St. Antony- A Story

Sunday, December 11, 2011

St. Antony- A Story

It was late January, and it was a holiday. The  weather was mild and comfortable at that time of the year. The sea breeze that came from the west  blowing in over the inland lake and caressing the bamboo shrubs around the perimeter of the church, brought a heavenly spell, adding to the mirth. Or was it her sheer presence, or was it the excitement and gaiety that accompany a wedding—the wedding of a close friend?

It was early dawn, well before sunrise, and I was woken up to the clutter and chatter—the excited shrieks and conversations. She had arrived by train early in the morning. I sometimes felt an initial awkwardness with young women, so I chose to stay a little longer than usual in bed. When I came out of my room, it was with controlled excitement, curiosity, and caution. I was determined not to reveal my idiosyncrasies to her, whom I had only seen in photographs.

I saw her lazing down the stairs, and I guess the first smile, nod of the head, and "hello" were not too bad. Photographs captured by a camera are sometimes a faint image of what the subject actually is, and they can also be grossly untrue. Something inside pumped up the excitement and heightened my heartbeat. Strange, I thought! The couple of days she stayed at the apartment, whenever I could create an opportunity to be near her and engage in some conversation, I grabbed it, made sure the chance never went begging. I wonder if others noticed the oddity in my general behaviour.

Something kept telling me that there was a mutual attraction, but it was more latent in her!

She came back a few months later. There was no communication between us in that short interregnum. In any case those were the days when one even did not have a dream of mobile phones. However, the second meeting was a friendlier and more alleviating affair. She had come to my close friend's wedding that afternoon. When my friend sent her the invitation to his wedding, she obliged. I was thrilled. Looking back, perhaps destiny enticed her!

After the wedding,at the old basilica  we all moved to the adjacent banquet hall for the grand feast that the bride’s father had organised. After the sumptuous feast and the brief revelry involving indulgent wine drinking, we friends left. We took off towards the pier to take the boat ride across the lake to the island. She was the last one to hop on the boat, and I offered her my hand to hold on to while jumping on the rocking little craft, which she unhesitatingly accepted!

We had a refreshing couple of hours on the island. The optical illusion in the west caressing the ocean—the sun setting and the magical shadows it cast on the lush green foliage and trees that straddled the island, the sparkling waters of the vast lake like molten gold in the fading sunlight—all of this was perfect for the occasion. There were three women in the group besides her—her aunt, her sister, and a friend's wife. It was an exciting time, even more so for the two of us, unbeknownst to either of us or the rest. I took care to not betray my feelings or make it obvious to others that I was stung by Cupid. Lest her brothers found out, I was quite self-conscious about myself, I wouldn't go any further.

It was dark when we returned to the boat that would ferry us back to the mainland. The journey back to the apartment had to be sorted out, as some of us had taken a taxi to the wedding, and now we all had to reckon with the few motorbikes we had. I was the only one on my bike and wished I could suggest that she could travel pillion on my Java-Yezdi with me. But timidity stamped out the grit to say so. As luck would have it, or destiny, one of her brothers suggested she ride a pillion with me. And he reminded me to take care of her while on the road. She accepted the suggestion without hesitation. Perhaps that was what she wanted too? I chastised myself for thinking for her. Stupid Cupid! But she traveled the distance back with me.

I rode the bike with great caution and sensed her timidly holding on to my shirt while I manoeuvred through the traffic. On the way back, she suggested that we stop at the church of Saint Antony. She asked if I had any difficulty doing so. I figured it would give me more time with her on the road, and I gleefully agreed.. We went into the shrine. The shrine of the saint was a popular destination for the faithful, who believed that their supplications and petitions would be favourably disposed of by the saint, God's interlocutor. One’s ardent prayers and wishes are sure to be granted! I was curious as to what she wished for and what favour the saint promised her. She bought candles and flowers from the vendor outside, and I joined her in patiently lighting them at the altar. It was indeed a good feeling to be in the shrine with her. I wish time could be stopped.

When we began our ride back, I was annoyed that the distance to the apartment appeared shorter. I frantically thought of ways to stretch the distance and time so that it could be a long, never ending ride with her.

Did the saint sense my thinking?

