The early days

While cruising through the journey called life, I sometimes reminisce about my long-gone school and college days, and my heart fills with an inexplicable joy. Those were colorful and vibrant days that I cherish till today.

I hail from a lower middle-class family, and both my parents were fully occupied with earning our square meals and managing household chores. They did not have the time or energy to give extra attention to their children. However, they are amazing parents – now I can see how they made us independent and street-smart early in our lives still having necessary parental controls. Thus, imparting the essential values that kept us going – rain or shine.

All of us born in the 70s come from an era where we did not see many gadgets in our childhood. Back then, some intellectual kids had pen-pals, but that was not me! I loved being outdoors and had a bunch of real friends to play and hang out with.

My father enrolled me and my elder brother in a nearby Hindu missionary boys' school in the northern suburbs of Kolkata. The ten years of school can be broken into 3 major parts – junior basic (till class V), junior high (class VI to VIII), and high (class IX and X).

The first five years were intimidating. Our school had orphan boys' homes and most of them were much older than us. Hardly 10% of the orphan boys made it to junior high, the rest were transferred to the technical training section to learn some skills (tailoring, carpentry, electrical work, etc.) to be able to earn a respectable living. Now being older and much stronger, they used to bully us a lot. An easy way to keep them happy was to bring them food or sports or stationery items.

By the time we turned seven, we understood the importance of paying the big brothers for protection!!!

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Middle classes

I have many fond memories of junior basic. For a little boy, our school felt overwhelming because of its sheer size. On the campus - besides the school buildings, we had 5/6 huge playgrounds, an auditorium, a hospital, orphan homes, hostels, a library, and at the main entrance, there was a temple dedicated to Sri Rama Krishna Paramhansa, whom we were taught to address as "Thakur".

The special fun came from the morning processions and cultural events held every year during Thakur's birth anniversary week. Bunking classes for practice and preparations was just one part – the real fun was getting the opportunity to ride the decorated vans and enjoy special snacks post event (privileges enjoyed by those who were selected either to dress up as holy characters or be a member of the team that sang Kathamrita songs in the rally). I realized that I did not have the looks to dress up as lord Shiva or Swami Vivekananda - the only option was to try and learn singing. At the beginning of second grade, I persuaded my mom to put me into vocal training under the junior school music teacher's supervision, and it worked!!!

The interesting thing that always distracted me during the events was the photography of our art and craft teacher. Somewhere I read that photography doesn't just keep our mind sharp; it also keeps our body in shape! Our sir was a classic example of this. To get the best angle, he was ever ready to climb a tree or a brick wall or simply lie down in the street. It was hilarious to watch him climb a tree to take pictures of our sports day events and end up receiving the blessing from a bird on his camera lens.

Other memorable moments in junior school were the last days before the summer holidays. We used to collect flowers, leaves, colored papers, etc. to decorate the classrooms. When we were in grade III, my friend and I (living in the same neighborhood) were collecting mangoes from a farm on a stormy afternoon. The owner caught us and complained to our parents, saying it was risky because the branches could have fallen on us. We held a huge grudge - he not only deprived us of the raw mangoes but also made us face our parents' scolding. The next week, we cut down a few branches from a jackfruit tree on his farm and used them to decorate our classroom doors. Once done, we all went to play soccer on the field. The 3rd-grade classrooms were in a separate block close to an orphan home. When we returned, we were in for a big surprise to find that a few goats (part of the school's livestock) were happily eating the leaves. Many times in my career I have heard people quoting the excuse "I did not know, nobody told me!". While it was a new learning for us that jackfruit leaves are a goat's favorite, the real lesson we learned that day was "Ignorance is not innocence - it is a sin".

The real fun started when we moved to junior high. The headmaster was a monk and was popularly known as "Bin Tughluq" among the boys. Whoever first coined that nickname deserves a salute. Like the real Bin-Tughlaq, our headmaster also can be described as – "With the best of intentions and excellent ideas but no sense of proportions, Bin-Tughlaq was a transcendent failure."

