My father bought me a tiny tiffin carrier and an umbrella with wooden stem. Every morning my mother would pack a hurriedly prepared lunch – rice, dry chutney and vegetable smash – and then, the long march to school followed. The act would take up more than an hour. I could join another friend or a group heading for the school on the way. We talked aloud, laughed at the drop of a joke, made merry and raced ahead like a wave.
Our school didn’t have even drinking water. Those who got pocket money rushed out to buy lime juice during breaks while others who didn’t, waited patiently by the stall side. They were given a glass of water in the end. A tender mercy from the vendors!
The science teacher Sarasamma would walk into the class-room with a cane, looking tense. She would take out the top of her pen and hold it vertically.
“Suppose this is a test tube”, she would go on. We tried but the pen-top remained the same. The school didn’t have a proper laboratory. Nevertheless, we had separate teachers for music and craft lessons. Anandavally, the music teacher was young and unmarried. We sang the basic notes with her.
Sa…Re…Ga…Ma…
It was the same notes every time. She taught us no further.
When the District Educational Officer visited our school, the co-ordinating skills of teachers were put to maximum use. The DEO was a bespectacled, ageing lady who hurriedly took a round, noted down the attendance, asked a couple of questions if she felt like and buzzed off. She had the authority to cancel a division if it didn’t have sufficient students. In plain terms it amounted to losing jobs. We were taken out of the class discreetly and were given new names. One of the teachers led us on the sly to another classroom, entering from the rear. The unsuspecting DEO would just be stepping in.
Perhaps these deprivations prompted the senior students to launch a series of agitations in our school. There was relentless striking for many, many days in a month. The call to strike studies could come anytime after the first bell. There were umpteen reasons and the leaders picked one at the spur of the moment. In a matter of minutes slogans would fill the air.
Water, water everywhere; Not even a drop to drink at all
Only then the rest of us had an idea what the strike was all about. The strikers moved past the classrooms issuing dreadful warnings.
Anybody taking us lightly, beware, you are playing with fire.
The long bell was sounded invariably within minutes as if everybody was eagerly waiting to call it a day. We returned home with our lunch boxes intact.
We had several rounds of student-strikes like intermittent spells of monsoon showers. Balakrishnan, our dark and well-built leader got restless. One morning he just walked into the teachers’ room and did a Prometheusian act! A huge aluminium vessel was kept there filled with drinking water exclusively for the teachers. He carried the vessel with all his might and placed it in the nearby classroom.
“Drink up...drink up…everybody, fill your belly”, he beamed.
None of us were brave enough. A grave feeling had turned us into zombies. As expected, the Head Master turned up with his ubiquitous cane.
Erappali, put it back pronto.
Balakrishnan was beaten black and blue. He gave in. The vessel was carried back.
We didn’t see Balakrishnan for a long time. He had stopped coming to class. Slowly we forgot about him. We did have a new bunch of leaders with a new set of themes innocuous enough to keep the cane touting Head Master and others in peace.
Withdraw bus charge hike
Reintroduce students’ concession rates
The striking students zigzagged through the gravelled country roads. The villagers, by now, had become disinterested.
Then came the college. Pre-Degree. Day One.
More than fifty students crammed into a classroom. Twelve of them were girls. Dressed mostly in long skirts and matching blouses which reached upto their navels, they sat on the benches taking care to be unassuming always. Some of them draped quarter of a saree over the skirt-blouse combination while the ubiquitous dhoti with shirt was the accepted dress norm for boys. Everybody was tense. Suddenly a tall gentleman wearing pants mounted on the platform. We all stood up. He asked us to introduce ourselves in English. As we were fumbling, the real lecturer stormed into the room menacingly eyeing at the impersonator. In a second he just vanished without trace. Mr.Panikker, the English lecturer started giving a talk on the short stories of W.W.Jacobs which went over our heads. He had second thoughts after a short while and we were asked to write a resume on the first day in college. He collected our works and kept it at his left hand like a bunch of currency notes. Then he started counting them. In fact he was browsing through our feedback.
None of you can write even one sentence correctly.
We had a sigh of relief.
The campus ruffians had the final say in anything connected to college. Life revolved around them. Invariably they belonged to a political party either in power or out of it. The stronger ones always called the shots and it mattered little whether the student community backed them. The power-wielders masquerading as students were least interested in studies and generally came from well-to-do families. The ability to create awe among peers and to pick up a fight at moment’s notice were the only criteria required. Money was lavishly spent on the side-kicks, who as a matter of routine kept their boss happy by playing to his ego. It was the boss’ prerogative to change political parties whenever he felt like. He was always armed with a cycle chain or knuckle-buster and had the kind of nerve to stop the functioning of any college for weeks together. Principals and teachers never crossed the student leaders’ path.
Nandagopal was our campus thug. He was reigning supreme till the day Prabhash came into the scene. The new entrant wore a gold chain and an expensive watch. His front upper teeth were all lost in various fights but had replaced them with artificial ones. Nandagopal sensed trouble ahead as he found the ground slippery. He chose to lie low till one day he tossed a weak student named Prasannan up in the air during lunch break. The underdog was given a parting kick on his lower abdomen to round off the show.
Son of a bitch stole my lunch- packet and ate it...
Prasannan was insulted and humiliated. He collapsed like a glass jar. The whole class including the girls was watching the act breathless. We didn’t do a thing.
Prasannan was summoned before the Principal. They talked for a long time. Then the Principal walked into our classroom.
My dear children…..,
He was all jitters and had difficulty in expressing himself.
The only truth in life is hunger and death. If one commits suicide on the face of poverty, one is not a sinner. But, we certainly are, because of our passivity.
He slowly walked away. Prasannan was escorted back to the classroom. He made a meek entry but we couldn’t even raise our heads to greet him. The lightning had struck us.
-painting (still life) by Baiju Parthan