Principal Madam is calling

I was then in 11th standard. This is the level when an Indian science student starts preparing for competitive exams. Well I and many others had taken the job and we used to skip school to study an extra bit ( might sound awkward but it did help ). I attended school when I was bored and wanted some fun ( and I felt bored quite often ) or when we had labs or when there were exams or quizzes. Do not get a wrong impression of the school. Most of us had been there for over eight years and were giving consistent results so over teachers had full faith on us and thus allowed this independence. However, I was not proud of this situation but this situation is common for lakhs of students who go for competitives.

The occasional presence policy had made me and my friends over mischievous. We wanted to get maximum fun from the school time. Also, there were girls to tease and impress and we got the time for it only at school. School girls are good looking you see, or I should say this and the college period that follows is the time when most of the girls look good ( that by the way was the definition of youth given by a famous Indian Urdu poet ). My policy to that was, make them laugh or do something that will make them think about me when they go home. I was greatly helped in this by the post that I held : I was the VICE HEAD BOY of school. In a way, I was responsible for the discipline in school but I myself did not have merest trace of discipline soyou can think of the way I feld my disciplinary responsibility. Dance was the punishment that I gave out to those who broke silly school rules. They enjoyed it and were thoroughly encouraged to ‘follow’ school rules.

Being an office bearer, juniors and my batchmates took my word seriously. And I abused this as you will see. My class was on the second floor.One day, I came back from lunch and the second bell had just gone. Everybody in the class was chattering. It was a free period and the rest of the floor was quiet. I got an idea and a grin flashed across my mind..what fun! I went inside the class and banged the door. The big, loud “baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanng” that I liked so much. The chattering stopped at once. All looked at the door, probably expecting a teacher but they saw me and one of them said, “Its only Arvind yaar”. “Its only Arvind yaar,”I mimicked in a mock baby voice and said,”You all were talking so loudly that the stairs carried away the noise you were making. Principal ma,am heard and she is calling all of you. Line up! I don’t know what she will do to me..huh..cann’t manage my own class.” I screwed my face and said this very seriously. The whole class was horror-stricken.Kalsi madam, our principal, was very strict.

I could see that they had been taken in because the line up had started. Someone, probably Kulwinder asked me,”Are you serious Arvind? This is a joke isn’t it?” There I saw what it meant to lose the color of face in horror and fear. Their expressions were perfect. I replied,”Its no joke.I am seious and if you have any doubts then wait here and ma’am herself will clear them along with you.” The doubts ended.I led the line halfway through the staircase. Everyone was dead as a lamb. I stopped at the only landing, turned back and looked at them.They held their faces in confusion.

“Why have you stopped now?”

I stepped back, nearer to the next flight and said, serious as ever,”Where are you all going? Be in the class.This is neither games period, nor the activity period.”

“What!!?? You said the principal called us.”

“When did I say so? Nobody has called you.And now please get back to the class or you will be.”

They looked as if they would kill me. Face expressions of a bull ready to rampage. Banging fists and heads and calling me names they went back to the class, cursing me. Its the friendship that we all had that forbid them complaining me though to forget about being fooled is not that easy. I went back to the class and after a few minutes of yelling, leg bombs and cursing, they digested the joke and we all were laughing our heart out. I skipped the school for a few days and got back to have a good laugh

Cracking of the scale

Here is an incident from my school days.

In those days, there used to be two bells in School which denoted the end of recess. First bell was a warning bell which meant that students should now pack-up lunch boxes and should start going to classes. The second bell was the recess end bell and it also marked the start of a void five to ten minutes session between recess and the sixth period. Now, my class teacher had told us ( the students ) to close the door after second bell so that those not in time stay outside till the teacher taking the sixth period came. I was one of the ( two ) monitors and took class teacher’s command to heart.

One day, while I, Rahul Sukhani and few others were in the class, the second bell went out and we closed the door. A few minutes later there was a knock on the class door.

“Who is it?”

“Its me, Nasreen. Open the door please.”

“No. The second bell has gone, now stand outside and get scolded.”

“It has not gone yet jackass. Open the door.”

“Nope.”

“Okay, we will see for this.”