One example of his innovative ideas was to pull all the top rankers from different sections of grade VII and formed VIII-B, aiming to provide them with the best education and also to break the myth that Section A of our school was the star-studded one. Brilliant idea! But for the boys it was more like a comedy of errors. They had to explain to their social circle that they were moved to Section B due to their good performance in grade VII !!!

To make matters worse, students had to sit through two extra classes after the last period for two days a week for special coaching and to submit tons of assignments. The fun part was the Maharaj (we addressed the monks as Maharaj) provided us with great tiffin after those classes, but the ever-lasting lesson we learned while eating those snacks was – "There is no such thing as a free lunch".

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The born entertainer

Most of us were fourteen when we entered high school for the final two years of our school life.

For each subject in high school – we had a famous trio who taught us the subject. For example, in life sciences, the trio included Govind sir, Khagen sir, and BKR sir.

Govind sir lived in a house next to a khaal (canal in Bengali), BKR's quarter was next to a beel (large pond/wetland in Bengali). Most of the private tuition market was dominated by Govind sir and BKR sir, which was a big reason of heartburn for Khagen sir. Sometimes he used to hit really below the belt saying – "Khaal-beel er notes cholbe na!!! [ Don't produce the useless notes from khaal and beel in the answer sheet.]"

Khagen sir's classes were always entertaining for us. For the first 30-35 minutes, it was pure adda. Sir would often say – "This is not the right profession for me – I should have been on the silver screen. This is not my country – I should had born in France. Oh, what a country! It has everything one could wish for - what is not there in France?"

Puneet Bose (later went on to study at the prestigious ISI) commented from back row – "Sir there is no load shedding in France." [Back then, we had frequent power cuts in West Bengal, which was known as load shedding"].

Puneet was one hell of a witty boy. One day Khagen sir announced – "Today's topic is Photosynthesis. Can anyone tell me what photosynthesis is?" Puneet's quick and smart answer was – "Today's topic."

One day we were discussing music in the class.

Sir commented – "Aajkaal kar gaan? Se to songkhipto sonkhyabachok kichhu sobdo" (Today's music? They are nothing but some short numeric words). Sir was hinting at Madhuri Dixit's "Ek do teen" - which was taking the country by storm those days.

Sir continued – "We had truly great songs in our time." Then he started singing in the middle of the class tapping his chest - Sunnyo e book e pakhi mor, firey aay, firey aay." [Come back my bird, return to my empty heart].

Suddenly sir asked – "Who are the singers in this class? What taal (beat) this song follows?"

Pradipta (later pursued MBBS from Calcutta Medical College) responded – "Jhaap taal sir. Pakhi fire elei jhaap fele deben." [Sir it is Jhaap taal. Please close the Jhaap (door) once the bird returns].

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"Sir – what should I address her as?"

Unlike Khagen sir, Govind sir was a very serious person and we all spent his classes taking lots of notes. I was so impressed with his teaching style that I decided to take private lessons from him.

Oh, what a great batch it was!!!

Chima - we named him after the Nigerian soccer player Okorie Chima from East Bengal soccer club in the late 80s and 90s. Once, he was so engrossed in listening to the commentary of one of Chima's matches on his pocket radio, that when sir asked him "Who proposed the theory of evolution?". He could only say - "Chima".

Bya-Bya - the physics sir once called him the "Interplanetary goat" and Prasanto became popular by that nickname afterward.

Gaal (he had big cheeks), Neel, Anuj – each of them could single-handedly entertain an entire stadium. It felt like I was in the midst of Akbar the Great's courtroom, surrounded by all the Navaratnas. There was never a dull moment, and I hardly missed a single tuition in those two years.

