Shala

by Milind Bokil

  He teaches us SS, that is, Social Science, which includes History, Geography and Civics. But he does not take History—that’s Pethkar ma’am’s subject. He should have, in fact, taught us History. For that matter, he should have taught us everything. Alas, our school administration has a policy of giving the tough subjects to boring teachers and easy subjects to good teachers.

  Manjrekar sir believes that History, Geography and Civics are the most important subjects, and that all students should be taught just these subjects. He says language is learnt naturally and the other subjects are not worth learning. Earlier, he would express such thoughts freely. But blabbermouths like Ghasu Gokhale conveyed this to the other teachers, who in turn complained to Appa, and Manjrekar sir has been careful ever since.

  The next class was Bendre Ma’am’s. The children were happy in Manjrekar sir’s class despite the fact that he sometimes uses difficult words. But now there was pin-drop silence. The moment ma’am entered, she wanted to know if there was anyone who had not done the homework. Lucky for Surya and Phawdya, who were reminded by me in time! But Dashrath, Harishchandra, Santu, Bhaishetye and a few others were caught. As usual Sundri was the one amongst girls.

  Ma’am asked Bibikar to fetch his thick wooden ruler. I have told him a thousand times not to bring that thing, but that fellow does it just to impress the teachers. She rapped each of the offenders on their hands twice. Sundri got an extra one on her arm for not oiling her hair. They stood there silently bearing the punishment. Dashrath could have easily gripped the ruler in his hands and not let go. She could have done nothing! But he too silently bore the punishment. The poor souls were lucky Ma’am did not insist on keeping their hand on the desk and hitting them with the thin side of the ruler.

  She then checked the notebooks. Ghasu Gokhale the smartie had written ten extra words, over and above the ones given by her.

  ‘Who asked you to be oversmart, huh?’ she shouted. ‘You want to show off …?’

  Gokhale made a sour face and went back to his bench. She did not say anything to Phawdya but caught hold of Surya. ‘Have you written this yourself or copied from someone else’s notebook?’

  ‘No, ma’am. I did the work myself.’ Surya pleaded.

  ‘Really? Tell me, what does “gallant” mean?’

  Surya was in trouble. She asked the meaning of a few more words, but Surya was tongue-tied. She took out the wooden ruler screaming, ‘How dare you lie to me?’ Surya got a couple of raps on his arm and screamed out loud, though he was not really hurt. He went back to his seat rubbing his arm.

  Bendre ma’am began her class. She began conversing with us in English. The whole class was silent. I could follow a little better than most but for the rest, it was beyond comprehension. All of us sat there like mice, scared to death. It was sunny outside. The playground was baking in the bright sunlight. There were no fans in our classroom and it was hot and stuffy inside.

  I was busy watching Shirodkar, oblivious to the class, the teacher and all else. She sat there with her eyes focused on the blackboard as she listened in rapt attention. I realized her hair was not jet-black but slightly brown. The flowers set off their brownness. And it blew gently in the air. No other girl has hair like hers. The birdies oil their hair so much it looks all wet and greasy. Even Ambabai does that. They do not realize how foolish they look with such oily hair. Shirodkar is wise. She must have a wise mother, I guess.

  I do not know her exact address. I know she stays somewhere in the direction of Sathewadi, which means her house is quite far. I realized Misal too stays that side of the town. He surely knows where her house is. I need to find out discreetly. I cannot afford to be direct in such matters; the boys would rag me to death. Shirodkar has been with us since last year, but I had not noticed her earlier. We normally know the addresses of most of the boys. I don’t know whether she has any siblings; probably none. I need to find out from Misal.

  I turned gently to find Misal sitting on the third bench next to Gaitonde. Both of them are quite dim-witted. We never mingle with them; being friends with them is out of the question. But I will be able to extract some information out of him.

  The next class was Maths. Halbe sir, though absent-minded, is good-humoured and does not shout at us. He starts teaching the moment he enters, and doesn’t stop to check whether we understand or not. So we are in a fix. I heard someone say that of all the subjects, Maths of ninth standard, in the run-up to tenth standard, is the toughest. Only Bibikar, Ghasu Gokhale and a few others understand the subject well enough. I can, if I try, but I don’t feel up to it most of the time. Chitre too is good at it. He, in fact, likes it. He is usually busy copying everything diligently. So the responsibility of teaching Surya and Phawdya lies with him. But that doesn’t always help. Algebra and Geometry are such topics that everyone flounders.

