I was still the same boy who had done wonderfully in the last final exams and made his parents proud. And they were the same parents who had patted their son on his back. How come, then, that our relationship had suddenly come to this? After a point, I started losing all my self-confidence. I felt I was good for nothing. The fact that I was still better than at least twenty students in my class failed to hold up my spirits.
My father, who, only till a week before had believed that I would make him proud, started openly lamenting that his dream might never come true. And, to add to my misery, the Chitrahaar music programme started airing this new song twice a week on Doordarshan, with lyrics that went: Papa kehte hain bada naam karega … Beta hamaara aisa kaam karega … Talk about wrong timing, man!
Again, the race to do better brought about one more change for me. At the parent–teacher meeting, my class teacher and my mother mutually agreed to the Hindi teacher’s proposal of shifting me to the first bench in the class. All three of them believed that it would have a positive effect on my concentration levels.
I wondered—with that logic, should there be any benches in the classroom from the second row onwards at all?
9
A Change of Schools
‘No! I don’t want to go to that school!’ I screamed.
‘Chup kar ja, hun,’ Mom warned me. She did not want me to make a fuss about it, and so asked me to shut up.
‘But why are you doing this to me?’ I retorted in anger.
‘Because you have cleared the entrance exam for this school and now you will have to join it,’ she answered in a voice that was louder and sterner.
I got scared and counter-questioned her, but this time in a lower voice, ‘But I have cleared the entrance exam of Madnawati as well! Why aren’t you sending me to that school?’
She didn’t respond and went back to chopping onions in the kitchen. I walked out to the veranda, as a mark of my silent protest. I sat there and sulked for a while.
The school in Burla conducted classes only till Class VII. Of course, it was a small institution. Even the state-board-affiliated coaching centre had more students than we had in our class! But as this was the only English-medium school in Burla, to continue further studies in the same board, one had to move to Sambalpur, the nearest city as well as the district headquarters. And I had successfully passed Class VII. So the argument I was having with my mother was about which school I should go to next.
There were quite a few English-medium schools in Sambalpur. Three out of the four that I knew about were affiliated to CBSE (the Central Board of Secondary Education), while the convent school was affiliated to ICSE (Indian Certificate of Secondary Education).
I had a vested interest in joining the convent school. It was really quite simple—the girls of that school wore skirts as part of their school uniform! On my way to school in Burla, I had seen the bare legs of a few girls while they hopped on to their school buses in the mornings. From the boys of that school, I had heard secret stories of them intentionally dropping the pencil to the floor, in order to get a peek into the mysterious territory lying between the legs of the girls behind their benches. Those early-morning eye candies and motivating stories from the boys had made me daydream of some day joining the convent school.
But my daydream of becoming the one to drop the pencil and have fun got busted for two reasons. Firstly, the convent was the most expensive school in the city. I came to know of how expensive it was from Nishant, a good friend of mine who went to the same convent school. That day, he was narrating yet another motivating story, about a girl who sat on the bench next to him, on the left, and preferred to roll down her socks and pull up her skirt as soon as she entered the school campus.
The moment I learnt that, I questioned him about the expenses of studying at that school. ‘Convent school mein padhne ke liye kitne paise dene honge?’
‘I pay two hundred and fifty as my monthly fee, and the bus fare is another hundred bucks,’ Nishant answered after doing the math.
‘What?! Three hundred and fifty rupees!!!’ It was as if he had dropped a grenade.
For someone whose father was paying seventy rupees per month in Burla, it was nothing short of a grenade. Right then, it was clear in my mind that my father wouldn’t be able to afford a school with girls in skirts for his son.
Secondly, the convent school taught only till Class X, whereas the CBSE schools went on till Class XII. One would have to change schools again after the tenth. There was no point in changing schools again after three years. My dream was dying a natural death.
I thought about the girls in all the three CBSE-affiliated schools who wore boring salwar–kameezes with chunnis. Nothing exciting there! As far as this criterion was concerned, the other three schools stood equally disqualified. So my task at hand was to choose one among the disqualified ones.
Keeping aside the girls’ uniform, Madnawati was the most happening of the three CBSE schools. They had a school bus that came all the way up to Burla. The Central School had a decent school complex, but its quality of education was the lowest among the three. The Guru Nanak Public School was a smaller institution in comparison, with an average quality of education. It also didn’t have the school-bus facility to Burla, which is why hardly anyone from Burla joined that school.
My second choice became Madnawati, because all my classmates from the previous school were opting for Madnawati. But my parents were forcing me to join GNPS. I knew that both schools were far away from my home. I knew that everything would be different—the school, the classmates, the teachers and everything else. But, amid all these differences, I would have felt comfortable having my old classmates around me; whereas at GNPS I would be all alone! While all of them would comfortably go to school and come back in their school bus, I would be deprived of this fun. I would have to do my daily up and down in the public buses.
With all these concerns, I had been arguing with my parents. But at that age, I didn’t have the guts to go against my parents’ will.
Two days before joining GNPS, I overheard a conversation between my mother and my father. It was then that I found the reason behind Dad’s adamant decision to admit me to that school and Mom’s lack of support for my stand.