Anuj's performance, however, surpassed all my expectations as he started surprising us with his fierce comments. His super innocent face often hid his outspoken nature. Once, I heard him taunting Govind sir about the tuition fees - "You bloodsucker! You charge 50 rupees for one subject, while Salil sir charges only 35 rupees and teaches three subjects!!!" What amazed me was that Govind sir cared to justify such remarks - "He is a bachelor. He can afford to teach for free."

That reminds me of when we were in class IX, Govind sir married a much younger woman (supposedly one of his tuition students). We were all very excited, but Anuj's excitement was on a whole different level altogether.

Almost a year had passed, and Anuj was very concerned about the situation, as there was no baby even after 12 months of marriage!

One day he could not resist and commented, "Sir, evening batch er chhelera apnaar naam e ekta baaje kotha rotachche." [Sir the boys from the evening batch are spreading a rumor about you.]

I could sense that sir was being lured into a trap as he curiously asked – "About what?"

Anuj, with his super innocent face, replied – "Sir, they are saying that you are going to have a baby."

Govind sir, with a hint of blush on his face replied – "Aare nah".

Anuj's response left us spellbound – "Why sir? Is there a problem? Do you need any help?"

To this date, I get goosebumps thinking about the courage of a tenth-grade boy offering help to his teacher to conceive a baby !!! Anyway, the result was inevitable, Anuj got severe beatings and ended up having a cut on the forehead. Sir felt a bit down as Anuj was bleeding and asked him – "Go inside and put on some ointment".

Anuj took a few steps but turned back looking confused and asked – "Sir ki bole daakbo? (Sir, what should I address her as?)".

We enjoyed watching another round of solid thrashing.

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"Who just called me by my name?"

In the geography trio, the most colorful character was KNS sir. He wore pitch-dark shades because he supposedly had damaged vision in one eye, But none of us knew which eye it was. We used to call him "Hulo" (male cat in Bengali).

In class IX, Subhojit and Ranen got into a bet that Subho would prove which eye of KNS sir was defective. Imagine a classroom from the old days, with high and low benches on both sides of the room, divided by an aisle.

Now Imagine sir is delivering his lesson in the middle of the classroom, resting his left hand on the corner of a high bench. Subho was seated in the corner, facing the left side of Sir and Ranen sitting next to Subho.

Sir was completely oblivious to his surroundings and was laser-focused on delivering the chapter. All of a sudden, Subho plucked a body hair from Sir's left forearm. Sir could not figure out what had happened and just brushed his forearm with his other hand. Maybe he thought it was a mosquito. Subho claimed to Ranen that since sir's left side was facing him and sir failed to catch Subho, it was proved that sir's left eye was defective.

Of course, Ranen did not agree and asked Subho to demonstrate again. When Subho was about to pluck the second hair, he noticed KNS sir was looking right at him. Although Subho faced heavy beatings, but he earned our respect and became a legend from that very day.

Continuing with KNS sir, we had a rather unpredictable boy in our class. Once, in the middle of a quiet class, he shouted "Hey Hulo" at the top of his voice. Today, I get tickled when I see someone using the abbreviation ROFL in social media chats – as we experienced the true essence of that word.

When the burst of laughter subsided, KNS sir responded - "Amar naam dhore ke daaklo?" (Who just called me by my name?).

The entire class broke into another round of loud laughter. Sir was very upset with all these and remarked – "You all are behaving this way? I treat you like my own kid. I have a daughter your age."

As I anticipated, the boys' spontaneous response was – "Sir, what is her name? Which school she goes to?"

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"Hey, are you sleeping?"

Our high school headmaster Maharaj had a very amusing way of talking. He used to make a slurpy sound (sudden pull of saliva) and had a habit of gnashing his teeth after every sentence while talking.

From childhood, Ranen had a large set of front teeth that his lips could never completely cover. One day while teaching, Maharaj misspelled the word "surrounding" on the blackboard. We all started laughing. Now, there was a difference between our laughter and Ranen's (for obvious reasons), which grabbed Maharaj's attention – "Hey, why are you laughing?"