  To put it in the language of set theory, which we were taught in Maths class last year, our class can be divided into three sets. The first set is that of intelligent and oversmart boys. There are around five or seven such boys, like Bibikar, Ghasu Gokhale, Surve and Teredesai. The other set consists of us—our gang, and boys like Dashrath, Harishchandra, Santya, and so on. There are some like Chitre who could have, in fact, been part of the first set. The third set comprises the general crowd who are neither in set one nor set two—people like Shembekar, Gaitonde, Misal, Memane, Khandagle, Sadu and so on. They are the biggest set. They are there to fill the classrooms. Their presence or absence makes no difference, but they are needed for a school to run. There are such groups in every school.

  The girls too have such sets amongst them. The birdies and a few others form one set. They think they are smart but are such idiots. Then Sukdi, Rairikar and few form another set: the chalu girls. There are not many in that set of girls. I mentioned this to Chitre once but he said that you never know how many belong to that set in reality. Then there are the rest who form the general set—to fill the classrooms. All the dumb and stupid girls are in this set. Shirodkar, quite obviously, is not part of any of these sets. She forms an independent set of her own. Singleton. Just like me. I wonder when our sets would, if ever, intersect.

  It was time for mid-break after the Maths class.

  We ran to drink water and then did the ‘vulgar’ task. We do it quickly. No one bothers to waste time on such activities. We eat at home before coming to school, hence there is no need to carry a lunchbox. But a few boys, like Gaitonde and Ghasu Gokhale, carry tiffin boxes. They huddle together in one corner and eat. The birdies too bring lunch. Stupid people like them waste the entire mid-break eating. Ambabai insists that I carry lunch every day but do I care? Sometimes I carry peanuts in my pocket; they are good to munch on when I get bored in the fourth period.

  We sit in the shade of the woods during the mid-break. That’s one remarkable thing about our school. The woods are literally a mini-forest. It belongs to Surya’s kaka, hence no one can ask us to leave. We allow Dashrath, Santu, Bhaishetye and such boys to come there. We sit on the big branch of a tree that bends down low, almost touching the ground, before it curves up again. In summer, it is full of a kind of sticky fruit. There are other trees too. Surya can identify all of them. There are many like palash, hirda, jamun, etc. There is a mango tree, but it never bears fruit. But the trees provide a cool shade, however hot it may be outside. There are huge rocks over there and we have enough places for everyone to sit. The paddy fields skirt the wooded area, but I don’t quite enjoy looking at them from there.

  ‘Joshi, let us go and have some ice-candy.’ Surya said, after drinking water. ‘It is so hot today.’

  ‘No, you carry on.’

  ‘Come on, bhenchod. Why are you acting pricey? Chitre, come on.’

  Surya has money in his pocket at all times, and is always buying something or the other. Whenever Phawdya mans his vegetable shop in the evening, he manages to snitch a few coins. Chitre’s parents give him pocket money. I am the only one who never has any. The ice-candy costs five
paise; the milk bar is for ten. But my parents do not give me any pocket money. It’s very embarrassing. To add insult to injury, Ambabai keeps harping, ‘Your friends treat you every day. One day they’ll ask you to treat them at a good restaurant. What will you do then? Never take such favours, okay?’ But Surya does not appreciate this logic. He drags me while Chitre and Phawdya follow.

  The ice-candy seller comes in the afternoon. We hear his bell in the fourth period. Earlier he would come right into the playground, but Appa drove him away. Now he stands below the tamarind tree outside the gate. Then there is an old lady there, who sells berries and guavas. A few days back, a lady came selling some batata wadas, which she carried in a steel box. She met Appa first, asking for permission to sit in the school verandah, but Appa promptly refused. She then sat below the tamarind tree for two days. Her petticoat, peeping out of her saree, was frayed at the edges. Surya started his usual nonsense, asking her, ‘Your wadas seem nice. Are they hot?’ She caught Surya’s pun but replied coolly, ‘Son, I have children of your age. They go to school too. I sell these to earn some money for their books.’ That shut him up. He treated us to the wadas. She was there for a couple of days but could not sell much. We did not see her later.