There is no Snow on Kilimanjaro

The hills were verdant. But it seemed to her barren and desolate. The dark green canopies of the trees and the tall elephant grass rocked in the wind. To her, they seemed to be expressing violent disapproval. The wind wailed and came incessantly brushing the tall grass, bending it, coercing it before it went back to its former state. The wind then hit the hillock where she lay with a howl. She felt them like the calls of the hyena. "You raunchy slut go away, you charlatan keep out”. They seemed to howl their catcalls in chorus. The symphony that Nature played did not touch her.

Is it or is it not the state of the mind? She again began to hear the words reverberating from far away-the words that were spewed at her. And now the wild has taken up the call, “Pariah, getaway.” Nature too has a way to tell her annoyance with her for being there. Her being there – did that defile Nature too? The cold roaring wind was like profanity directed at her. It came from far over the hills. But they seem to whip her, lash her lacerated torso, piercing through the torn fabric of her dress. Even the wind, the grass, the trees, the hills, all had begun to express discomfort, disdain, and repugnance for her. Is it or is it not the state of mind?

She knew she has not much far to go. Her broken limbs were twisted and swollen. She bit back the pain, though not more excruciating than those words that come after her, haunting her ears. She laid her head on the rock and lay still, looking far above up into the blue sky. She could see no angels, no fairies but a void, not even floating fleeting clouds, just void. And the words kept resonating, “You ........raunchy slut go away.”

The life lived was not! She deluded herself and lived in the tower that she crafted, the tower which she in her supercilious and imperious living did not see was a tower in a dune of sand. The frenzied aspiration to reach the skies could only built the tower of Babel. She saw the days come back in a time machine. In these moments when they who flocked to her beck chose to forsake her and now this miserable solitude in the hills! Impelled by remorse, guilt, infamy and now having purposefully wandered afar into the wild, lost her way, she knew she will eventually surrender to the lonesome cold and life would gradually ebb away from her. Her clothes were torn and in tatter. She now has been wandering for almost a week, aimless and in trance. The leeches in the rain-fed mangroves downhill have preyed on her. The sores were bleeding. Hunger and starvation were throwing her into intermittent delirium. Brief moments when she slid into hallucination brought to her apparitions of many faces whom she had hurt, had trampled with her wickedness and shenanigans, the ones she shut out selfishly. She will gradually yield to hunger, the cold, the insects, and the predators who will feast on her cadaver or may be maul and feast on her alive. She knew she may not see the light of another sunrise. Her time of reckoning was fast nearing. She longed for darkness, for light was dangerously fearsome.

She feared going back to civilisation. Was it the fear of repeated denials- all those who once stood at her beck? When did she lose her way? She lost her way in her teens, and adulthood- to avarice, glitter, glamour, and wealth. The hubris of youth, the lust for wealth, the licentious pleasures that overpowered and intoxicated her veins, when she used and jettisoned people -men and women, she lost her way! When she decided that there was value for nothing, but the price for everything, she had lost her way! She lived and thrived in falsehood, trickery, and emotional blackmail. For pounds of riches would silence all tongues. It was frailty at its loathsome worst.

She sobbed and cried. She lay there crying until tears to the last droplet out and dried . Flies were insistently feasting on the sores that lay open.She saw the predator bird circling above. It had sensed that the time was up for the feast. “The crunchy feast on the invalid raunchy”!

She rolled her eyes towards the tall peak a little to her left. She longed to be there on top. Then she saw that it was this fiery longing for being “there” that made her tread the path that brought her to this.

There was no snow atop Kilimanjaro! She closed her eyes and slowly sensed her going down the yawning abyss to be free at last, from all she ever relished, and all that finally vowed her away. The final image that stayed in her before the last strain of consciousness slipped away was the scavenger bird circling above in patience.

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill

 Some time ago, I bought a book on Winston Churchill. Though no admirer of him, it was a volume of his collected speech. Known for his eloquence, oratory skills and phrasing of communication with eternal words, I presumed that the book will be an interesting read. It was a disillusionment of sorts like the disappointment Winston Churchill must have felt after losing the elections in Britain after winning the Great War!