Ranen must have been thinking that he had the gray matter to outsmart Maharaj as he responded - "No Maharaj. I did not laugh. Because of my big teeth, it awkwardly always appears that I am laughing."

Maharaj's reply was truly epic – "You silly boy! I will rub your big teeth with a file (a type of carpentry tool) and make them short."

I heard that when Ranen invited a few school friends to his upanayana (threading ceremony), the boys gifted him a set of files with handwritten guidelines on effective usage.

For a long time, I felt that Maharaj's classes could have been prescribed as infallible remedy for insomnia. Bhupen (who later moved to the US, launched and scaled up a company, and sold it to Adobe) would invariably sleep through the entire class. It was a work of art, as no one could tell that he was sleeping, as his head would never drop, and his eyes would always seem to be focused on the books on the bench. However, Maharaj, on the other hand was the wrong person in the wrong profession. With the name of Dayananda, he should have been in the CBI rather than teaching us English.

One day, Maharaj was telling us stories about Sri Ramakrishna Paramhansa (whom we all address as Thakur/God). The narration went like this "One day (slurping saliva!!) Thakur told maa (mother Sarada) – hey are you sleeping?" Although it sounded a bit odd, for a moment I thought since Maa Sarada was Thakur's wife, he had every right to be grumpy about her sleepiness. But soon I realized that Maharaj had caught Bhupen taking a nap!!!

We had a large auditorium in our school that could accommodate over 1000 students. Typically, all inter-school and intra-school extracurricular final events were hosted there. Once in a blue moon, Maharaj would arrange a movie show for us in the auditorium. I strongly believe that the intended audience for those movies was specifically the boys from Hindu missionary schools like us, as typically those films did not feature any female characters. I can cite some examples from my memory – "Sadhak Ramprasad" or "Charon Kabi [Balladist] Mukunda Das" or "Bhakta Dhruv" etc.

Now, with that said, there was one scene where Mukunda Das was chatting with his newlywed wife, sitting in the yard. That was enough to ignite the blaze. The whole auditorium started quivering with whistles, claps and cheers!!! Maharaj was furious, though it was not clear if he was angry with us or with the censor board. Anyway, the lights were turned on, the projector stopped, and we all had to head back to classes.

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"I want four shirts!"

In English, we had a teacher whom we called "Patol" (Parwal in Hindi and pointed gourd in English, a summer vegetable). Although he was extremely short (about four and half feet tall), he had a very strong personality and made us read English newspapers every day, which indeed was a trendsetting practice for a vernacular school like ours.

On a winter morning in 1990, sir casually asked Gaal (the big-cheek fellow) – "What did you eat in the morning today?" Gaal went on and on with an unending list – "Patol fry, Patol curry, Patol posto, Stuffed Patol, Aloo Patol er jhol… " until sir stopped him, saying - "Okay, that's enough".

In the late '90s, when I watched Forrest Gump along with my then girlfriend(now wife), I saw Bubba listing a long array of dishes that can be made with shrimp. I told my girlfriend that Bubba was no match for Gaal when it came to listing dishes that can be made from a single main ingredient. Maybe director Zemeckis met Gaal in New Jersey and got the idea for Bubba's character.

There was another amazing story of Patol sir that was passed down from generation to generation. Back in those days in rural West Bengal, there was a barter system where vendors with steel utensils would go door-to-door, and housewives would exchange old clothes for new utensils. Sir's wife struck a deal with a vendor during one of such exchanges. She agreed to give him 3 old shirts in exchange for a steel plate . The boys taking tuition at sir's residence said it was quite a scene when, after receiving the old shirts, the vendor refused to accept them. The vendor insisted "Khoka babur shirt hole chaar te laagbe". (I want four shirts if you are giving me your son's shirts).

Patol sir was quite imaginative (perhaps influenced by Bin Tughluq, our junior high headmaster), and once decided that he should blend in with the students. To achieve this, he began coming to dressed in our uniform - white shirt and khaki pants.