And I thought that Nasreen went away. I was not afraid in the least because I was simply following class teacher’s orders.

Then came another knock:

“Who is there?”

“Vimal. Kholo be, kya kar rahe ho. The bell has not gone yet.”

But we had heard the bell so : “No.”

Vimal kept banging the door and he was not the only one. Several people were blocked. The outsiders kept yelling and banging the doors. I had a sudden feeling that robably those outside were right. Bell might not have gone off yet. But then I and the others determined. I, due to the monitor’s post and others, may be due to fun and sweet vengeance. Our determination faltered my sudden thought and we did not open the door.

” Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaang!!”

There was this mighty bang on the door that came crashing onto our ears amidst all the havoc that the outsiders were calling. There were loud shouts of ”Kholo..kholo..darwaza kholo varna kisi Teacher ko bula layenge” et cetera. But we were determined. I had my orders from the class teacher : the word of Moses. Those outside were now banging so hard that I thought that the door would break away and I had sudden vision of the door breaking and all the students falling in. Someone or something in me head grinned.

Away from this subconscious laughter, I realised that the hurricane outside the class had softened to few murmur like voices and there was now soft knocking on the door.

” Open the door. Quick! How dare you close it? Open it now!”

My heart sank. It was a teacher. We in the class looked at each others faces and understood each other plainly : we were goners.

“Open! Are you deaf!”

The knock this time was real hard. I felt like my pants would go off. I opened the door to my and my friends’ doom. Outside stood a teacher : Duggal Madam, our English teacher. Somebody ( probably Nasreen ) had called her. She was a towering lady, height rivaling Undertaker. The door just allowed her. Her face expression was reminiscent of a leopard ready to leap on its prey. I looked at her and then at her hand. She was holding a wooden scale thirty centimeters long. Behind her were the blocked students. At first they as dumbstruck as we were inside. Apparently they had not called her. The ‘bang’ had called her probably. But then I realised that all of them were actually grinning. “Now you will get it”, this was what their faces told me. Nasreen was actually laughing ( Later I learnt that she had called the teacher ).Our fate-to-be interested the outsiders so much that they didn’t even fill in. Anyway, Duggal Madam ordered – “Line up”.

“Why did you close the door?”

” Ma..am the..the c..class t..teacher told us to close the door after second bell.”

“The bell has not gone yet you fool!”

The outsiders said,” We told them that but they wouldn’t listen to us.”

” But madam we all heard it go.” All the people inside nodded.

“This means I am lying. Am I?” Suddenly the bell rang. It was the second bell. I felt my heart contort within me. How could we do such a mistake of all the things?? Meanwhile, Duggal madam went to one extreme of our line-up ( in front of the blackboard ).

” You will be punished for this mischief.”

“But ma’am we were carrying out the class teacher’s orders,” I said indignantly.

“I know. All class monitors have been given these orders. You should have double checked whether the bell had gone or not. And answer me,” she said looking at a particularly large round lump in my right pocket,” what were you doing in the class during the break?” Well, we had been playing cricket with tennis ball in the class. But I didn’t dare to tell her that or we all would then be facing the principle. Anyways she didn’t wait for the answer that I was trying to make up.

“Smack.” I felt my pants slide off. Vineet had been hit by the scale. He subsided, clutching his leg. “Smack..smack…smack.” I was dreading the scale. I was second last in the line at the right hand. Rahul was at the end. Ankur stood before me. “Smack.” She came to me and..”Smack”. I wanted to howl with pain but somehow contained it. There was a creaking noise somewhere when she had hit me. She now went to Rahul. I expected a ’smack’. She raised the scale …and…

”Craaaaack!”

The scale broke into two pieces and one of them flew straight out of the door. It was hard to contain the laughter. The look of bewilderment on her face was perfect. Rahul was smiling. All others in the line-up were having blown mouths, trying hard to stop laughing while those outside had drifted sideways, clutching their chests. She was dumbstruck, looking at ‘ what-was-left-of ‘ the scale. Then she looked at Rahul, amazed. But then, Rahul was certainly hard-built and fat. Not for nothing did we call him ‘elephant’.