The speeches that were included in the edition were more concerning the domestic policies of his Government in Great Britain and his comments on the inland matters of that country. Though there were glimpses of his eloquence and rhetorician arrogance on World affairs, men, colonies and most of all reason why he must be detested for many of his opinions!

Here are samples  of few that may be read and concluded the way you may want to.

1-      1-The short crisp sentence that shot into international fame and immortality

“I have nothing to offer but blood toil and sweat.” (In the House of Commons, 1940 when Great Britain was crudely thrown into the World War II).

2-   2-   “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”(In the House of   Commons 1940. referring to the pilots who fought  the Battle of Britain).

3-    3-  Now here is something that the purist of Indian Jingoist would frown at.

“It is ...alarming and also nauseating to see Mr. Gandhi, a seditious Middle Temple lawyer, now posing as a fakir of a type well-known in the East, striding half naked up the steps of the Viceregal Palace, while he is still organising and contradicting a defiant campaign of civil disobedience, to parley on equal terms with the representative of the King Emperor.”

4-     4-  “You have enemies.Good. That means you stood up for something sometime in your life.”

5-      5-The Churchillian hubris at its detestable best.

 “Before we proceed let us get one thing clear. Are we talking about the brown Indians in        

 India who have alarmingly multiplied under the benevolent British rule? Or are we speaking about   the Red       Indians in America who, I understand, are almost extinct?”

6-     6- Here is the one that proved his insensitivity and macabre philosophy. Stiff upper lip or otherwise Britons were wise to show him the door after the War.

“I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time.I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the Black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the very fact that a stronger race, a higher- grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place.” (Churchill to the Palestine Royal Commission in 1937).

7-Nancy Astor, the first woman to sit as member in the Commons, 

“Sir, if you were my husband, I would give you poison”. Churchill, “If you were my wife I will take   it.”

8-Now here is one that if Mr Churchill were alive now and uttered would have seen him     enshroud with Salman Rushdie fearing the fatwa from the vile looking Mullahs.

“ ......the fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.”

9- Here is a blister that should keep all India thinking.

“India is a Geographical term. It is no more a United Nation than the equator.”

10- And the perseverance and courage in him is amplified in these words he spoke,

 "Never, never, never give up.

Summing up , perhaps I have to wonder,is it not true that all men are sculpted from contradictions?

The Ides of March

                                            Morte de Caesar


" Julius Caesar in derision,"The Ides of March Have come ". The Soothsayer," Aye Caesar, but they have not gone".


Those who extend much credence to the influence celestial configurations exercise on earthlings, wish off ill lucks, good tidings, ill tempered acts and omissions as matters that are not under the realm of ordinary mortals. While the heavens wreck havoc and shower largesse on us they are determined by forces abe initio not within our control. We are just marionettes, mere puppets dancing to the whims of the Puppeteer.

Destiny is written or foretold for each of us, it is said. That happens sometime during the exit from the mother’s womb, it is claimed. The heavens, widely acknowledged as the stars or the planets in the solar system, including the centre piece the sun, aligns in some predestined or ordained way that they directly influence the child that is born. His or her destiny, pallor of the skin, character, and life, all are influenced thereon by the life less planets that were  held also as beacon at night to men of the sea in the past. The trials, tribulations and triumphs in life are chartered by the alignment of the planets. Henceforth each course of events  in the life of the new born  is called fate.

Fascinating raison d'être from the oriental thoughts! Take it or leave it.

Dhuryodahana the villain of the piece in the epic Mahabharata, was obstinately impervious to reason, advice and sane suggestions by the elders and even from the mystical sorcerer Krishna. He was truculent, wanted war and nothing else. The aftermath is well documented in the epic. It is said that Dhuroydhana would never have seen reason because he was consumed by hate and lust for power. These attributes were instilled in him and latched like limpets because the constellation of his birth star was such. That he will have to fall! And hence he could not be redressed by reason and wise discourse. A wise head on those massive shoulders ought to have helped the man see reason and the safety net of a via media and détente. He and his retinue of brothers could have kept the chunk of the kingdom. But that was not to be, he invited wrath and chartered his and the elimination of his clan.