One day, sir got a bit late and was walking slowly along the pebbled road from the school entrance towards our building, pushing his cycle along. We were all assembling in the corridor for the morning chanting. To our surprise, we saw assistant headmaster Chatterjee sir approaching him from behind, like a panther stalking its prey. Since Patol Sir was wearing our uniform, Chatterjee Sir must have assumed that the student, although late, was not showing enough urgency. And then came that big slap on the back. Both Patol sir and his cycle fell on to the pebbled road and his specs got broken. It was quite an embarrassment for Chatterjee Sir, and he kept apologizing – "Sir please forgive me. I did not realize it was you".

Patol Sir went back home after second period because, in both periods, boys did not miss a chance to ask how his specs got broken.

We never saw Patol Sir in our uniform again ever after. 

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Spider-Man: far from home!

Since I have started talking about Chatterjee sir, let me give a brief intro about him. As I have already mentioned, he was our assistant headmaster in high school. He was more than six feet tall, with a lean physique and a dark complexion. He authored a mathematics book for grades IX and X – which became a best-selling reference book for decades.

During those days, Ramanand Sagar's Ramayana was a big hit, and we characterized our teachers based on the show's characters. The only role that could truly fit Chatterjee sir was that of Dwar-rakshak (the door guard) of Lanka. I hope my readers can now clearly picture Chatterjee Sir.

We were all quite scared of Sir, as each year one random student would become victim of his beatings. the student who got beaten often had to spend a few days in the hospital and eventually earned a place in the school's so-called yearbook as a "warrior" who survived Chatterjee Sir's beatings. In 1990, Sudhanshu was the poor student who got beaten by Chatterjee sir.

Sudhanshu had exceptional art and craft skills. One day he came to school with a hand-painted Spider-Man mask. Subho, the legend who plucked hairs from KNS sir's forearm, convinced Sudhanshu that his Spider-Man mask was an outstanding piece of artwork and that he should show it to the teachers to get the due credit. Naïve Sudhanshu, got carried away, and went straight to the teachers' room during break - with the mask on and swinging his arms in the air as if he was spinning his web.

I was in Trilokda's snack store during recess. For some context, there was a joke among the boys that Triolokda's chana masala followed Newton's first law. According to them, the chana masala used to have so many insects that the chanas would move around on the plate, and one needed to use a spoon to apply external force to stop them. However, insect or no insect, I can confidently say that to this day, I have not eaten chana masala tastier than Triolokda's.

The news of Chatterjee sir beating Sudhanshu quickly reached there, and I began running towards the school. Those were once-in-a-lifetime events you could not afford to miss. By the time I reached, Sudhanshu was already lying on the floor, and other teachers were desperately trying to calm Chatterjee Sir down.

Sudhanshu now lives in New Zealand (unfortunately not in Manhattan!) . A few years back, when he joined our school WhatsApp group, our admin welcomed him by posting a picture of Spider-man: far from home.

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Sufi Sadhika

In history, the trio was Kabutar (sir used to swing his neck like a pigeon), RKG sir, and KKD sir.

RKG sir was truly amazing – he created a unique brand for himself. Right from entering the classroom he would start his lecture with sudh sadhu (sage) language and explain history in a point-wise manner drawing arrows on the board for each point.

Pradipta, Subhasish, and Ranjan were my bench-mates in class X. As soon as Sir entered the class, Subhasish commented – now the street gab will start to which Ranjan could not hold his smile. Sir was disturbed by the smile and his one-way commentary went as below:

Why are you smiling?

How old are you? 14 or 15 years – right?

Your face has the innocence of a baby.

That smirk of an wiseman does not match such innocent face.

Don’t you know – animals are beautiful in forests and babies are beautiful in mothers’ lap?

Good that sir found innocence in Ranjan’s face, we are still trying.