  We cannot get the ice-candy to the playground. We have to sit in the grove and eat.

  ‘Chitre, you need to teach us Maths, okay?’ Phawdya said, sucking on the ice-candy. ‘Else we are doomed.’

  ‘We need to do something about Bendre,’ Surya muttered. ‘Worse, she does not seem to be getting married any soon.’

  ‘Who’ll marry her?’ Chitre asked. ‘Anybody would run away seeing her face.’

  ‘What about her big boobs?’ Surya remarked. ‘Isn’t that reason enough?’

  We sat there in the cool shade of the woods, enjoying our ice-candy. There was a damp, greenish smell all around. We could hear someone chopping wood somewhere. Someone must be cutting the branches. I thought of Shirodkar and wondered what it would be like to sit here with her, all alone.

  ‘How nice it is to sit here, isn’t it?’ Chitre remarked. ‘It would be great if we could have our classes here.’

  ‘You bet!’ Surya said. ‘We’d even understand everything then.’

  An image formed in my mind. The rocks were large enough for our entire class to sit on and we could have the blackboard resting against the big tree trunk. We could sit in a large semi-circle, unlike the straight rows in the class. Shirodkar would be right across from me and catch me seeing her then!

  ‘Joshi, Ichibhana, your ice-candy is dripping.’

  That broke my reverie. The ice-candy had left a big stain on my shirt. I would have to wash it off before reaching home or hear a mouthful from Aaisaheb.

  ‘Surya, when shall we visit the bay?’ I asked.

  ‘Anytime. Shall we go now?’

  ‘No. Not today. But we should visit soon.’

  ‘Whenever you say. ’

  We saw Bhaishetye coming towards us sucking on his ice-candy. He has come to our school this year from some remote village in Konkan. He stays with his sister and calls her husband jijaji. ‘My jijaji got transferred here, you know. So I had to come with them, you know.’ He speaks in a typical Konkani sing-song accent, and did not quite seem our type, until the day he told us about Bhaween from his village. God, that was unbelievable! We were stunned to hear of her exploits. Surya could not believe his ears. We realized this fellow was far beyond his age. We stopped teasing him from that day onwards. We wouldn’t have minded if he had joined us at our adda, but he is always running late. In fact, he just about manages to reach in time for the assembly every morning.

  ‘Come!’ Surya said, making space from him on the big rock.

  Surya allowed Bhaishetye to lick his ice-candy and said, ‘Ichibhana, Shetye, can anyone visit this Bhaween girl of yours?’

  ‘Anyone,’ Bhaishetye said, without looking at him. ‘All she needs is a maund of rice.’

  ‘Even boys like us?’

  ‘In fact, she prefers boys like you. They don’t last long, you know!’

  ‘What fun, bhenchod,’ Surya said loudly, jiggling his knees. ‘Have you ever visited her?’

  ‘Me?’ Bhaishetye looked at all of us. Then he confessed, ‘No. I could never dare. My mother would have broken my leg.’

  No one said anything for a while. Surya broke the silence asking, ‘Joshi, what’s the next period?’

  ‘Physics; followed by Biology, Drawing and PT.’

  ‘Ichibhana, what the hell is this Physics all about? I cannot make head or tail of what that fellow teaches.’

  ‘Me too,’ Phawdya added. ‘He simply drones on and on and on.’

  We sat there for some more time. Our Physics teacher, Redkar sir, mumbles and lisps so much that we cannot understand anything he says. What’s more, two lower teeth are missing from his mouth. When he reads out a formula or a theorem, it is total chaos. The other day, he was teaching some properties of liquids and gases, when Teredesai decided to play a prank. While explaining the property of gases, Redkar sir drew a big circle and another oval one, more like a balloon. Teredesai asked, innocently pointing to the elongated shape of the oval one, ‘Sir, what does this look like?’

  The whole class began to laugh as everyone knew he was referring to the shape of a condom. We expected Sir to get angry and give him a tight slap, but he bowled a googly.