Don’t we see many a similar fate invited with ticker tape parade by many men in high places, Kings, Presidents, despots, and dictators of varied hues?  Manifestation of celestial alignments or otherwise, Man has often displayed bêtise and to great repercussions.

An astute strategist Adolf Hitler refracted on his pact of non aggression with Russia and attacked her. His army went deep into the Russian country and eventually was decimated by the harsh reality of Russian winter and her fire power. The collateral damage was the combined assault of the allies from the south and the west. The rest is history.

In the 1970s Sergeant Samuel Doe led a military coup in Liberia. It is said that on his way to power he killed the then President by disembowelling him while asleep. As it usually happens to despots he was impervious to reason and finally nemesis caught up when he was arrested after a coup d’état by his former accomplice. One can watch on “you tube” the execution of Samuel Doe. He was mutilated and killed. Alignment of the stars at his birth?

In contrast Iddi Amin one of the most infamous and notorious of African despots , who was quoted saying that human flesh was like Sushi and delicious. He was in fact a modern day cannibal. But when it mattered most he chose the wise way of vanishing to the sanctuary of the Islamic Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where he lived a comfortable life well into his eighties.

And well in recent memory the despot of Babylon, Saddam Hussein was impervious to reason and sanity, that he chose the path that ensured his destruction. A haven and sanctuary for him with his booty was not a distant possibility, if he had agreed to relinquish his despotic hold on the country. But that was not to be. He was blind to reality of the American fire power and that decimated him and his cronies whole sale.

The harsh sandy desert soil may not have set in his grave, and it looked that Muhammad Ghadaffi was obstinately insistent that he must end violently, and seemed he craved for it. And he did meet the horrendous fate. There was ample opportunity for him and his clan to relinquish power and vanish into oblivion in some tax havens. But again, was it some strange combination of lack of reason, he went the oft trodden path of deluding in his invincibility?

It is said that the ides of his stars could not be resisted, that the demon king Ravana kidnapped the princes Sita. He was reticent to his brother’s pleadings to send back the kidnapped damsel and befriend the warrior prince Rama. The “Ides of March” had to be bewared of. But not, he did!

Is it a desideratum that Man must blame the stars for the ills that befall him? Beware of the Ides of March!

To Sir, With Love

My first teacher was a woman who lived near my house. She was a tutor in a Government primary school. I remember her coming home daily for an hour to teach me and my sister. I must have been about five. Memory is a shade sketchy, though. She taught us the first lessons in language- Malayalam and simple Arithmetic. We then had a writing tablet- the slate, we wrote with the chalk & slate- pencil and used the ubiquitous (those days) “Mashi thandu”shrub to wipe and erase the slate clean.

The next person who taught me was again a woman. Saroja (Saroja teacher).She was in her twenties and lived near our house. She was a Brahmin and we (me, and my sister) were treated to fabulous Tamil dishes- sweets, savouries, bajis, paniyarams etc when we went to her house to attend  classes. She taught at the same school  we studied- Holy Angels Convent School. She taught me through my first standard to the fourth. The wonderful thing about going to her house for tuition was the collection of comics her brother had. I was initiated into the fantastic collection of comics of the Phantom , Tarzan, Flash Gordon, Casper the friendly Ghost, Riche Rich and Mandrake the Magician. There was a huge  collection of comics  in that house. Her delinquent brother who apart from reading comics, having sumptuous food and blasting hell a lot of crackers for Deepavali did nothing much. He was a drop out! She used to be annoyed when I used to devour the comics between classes . She exclaimed that language was not grammatically perfect in comics, and may actually damage the development of a child’s language skills. Her big sister was always around to mollify her so I was let read those fascinating comics.

I think I can recall that it was from the third standard and parallel to the classes at Ms Saroja’s, I and my sister were also sent to the middle aged Ms E. Sawyer who lived opposite our house across the street. She was Anglican by descend (not the Anglo Indian) and a spinster. She coached us English. Ms Sawyer had a parrot called Polly that spoke English words fairer than we did. Many years after, I visited Ms Sawyer who had moved away and lived in a different part of the town. But now I notice that someone else live in the place she moved into. I ‘m sure she must be about one hundred and more if she is alive today She was the quintessential English woman, mysteriously marooned back in the sub continent.