Another day the victim was Subhasish himself. Subhasish had a different level of promptness. When Sir asked why he was laughing, the answer was – "Sir everyone else was laughing so did I." Sir said – “OK then tell me who else was laughing?” After a pause of 10 seconds, Subhasish replied – “Sir, no one else was laughing. It was only me laughing.” Sometimes morning does not always show the day. The instant flipping of words made me believe that one day Subhasish will make his mark in politics. However, in due course, he proved me wrong and became a male gynecologist!!!

We got some remarkable life lessons from RKG Sir. If those days we had the power of social media, I am sure RKG sir would have ended up having a million followers!

One day he noticed Anuj rubbing the ink of his finger on Puneet's shirt sitting in front of Anuj. The classic comment from sir was - "You can rub off the ink of your hand but you will never be able to wipe off the stain got on your character today - even if you try 1000 times!"

The other day sir found Bya-bya taking a nap and when sir asked why so, Bya-bya replied audaciously – “Sir, I do not find much interest in history.” Sir’s classic response was – “Your not finding interest in something does not guarantee that you were created for something else. Did it ever occur to you that maybe you are completely useless?”

We used to treat Kabutar sir more like a friend as he was much junior compared to the other teachers. Once he set the question – Name a Bhakti Movement sadhika (female preacher) from north India. [Since it was a Hindu missionary school – a part of Indian culture was made mandatory in the syllabus]

The answer was Meera bai. But one innovative (or super mischievous) fellow wrote “Swamy Ramananda” in the answer script. Incidentally, a monk named Swamy Ramananda was our school secretary during those days.

If you google “Ramananda Saraswati”, you will find that he started the Bhakti movement in India during the 16th century, so we were trying to defend that student. But sir had a very strong line of argument that was getting tough to counter.

His simple question was – don’t you know which gender the word sadhika implies? If you don’t, I will have to send you back to class V. If you know and still wrote this answer, I will have to send you to Secretary Maharaj and let him decide what to do.

Our friend had a narrow escape that day.

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Everyone was Maradona!

As I mentioned before, our school had a vast area of land with 5/6 huge playgrounds. One such playground was adjacent to a girl’s school. Once a week, we had physical education class combining the last two consecutive periods. Our obvious intention was to take the soccer ball and go to that specific playground to display our soccer skills to impress the girls. Sometimes girls used to cheer and wave at us from the terrace which made the boys focus on their dribbling skills. Everyone on the ground used to behave like Diego Maradona (Messi of our time) – no passing!

Some boys used to indulge in Kalanemi’s Lanka division. Now those who don’t know who Kalanemi was and why he was trying to divide Lanka - I would recommend they brush up on their Ramayana knowledge. It is a very common phrase in Bengal which means - “To count your chickens before they are hatched”.

Our Kalnemi's Lanka bhag used to be our wishful thinking of getting the best-looking girl as girlfriend. Once Subhashish told Ranjan - “Or dike takabi ne. O tor boudi hobe ekdin, bujhli?”   [Don’t look at her idiot, she will become your sis-in-law someday]. I won’t be surprised if the girl my friend claimed to be his wife someday is reading this story and boasting to her kids and husband about the attention she used to grab because of her stunning looks.

Anyway, coming back to the storyline, our physical education teacher was Saptakda. Although we addressed him “dada” instead of "Sir", he was a regular employee of our school. He was a bodybuilder and received many accolades in bodybuilding competitions in the district for his Greek God like structure.

For two consecutive weeks, Saptakda made us perform PT in the school hall, which caused a huge grievance among the boys. They decided to take revenge and the outcome was unprecedented. One day during tiffin break, boys of our section turned off the lights; closed all the windows and one door and left the other door open. When Saptakda was passing by the corridor, they asked him to come inside saying they had something interesting to show.

As soon as Saptakda entered, the boys hiding inside the room closed the door from behind. It was pitch dark inside and there were approximately 7 to 8 boys who started punching and hitting Saptokda shouting “Ball debe na? PT korabe? Ebare dekho moja.” [You won’t allow us to play soccer? You will make us do exercise? Now take this]. I heard that bodybuilder Saptakda started sobbing like a girl and went to Maharaj’s cabin to complain.