  ‘You’ll understand it well when you grow up. If you don’t, come to me. ’

  Teredesai did not know where to hide his face.

  ‘Oh, we have Biology following Physics, is it?’ Surya asked. ‘At least ma’am will teach us something interesting.’

  We have Potnis ma’am to teach us Biology. She’s a simpleton. Her son is in the eighth standard. Her subject being Biology, the onus of teaching all the ‘vulgar’ stuff is on her. Guys like Surya just love that. In her very first class, ma’am was teaching classification of living organisms. She explained the difference between those with vertebrae and those without. She explained phylum protozoa. A snigger spread across the room. The girls started looking down at the floor. Potnis ma’am realized that something was amiss, but she continued, ‘These were the first organisms to inhabit the Earth. Most of these organisms are microscopic in nature and are found in moist, damp soil. They are found in clusters.’

  ‘And they have only one occupation the whole day’, interjected Surya.

  The whole class burst out laughing. The teacher was at a loss for words. She skipped to the next chapter.

  The second half of the day is not bad. We normally have one period assigned for Physical Training or Drawing. The sun is down and it is not so hot. There is always some class or the other playing in the ground. Cricket helps one to while away time well. Just watching them play is fun.

  Physics is boring. The chapter in question was on calculation of molecular weight. It was beyond anyone. No one could understand the structure of C12 atom and the method of calculating its mass. Chitre was the only one listening carefully. We were all waiting for the class to end. Surya was hoping Potnis ma’am would teach us various reproductive organs in the next class. But it turned out that she was on leave. Zende sir took the class instead.

  Zende sir is our favourite. ‘Popatrao Manikrao Zende! Does anyone else have such a name?’ he challenges. No one else sports a pointed moustache like him. He chews paan all the time. He could pick any subject, but he chooses to teach us Chemistry.

  He talks incessantly in the class, chatting with the students, sometimes in English or in Hindi. He always has some joke or the other up his sleeve for each students based on their names. He tells Sadu Kale, who sits quietly in one corner like a scared mouse, ‘Why are you so silent, Kale? Say proudly “Hum kale hain toh kya hua dilwale hain!”’ To Bibikar he taunts, ‘Bibi kar aur baith ghar!’ To me, ‘Joshi hai par josh nahin hai,’ and to Teredesai he quips, ‘Woh tere desai toh tum mere desai!’ Bhosale is just referred to as ‘Maharaj’.

  Next came Rajguru s
ir’s Drawing class. This is the only class when Surya is at his best. He loves to draw and does not like to be disturbed then. He is Rajguru sir’s favourite. He not only shows Surya’s paintings to all in the class but very often displays it on the school notice board.

  That class is pure fun. We can draw whatever we like; we can walk across to any person’s bench; we can chat with anyone. Sir sits on his chair, ready to help any student. And of course, he draws really well. With just a few simple pencil strokes, he can create a masterpiece. And the way he paints is simply amazing. Whenever he paints for someone, that student takes the painting home and shows it to each and every one he meets on the way.

  I love the class because it affords me a closer look at Shirodkar. She moves around the class, chatting with her friends. She does not talk to the boys though. I love to watch her draw. It reminds me of a Hindi song, which Ambabai hums very often—‘Woh kaun chitrakaar hai, woh kaun chitrakaar’.

  The last period is Physical Training, PT. This is normally held for all the classes together. Students from each class streamed out into the playground and then lined up; girls on one side and the boys on the other. Pethe ma’am emerged with her harmonium to teach us a song on discipline. This is how it has been ever since the Emergency came into force.

  ‘Ichibhana, what the hell is this discipline all about?’ Surya enquired loudly, much to merriment of all boys around.

  ‘Hey, shut up. Don’t laugh.’ Redkar sir yelled.

  After the song, Appa stepped forward to give a lecture on the concept of discipline. Standing right in the front, we were forced to keep quiet and listen. Appa earnestly went on about how indiscipline had become rampant and why the country needed good, disciplined citizens. We had no choice but to suffer the lecture in silence. The PT followed the lecture, followed by the singing of ‘Vande Mataram’ after which the school ended.