Mr Sankaranaryana Iyer was the headmaster of a local government High School. He was in his eighties when he began to come home alternate days to teach me and my sister. He was gifted in English, Mathematics and array of subjects. The couple of hours he spent with us were enlivening. He let us feel that we were on a discovery and never coerced to study. He had a special knack in imparting knowledge and making us even question him. I still remember him going about the Second World War, the war time Prime minister Mr Churchill, De'Gaul and so on in the midst of his class in the nonsense subject called “Algebra”. That made me forget the anguish of studying Algebra. In the course of those classes he spoke about many matters , perhaps to keep our interest alive in the subjects he taught. No room for ennui ! He was of the opinion that learning must be a fascination and not a bitter pill forced down the gullet. He taught me from the fifth standard to the eight. Years after, when I was out of college and employed, I went to see him a few times at his house in Sreevaraham, Thiruvanathapuram.. He was then in his late nineties, but alert, and recogonised me. The last time I met him was at his son’s house, he was quite frail and was quite unsure of who I was. He died a few days after.

The memorable moment of my life- a moment when we met after almost ten years is etched with ample goose bumps. Before that, I last saw him when I went to his small apartment in my old High School to seek his presence at my wedding. He was the chief warden and retired from active duty as a teacher. The School authorities, as token gesture of gratitude and in there graciousness offered him the warden’s job after he retired, and provided him a room next to the boarders block in the school to live in. He was a bachelor, and his only relative, his mother had passed too. He was a revered figure; a man of average height, had a thin steady frame and bald. The long white beard, ocher dhoti and kurta gave him the appearance of mystic. Perhaps everybody who became mattered or not in Thiruvananthapuram society and who was educated at the Government Model High School Thiruvanathapuram have gone through his tutelage.

It was the morning of my cousin’s wedding which took place in Thpuram. The traditional reception that was accorded to the groom was on at the gates of the mandapam. And I was accompanying my cousin brother in the short procession into the Mandapam. I noticed this old man of thin frame and flowing white beard and simultaneously he, me. He shrieked as if it was a war cry and came running to me with outstretched hands. ”Eda Anil..ey” (Dear Anil). He hugged me in one mammoth bear hug -vice like grip and I in reflex responded by lifting him up. There was  tears brimming in his eyes. It was indeed one of the greatest pleasantness and fortune to be embraced by a teacher when meeting him after many years and time. He was the family friend of the bride and was their special guest. The whole crowd of men, women and children who were witness to the event, were dumbstruck and did not know that it was the unrestrained  affection showered by a teacher on r a former student and a lousy one at that. He was Mr. Narayana Kurup, and was known by the moniker “Kurup Sir”.

He peacefully  passed away some years sgo . He died while having food at a local restaurant.

To “Sir with love!”

The Electrician

Someone, look alike of Oliver Twist peeping from outside the main gate of my office. He was seen standing outside with confused but eager look, and I noticed him through the day when ever I ventured out.

The next morning, the watchman came in to my cabin and enquired if he can permit a boy to come in and that he wants to have word with me. Also that he was persistent that he was hanging around the gate since yesterday and would never go.

I remembered the chap I noticed the day before. I asked the watchman to send him in. He came in rather timid watch full but unsure of his next step forward, rather furtively- whether he should make it or not. He was certainly a late teen version of Oliver Twist- the image that we have seen in the work of Dickens. He wore khaki trouser, but no footwear. His long sleeved shirt was dirty and slightly open at seams. His hair was dirt brown and looked altogether not cocooned in a healthy comfortable living.

He was from a village south of Tamilnad, beyond Madurai. He has been in the city for a few days now and his hunt for livelihood was fruitless. He indeed looked distraught and famished. I asked him what work he could do. He pulled out a multiple folded plastic cover from inside his trouser pocket and took out a certificate which was almost in tatters. It said that,”Subu Raj …. Is approved Electrician in grade…” And that he has passed the Electrical curriculum from ITI.

SubuRaj reported to duty at 8. And precisely, the next morning. He was in a different clean trouser and shirt, but crumpled. He was bare footed. I called him sometime in the day and told him that he will have to compulsorily wear leather footwear while he is on work. I remember giving him a little advance for immediate personal chores.

