Guilty Conscious

It was more than a month after my first encounter with our new Headmaster, Capt.R.K.Singh. I hope you all remember that incident of my punctured cycle and a chance meeting of, someone I thought was a Bihari, but later found that he was our new Headmaster. I was sure that he would, the first thing after taking over would either expel me or punish me hard. The first file he would sign was my dismissal. But nothing happened. And I was getting bolder as the days passed. And I was back to my normal tomfoolery.

We were in the class room one day. Our class was just adjacent to the assembly hall in the palace first floor. It was a break between periods and we were joking and making merry. When our House Master Mr. Rama Rao came in and with a worried look on his face, informed me that I have to meet the Head master at his office just before lunch.

“Why sir?”

“No idea” he said and went into the adjacent room for his class.

For a few seconds there was total silence in the class. Some of my class mates had the same look on their faces that we have, when we loose a good friend. But there were also some who seemed to enjoy my plight. Bad boys.

My mind simply went blank. Deep into a black hole of oblivion. I just slumped into my chair. Everyone huddled around me with pity.

“What might be the reason ra?”

I just shook my head.

Then John Cornelius (732) stepped forward and just fell short of saying “Eureka”. “It must be regarding last Friday night’s incident” he said.

Last Friday night, I and Hareesh Pankan (783), now a brigadier in the army, went out for a mango plucking episode. In those days, the present administrative building was not yet built. It was a beautiful mango grove. A tree, just beside the road leading to the play ground was tempting. Hareesh climbed the tree and I was at the bottom collecting the mangoes he was throwing down. It was quite dark and I was too busy to notice a white human form walking towards us. I realized it was our PT master and Mess in-charge Mr. Satya Rao. Maybe he was returning from mess. By intuition I hid behind a bush and Hareesh oblivious and busy throwing down mangoes. Mr. Satya Rao came very close; I could see his paunch wobble. Just, as he was under the tree.

“Ravi, where are you ra?” Hareesh half shouted.

“Who is that?” Mr. Satya Rao yelled and was looking up onto the tree.

“Who is that?”

There was total silence for a few seconds. Mr. Satya Rao stepped forward to have a look.

“Eenda teesuko” Hareesh shouted and in one simple action threw a big green mango at him. And ‘plonk’ that mango struck Mr. Satya Rao on his head very hard. I blinked in disbelief. For what ever the reason, Mr. Satya Rao just ran towards his quarters. And we ran back to our house. As we narrated this incident to others in the house, we realized that Hareesh spelt out my name. And more importantly, it was his Malayalee accented Telugu, that was very easy to notice.

But this happened almost a week back, maybe that was not the reason.

Some one came close to me and almost whispered

“Maybe it is because of her” and pointed towards Dhaka Indira (1191), our classmate and daughter of Head master.

During one of those period breaks. My hobby was to irritate people. That day it was Mohan Rao (810). But sometimes life takes unexpected turns and Mohan Rao was damn mad at me. He was much larger than I was. You know he used to shave when he was in 8^th class. He tried to catch me and I bolted. If caught, I knew, I had it that day. It was a life and death situation. I ran all round the chairs and he was hot on my heels. I just made a dash towards the door, when the unexpected happened.

I dashed onto Indira and both of us fell, one over the other. It lasted for a few seconds, (Now don’t ask me about my feelings. It is obvious.) Anyone looking from outside would have thought that I jumped on her like a beast. But fact is a fact. I pleaded and said sorry. And as a reflex action I extended my hand to help her up. She shrugged me off and was very angry and obviously very embarrassed. She stood up and ran back home. She did not attend classes that day. I felt very sorry for her. And Mohan Rao, sensing that I was in more danger now than from him, just left me to my fate.

Everyone looked at Indira, and she did not even notice us. No, No, she cannot be so mean, I thought.

Or, maybe it might be because of yesterday’s incident.

In those days, we used to call it ‘extra parade’ (ET). That was awarded to all defaulters, even a small fault of wearing unpolished shoes, we were sent for ET. For ET, we had to go to the NCC office during the afternoon study and collect those heavy rifles and haversacks filled with bricks and we are the mercy of the Subedar Bahadur Singh. His instructions were crisp and clear.

“Raghadao Saloonko”

And Subedar as a true army man followed instruction to the spirit of the word. And he derived sadistic pleasure for doing his duty. And to please him we had to praise his ability of being the worst sadist.

As soon as we returned to our houses after lunch, we see the notice board, where a cyclostyled notice containing the numbers of all those to go for ET was displayed. My number was almost permanently in the list. This was happening since a long time.

So, yesterday, I just did not bother to look in the notice board, but never the less attended the ET. We endured every thing, which Shriman Bahadur made us to do. The Subedar takes the roll call after we finish ET. And found that my number was not in the list that day.

Luckily, there was no roof over his head; otherwise he would have hit it with anger. He just could not digest the fact that someone comes for ET even when it is not required. He felt ashamed of himself. He felt insulted. He was red with anger. He would not have been angrier if Pak Rangers occupied his post on the border. He made it look as if his life was shattered.

May be he reported this to the Head Master.

I entered the Head Master’s office like a sheep into a lion’s den. I saluted him.

“I am Ravi, Sir”

He looked at me, a wry smile on his face.

“You are Ravi?”

“Good, Good” he said “Come to the assembly tomorrow in No. 6 dress, and congratulations, you won the first prize in the Lalitkala Academy  at Vizag for your painting ‘Mother & Child’”

“The Principal will hand over the certificate tomorrow”

“Thank you Sir” and I turned to leave.

“And how did you come back from Vizianagaram with the punctured cycle that night?”