After recess, it was DK sir’s period to teach us Chemistry. Now DK sir was a peculiar character. Let’s say someday the class is going fine but you were chatting with someone, and DK Sir noticed it – he wouldn’t tell you anything. On some other day if he was not being able to control the class and even if you were completely quiet – DK Sir would beat you up without asking for any explanation!

As soon as DK sir started teaching us, Chatterjee sir entered the class holding his trademark stick. I was thrilled thinking there will be fun to witness another epic incident of Chatterjee sir’s thrashing. Chatterjee sir told DK Sir  – “Sir, aapnar class er chhele ra Saptak ke merechhe.” [Sir, boys of your class have beaten up Saptak]. To that DK Sir said, “Sir, please give me the stick”. He took the stick and to my surprise, the unpredictable DK sir started beating Raunak – who was with me playing chess in the recess!!!

Later when I connected the dots, I realized that some days back Raunak brought a film magazine to school to show me that a lesser-known actor resembled DK Sir significantly! For most of the period that day Raunak and I were looking at DK sir and chitchatting about the plight of Indian teachers due to the low pay structure that they had to take up roles in B-graded movies (hiding their identity) to make both ends meet. DK Sir must have noticed the sarcastic smile on Raunak’s face and felt irritated thinking he was making fun of his teaching abilities !!!

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Where is your practical notebook?

I should pen down the incident when I got beaten up once.

Though I was never a topper, however, I had many other interests that put me in the good books for most of our teachers and many of my mischiefs were ignored.

For example, once I was going to the library as our additional mathematics teacher was absent that day. While passing by the physics class, I saw Raunak was attending the class. I was trying to grab his attention to see if he could make an excuse to step out of the class so that we could have a game of chess. Suddenly, I felt someone tapping me from behind. I almost pissed in my pant seeing Chatterjee sir standing behind me! However, he just asked me to go to my class and went off.

We had work education as a subject and to score in that subject students had to hand-create various things. For example, during our stay in junior high we made POP frames, wooden hangers, etc. In high school, we made switchboards, T-junction wirings, etc.

Our high school work education teacher was popular by the name Bhama (short form of Bhamasura) among the boys. During the work education period, we used to assemble in a large hall. The hall had a carpet to sit and work on assigned tasks. More than actual work, we used to be busy in chit-chatting.

For a few weeks Bhama sir warned us that if we did not bring the practical notebook next week, he would give us a big zero in the 10 marks allocated for the notebook. We all used to take that lightly and never felt the urge to bring the same for his signature. One day Sir became serious and said firmly that no practical copy would be accepter beyond that day. My roll number was 9 in class X and I was in for a big surprise finding all the traitors up to roll 8 brought their practical notebooks for signature.

People of my age, reading this story can quickly visualize how the practical notebook used to be in those days. There used to be front and back hard covers with punched papers inside tied within the covers using a thread. Typically, students were expected to put some artwork on the front cover and write the actual content very neatly in the papers inside.

I took some blank pages from our first boy Neeraj, drew some diagrams hastily, and wrote the texts in very nasty handwriting.  Of course, I did not have the covers – so I pulled out a thread from the carpet to tie the loose practical papers. When my turn came – I went coolly and handed over the pages to Bhama sir.

Sir got so angry that he started fanning his head with the papers I submitted to vent his anger. The following conversation took place:

Bhama sir – “What is this?”

Me – “Practical notebook, sir.”

Bhama sir – “Where are the covers?”

Me – "Sir I have a side bag. The covers would get damaged. I have them ready at home. Will put them along with these content pages at the time of the final exam."

Bhama Sir (pointing at the thread pulled from the carpet) –  “What is this?”

My imagination ran out and I kept silent.

That was the time Bhama sir got up from his chair and started hitting me with his stick.

[to be continued...]