It was night and I was lying on my bed with my eyes closed. Dad had come home quite late and Mom had to serve him dinner. They thought I was fast asleep and, therefore, began chatting quite openly with each other.
‘Odey saarey dost Madnawati jaa rahe hain. Mainu pata hai odey wastey mushkil hovega.’ [All his friends are going to join Madnawati. I know it is going to be difficult for him.] This was Mom, speaking as she sat next to Dad while he ate.
A pause. Then, he said, ‘Thoda time lagega. Phir sab thik ho jaayega. Hor koi rasta vi nahi hai saddey kol.’ [It will take some time. Then everything will be fine. We don’t have any other way out.] I guessed that they were both looking at me as they were talking.
I made sure I didn’t open my eyes. I needed to know their thoughts.
I learnt that it was financially difficult for my parents to admit me to any of the other schools in Sambalpur. The fees were high and the daily travel to Sambalpur was going to pinch my dad’s pocket hard. But they didn’t want to leave any stone unturned in securing a good senior school for me.
GNPS was a ray of hope for them. The school was governed by a Sikh management committee. Dad had put an application in front of the committee, mentioning the financial condition of our family. Based on it, he had pleaded in that application to exempt me from paying the school fee.
Given the fact that Dad was a priest in a gurdwara, and also taking our family’s background into consideration, the committee—after holding multiple rounds of talks—had approved the application. That would save Dad one hundred and fifty rupees a month, which was the school fee. In those days, this was a good amount of money to be saved.
The moment I came to know the reason behind my parents’ decision, I let go of my anguish a
nd prepared myself to embrace GNPS as my next school.
As expected, the ride to my new school turned out to be a difficult ball game. To reach the school was an ordeal by itself. The bus stand was a kilometre away from my home. On my first day at the new school, Dad had given me a ride on his bicycle till the bus stand. He had coordinated the timing of our getting to the bus stop with that of one of our neighbours, who used go to Sambalpur for work every day. I had never travelled alone in public buses, so Dad thought it would be good to have someone to be with me on the bus, at least for the initial few days.
Rammi Uncle, our neighbour, was right on time. The bus stop where I had to get off was a forty-five-minute journey away. When we started the journey, Rammi Uncle told me that on that day he would not be able to get down at my stop and accompany me to school, since he had some urgent personal work and would have to travel till the last stop. I wasn’t sure if he had mentioned this to Dad when he promised to take care of me. Instead, he told me which road to follow in order to reach my school.
I was a little scared to be left all alone in an unfamiliar place. I got off at my stop and walked along the road that Rammi Uncle had pointed out to me from the window of the bus. The place was an industrial area with lots of trucks and lorries running down the road. The street I had to take was dirty. It was littered with paper and dirty polybags. It was crowded too. There were a number of vendors selling breakfast on their open carts and a lot of rickshaw pullers and truck drivers eating their first meal of the day. Stray dogs and pigs dominated one corner that was full of mud and stagnant water, swarming with flies and mosquitoes. The foul smell of it all overpowered my nostrils.
Amid all this, I made sure that my new white shirt and new water bottle didn’t get spoiled.
After a short walk, I came across multiple turns on the same street, and realized that Rammi Uncle hadn’t told me about those. So I had to take the advice of the local rickshaw pullers to find my way. To make some easy money, the rickshaw pullers offered me a ride to school. I refused them and only borrowed their advice, which came for free. Most of them suggested a well-known shortcut which led through a barren rice field. It was a route meant only for pedestrians. There was no way one could ride any vehicle through it.
I followed the lane. Soon enough, I passed by a very tiny slum. Some fifty more steps ahead, I found myself at the edge of a vast field. It was barren except for wild shrubs that grew here and there. About a mile ahead, I could see a few trucks parked on the road on the other side. They were dumping soil on to the field.
A signboard ahead of me read: ‘Railway Colony’. It looked like the entire field was being converted into a residential colony. The board marked the boundary of the land that the railways had acquired, and, right there, the land ahead of me was elevated. At a distance, on the edge of that raised land, I saw a few people squatting and defaecating in the open. They didn’t feel the need to either hide their butts or their faces. I guessed they must have been from the slum that I had left behind me.
I had to climb up a pile of field soil about eight feet high. I continued to walk along what appeared to be a small kaccha path within the field. The lack of greenery on that narrow lane made me assume that people must be using it quite often—which was why, unlike the rest of the field, it wasn’t overgrown with wild grass. After great difficulty and more than one and a half kilometres of walking, I finally reached my school.
I was familiar with the school complex as I had visited it a couple of times earlier—once during the entrance exam and twice for the application that Dad had to submit to the school committee. But I wasn’t sure where my classroom was, so I made my way straight to the principal’s room. I’m quite sure I was probably one of the rare students who thought of meeting the principal in the very first hour of their very first day at school!
He was a Sikh. I had seen him multiple times in the Sambalpur gurdwara. I used to wish him Sat Sri Akal whenever I came across him in the gurdwara.
