announced the names of the two guys in the class on the stage. I felt a wave of relief when she called my name and gave me the progress card. I simply smiled at her and with a mischevous wink, grabbed the progress report before any of the earlier memories came to her.
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