He married in a year’s time. And I understood he lived with his young wife in a rented dingy room near the factory. He proved to be a fantastic worker. He had this keen sense and uncanny ability to handle electrical works, installations, trouble shoot, and all with élan, perfection and neatness. There was no hanging wires not tended points and all the haphazard matters typical of electrical works we often see in many places. I never had a breakdown in the factory and office while he was around. He eagerly ran errands for other members of the staff and fixed their electrical works in their homes.

He did a perfect and professional work in the new factory premises we wanted to commission. Later C asked him if he could do the electrical plan for the 4 acre plot we bought and wanted to build a small house amidst a jungle of trees. He planned things so wonderfully that in no time we planted some four hundred trees on the land. He did a wonderful work in electrifying various points on the land, drip irrigating every sapling. There was a small shack that was built on a corner of the plot, where tools and electrical mains were installed. Suburaj was asked if he would to stay there in the night. He was at ease. We lived some five kilometers away.

One morning around 7’o clock, I and C was on the verandah sipping tea and scouring the daily. The phone rang inside, and C took the call. I went in hearing C give a howl. She turned to me holding the phone and said,”Suburaj is dead, he hung himself.”

I soon began getting calls from other guys in the office. Some were already at Suburaj’s dingy home. They told me that he went back to his room after the night shift around 3 am. He even had tea in the way side shop and chatted with the guys loitering there, smoked cigarettes. He told them he will be back by 8 after dawn. And at 5 in the morning his sister-in-law who lived next doors along with two of her brothers went past his room and seeing the door open she peeped in to see the poor fellow’s body hanging lifeless from the ceiling. No one could tell what transpired in Suburaj’s brain between that short while from the teas shop to his hanging.

I asked the guys to inform the police and ensure that all help is extended to his brothers –in law to transport the corpse to their village. I promised to be there as soon as the policemen took charge.

At 8 am I stopped by the office to speak to the crowd of workers who gathered in shock. I got a call then from one of the staff that Suburaj’s corpse has been taken by the brothers- in law in a Taxi to their village. And that they were in a hurry. The police wanted the sub-inspector to be present before they could visit the scene. I was shocked at the haste and the lack of legal formalities. No autopsy, no police records. It can bring me trouble as he was on my payroll. I called the police station to record my anguish and complaint at the total lack of legal formalities. I suddenly felt something odd and expressed it to the policeman who attended my call. He said,” Why must you worry? The chap is dead, killed or extinguished himself and found in his place. Nothing happened in your premises. Let us not bother much. You take care of your matters. We have a lot of work to do than run after a dead man.”

Suburaj was not cremated in his village but buried and the same evening. I was told his uncle wanted it so.

His uncle a middle aged man came to my office one day and spoke to me. He said that he tried in vain to get the local police to exhume the body for an autopsy. And that he was certain the Suburaj was killed and then hung. He was adamant that the foul play was perpetrated by the two brothers in law.

Later it transpired that Suburaj was having a liaison illicit and amorous with his young sister in law (wife’s sister) who lived next doors. And his wife was upset with the matter and she went back to her village. And that Suburaj used to take his sister- in-law to the shack on our land for his amorous extremities. The brothers in law were furious that they could not dissuade either of them and struck on the plan to put an end to the man himself. I sat listening to all the matters in dazed attention.

 And even when his wife and infant son came with her brothers to collect his pending salary money, and dues, I could only mechanically sit and listen to the eulogies his brothers in law reeled out about him. When they were departing, I commented,”Suburaj did not kill himself, he was murdered and then hung.”

I Did Not Know What to Tell

                   The School Flat with the Chapel

The first time I travelled without shackles- without the company of someone from home was when I and a few delinquents sneaked out on a train journey to Quilon some 70 kilo meters away from Thpuram. We went to the beach there and loitered before eating a good platter of mutton curry and parattha.I must have been sixteen or there about. It has been stifling times at home, more because I was a rebellious character. Perhaps it is better to rephrase and say, a different sort of fellow unusual for a conventional family with quite conservative leanings in tune with the establishment. I ceased to be religious in the conventional sense, no temple and Providence  from that age, was questioning everything including the existence of God or even he himself if he were real; began to be fascinated with skeptical readings in literature. Rebelled against the diktat from home to keep away from friends etc as they thought friends were bad influence, even the good ones next doors. In the bargain I landed with some unsavory elements to the great distress of my mother.