As I walked to his office, I was confused whether I should wish him, ‘Sat Sri Akal, Uncle’ or ‘Good morning, Sir.’ But I needn’t have worried. Thank God, the principal was not in his office yet. But his peon was on time. So I approached him and asked if he would escort me to my classroom. In his khaki uniform, he was basking on a stool outside the principal’s office.
‘Bhaiya, class tak chodd dogey?’ I asked him politely.
He looked like a buffalo grazing in the fields to me—the same lazy, careless actions and the same complacent mood. He was also chewing something, completing the picture of a buffalo in my mind. He gave me a blank look, and then his head swung back to its earlier position. He had ignored me. How could I tolerate someone ignoring me! I threatened to report him to the principal, whom my father knew.
A few minutes later, I was walking down the centre of the school complex, with the Buffalo Man carrying my bag and water bottle. He left me at the entrance of my new classroom. He didn’t talk, and only made a hand gesture towards it. I guess even that was too much for me to expect from him.
The class had already started and, seeing me, all the students turned towards the door. Finding her students distracted, the class teacher also looked at the door and spotted me. Suddenly I felt embarrassed.
The class teacher, the only person who had been talking so far in the class, fell silent. The students, who had been listening to the teacher, started talking among themselves.
‘Yes?’ the teacher asked me from a distance. She looked at me over her spectacles, which rested almost on the tip of her nose.
‘Aaaa! … Aa … Ma’am, I am Ravinder,’ I managed to say hesitantly.
She quickly glanced at the attendance register and said, ‘Oh yes, Ravinder!’
She walked up to me. ‘So you are late on your very first day in this school!’
I was ashamed of myself. ‘Ma’am, I live in Burla. I didn’t know the way to the school,’ I defended myself.
She smiled and said warmly, ‘Come in. I will mark you “present” in the attendance register. And now that you know the way, don’t be late again. All right?’
‘Yes, Ma’am,’ I said and happily stepped inside the class—but I stopped right there! Right in front of me were my new classmates, who had been exchanging whispers and smiles among themselves ever since I had arrived. After I had stepped in, those whispers and smiles had become louder.
‘Haww! Look at him,’ I heard from one corner of the class, and the whispers spread till they had reached the other corner. I felt mortified. Reaching late had been a mistake! I became nervous. I felt as if my legs had turned to jelly and I could not move. If I could just get a seat, I would sit down quickly and this embarrassment would end. I looked around for one, but, in my nervousness, I couldn’t find any. I simply stood at the entrance with my schoolbag on my shoulders, a water bottle in my hand and my legs shaking.
Then I suddenly overheard the word: ‘Half-pant!’ That was followed by a round of giggles on my right.
And that’s when I realized the blunder. I looked at the boys in the first row, then in the second and then at everyone in totality. All of them wore full navy-blue pants!
There was only one person who was in half-pants—me.
I looked to my right. The girls had their legs covered demurely in salwars. The teacher wore a sari. So I was the only one brandishing my naked legs in the half-pants that barely reached down my thighs!
Not only was I the only boy who had offered a detailed view of his legs in the full public gaze of the class, but I guessed I was also the only one in the entire school to do so—because, in that moment of nervousness, I realized that even the Buffalo Man was wearing full pants!
Oh God! What do I do now? I thought to myself. A sense of heavy shame bore down my back.
In my mind, even the half-pants I was wearing had fallen off. All of a sudden, I felt vulnerable to these people whom I had never known.
I wished to undo that moment. I wished to run back and out of the
school. I wished to board the first bus back to Burla. I wished to hide myself in my bed at home.
But if wishes were horses …
In my previous school, it was all right to wear half-pants. I wasn’t aware that an upgrade in schools had to come along with an upgrade of my pants as well. I had become the butt of many a joke for the entire class on Day One itself.
‘There! Go there and sit next to Sushil,’ the teacher pointed towards a vacant seat in the last row, the rest of which was occupied by girls.
It was my ill fate that, out of all the seats in the class, I was asked to go sit in the one for which I had to walk down the aisle dominated by girls. How badly did I want a seat on the other side of the classroom, where most of the boys were seated! I looked for one but, again, found none of them empty.
‘What happened?’ the class teacher asked.
‘No, Ma’am, nothing,’ I replied and looked at the seat that she had pointed me to.
I filled my lungs with a deep breath, and took my first steps to embrace whatever was left of my public humiliation. I walked through the territory of giggling female faces—curious eyes scanning my hairy thighs. I avoided any sort of eye contact. I wanted to look more confident, as if I didn’t know what they were talking about. But my body language was not in sync with my mind and, all that while, my hands reached down to pull my half-pants down to my knees, hiding as much of myself as possible. I walked like a lame duck in a pond of female crocodiles. As I progressed along my path, I felt all heads turn towards me.
I heaved a sigh of relief when I finally reached the desk at which I was supposed to sit.
Sushil picked up his notebook from my side of the table. I gave him a smile. He continued to smile. I pulled out my handkerchief from my pocket and wiped the sweat from my forehead.