I dreamt about a life in the boarding. While in college I was in awe about the fellows who lived in the boarding. The College hostel was tucked in the midst of a rubber plantation and we used to venture there during recess. It was a different fantastic world. But I knew that my yearning will be still born as I hailed from the same town.

When years later, we had to decide to admit A in a school away from the town we lived, the only option was to put him there as a boarder. Constraints of our work , besides lack of good educational infrastructure in that town we lived then, gave us no room to manoeuvre and the option was to put him in that distant school in Ooty as a boarder. He was then going into the first standard. The agony that we went through, and the distress and lost feeling him as little child went through then, are still painfully alive in memory. Both the children growing up were given enough room to manouevre, and freedom to tell us, talk to us anything and everything. I was keen that they must not feel the constriction I felt when I was their age. They still enjoy the freedom and we hope they make intelligent and conscientious use of that.

There were interesting alumni there. People who came back with their children.  One day during our visit to the school we saw this guy in his forties hugging the huge pine tree near the hostel of the primary class laughing with tears in his eyes. He later confided that he was a parent and it was to this tree that he used to go to while he was border during his bouts of loneliness and home sickness. He said he used to hug the tree for long and feel comfort.

The school was not an elite institution fees wise, as well as by way of philosophy and motto. It was an institution that was begun by an English clergy man some seventy five years ago. With both our children doing their schooling from the first standard there, we can confidently content that their formative years were well taken care by the institution. Now to hope that they carry those things of value they imbibed from there through into their lives.

A, passed out his twelfth from there four years ago. He was the Head Boy in the final year. And being an active participant in various activities especially music and dramatics he was in the elite group fancied by the Principal and the faculty. But strangely the relationship of the whole class with the Principal turned sour towards the fag end of the term. The Principal was a strict disciplinarian and that may have turned the tables on the boys and girls of the twelfth who were all in a rebellious age in their lives. The precarious times when one is not a child, but is neither an adult though one wants to be noted so.

A’s class mate and chum,G, as this boy may be called was a happy go lucky sort of fellow with occasional exploits and fond of girls. The Principal had notified that if found in sneaking on conducts considered unsavoury, dismissal from school, or confinement to the school hospital tucked up far in the campus for other infractions will be certain. Infractions such as carrying a tuck, pocket money, cell phones in the locker for instance.

A, used to tell us his apprehension when he was home on short breaks from school. That G is being recalcitrant and may land up in serious trouble. He was warned by A to avoid his flirtations. He did not want an incident to mar the year. But G being the glamour boy for some girls, A was in a quandary. G was too indulgent! One night during the group study, G and his girl friend were hauled from the garden nearby. It was the Gorkhas who busted the matter. News reached A, and he slapped G for the infringement. The Gorkhas refused to hush up the matter. The lid was blown and G was dismissed. The Principal smelt that the matter was going on for some time and he was furiously cross with A for not revealing it. A was adamant during the enquiry and the threat to strip him off the Head Boy badge, that he was not aware. The Principal did not believe him. He mentioned the matter to me, while I met him to collect A’s mark sheets and certificates after the examination results were published. I felt quite miffed when the Principal covertly aired the accusation to me. I felt cross with A. It was the feeling a father would have when someone accuses his child of infarction and misconduct.

I could only tell the Principal that I will enquire with A.

When I confronted A, he said, “Yes I knew about G’s relationship. I even hit him and tried to discipline him. I forewarned him of the peril should his conduct be known. The whole class was aware of how I took him to task and reprimanded him often. But if the Principal wanted me to be a snitcher, well no, I cannot be one. G is my friend, he may have done wrong. But I cannot disown him and compromise him. Not over even the threat of my dismissal or stripping me off the badge of the Head boy."

I did not know what to tell.

     A, & friends getting ready for the farewell dinner ( 2008)