“You play when I say you play. You study when I say you study. Follow what everybody else does here. Stick to the rules and you will be fine,” someone was announcing before supper. He was our duty teacher, Mr Khatri.
“Have fun, keep your head under the rules, and always remember one thing—no matter what you do, don’t try and mess with the system. As a duty teacher, it is my duty to look after you all, from the moment you wake up until you go back to bed again.”
“Sir, how long do we get to sleep?” popped a guy from the back.
“This is your first day, kid. I am surprised your dad didn’t tell you anything before he got you in here. Like I said, from today onwards you’ll follow the routine.”
It was a harsh reply. “You are part of a boarding school now. Try and enjoy it.”
That was two years ago. But in here, away from family, two years is a long haul. You get introduced to certain things by the end of the month. After the introductory course is over, get ready to succumb. Or in my daddy’s own words, get ready to straighten up!
“Kushal, do you need pocket money?” Mr Khatri inquires.
We’re eighty students in a big hall called the dayroom. Theoretically, a dayroom is common room in an institution where people socialise during the day. There is no ‘socialising’ for us though. We come here in the evenings to study. And on Mondays, like today, Mr Khatri distributes pocket money.
“Kushal? Didn’t you hear me?”
“Yes sir.”
“How much do you need?”
“Sir, thirty.”
“Thirty!
“Why thirty? Take ten.”
“Yes sir.”
“How much do you need?”
“Sir, thirty.”
“Thirty!
“Why thirty? Take ten.”
Kushal is reluctant for a moment but then he knows there is no point in arguing and asking for more. Can’t mess with the system. Moreover, Mr Khatri never ever gave more than ten rupees. They say our house captain got forty once, but I think that’s just plain rumour. It basically depends on your luck.
Pocket money. Funny term to denote one predictable ten rupee note. This word simply amazes me. Actually this whole place amazes me. When I had to go shopping once, Kushal amazed me too. It was a summer afternoon. I had to buy some clothes from outside and was heading towards the main gate. That was when Kushal saw me.
“You can come here anytime you like, but you can never leave.” he said.
“What?”
I could not help laughing. “Don’t kid yourself. This isn’t Hotel California!”
“Seriously James, you need an exeat chit to check out.”
“Where do I get that?” I was still thinking Kushal wasn’t serious.
“It’s easy. Tear a piece of paper and write down the format. Begin with name, roll, time and date. Then the usual ‘exeat chit’ in bold on the top. Ask the duty teacher to put his signature on it.”
“Well if that’s so, why not simply request my teacher to directly contact the gate over telephone?”
“I don’t know James. That’s not how the system works.” And he walked away, leaving me all by myself, amazed.
That’s not how the system works? Well, then how?
A flood of other formalities was waiting for me for I stumbled over a dozen species of other chits and soon discovered how the system worked. There was clinic chit to prove to the school clinic that you were ill. Tie chit as an excuse for not wearing tie. Chocolate chit that permitted you to eat chocolates. Birthday chit to celebrate. Slipper chit to wear flip-flops to the classroom. PE chit to skip physical education classes. Bed chit to take bed rest formally. Cell phone chit to possess mobile devices. And the most craved among all, the precious, exeat chit.
Boarding school consists of routine. Our routine begins with sharp blows of the karate whistle, scraping sounds of rushed toothbrush and paste, bread and omelette.
Then comes the hurdle of classes, in geometric progression, each one getting successively annoying by the day. That’s our routine.
We visit the dining hall four times every day. The most auspicious visits are those of Saturdays, Mondays and Wednesdays for evening supper—chicken days—as we all call them. But even if chicken days sound alluring, trust me, they aren’t.
Our table captain gets the best of us.
Some days, he punishes us unnecessarily. Instead of five pieces of chicken, we only get one. Instead of a handful finger chips, we get six or seven, not more. There is no pickle or soup, no yogurt either. And the red sweet that comes as dessert in the end, that goes directly to his plate on our punishment days. So we follow what we are supposed to follow. We quietly take orders from our table captain. We eat with minimum noise and maximum servility. Suspicious acts can lead to further curtailments.
Still, it is funny. No matter how much you kick ass, there comes a day when the ass kicks you. Maybe that’s what happened to our former table captain. In the end, the system got the best of him too. He was busy looting our share of oily chips and chickens and soup for a while. I guess there was enough oil to cost him unstoppable diarrhoea, two weeks of bed rest, and then later, he had to renounce the captaincy. After he was gone, we enjoyed full rations for a few days, until a new dominion began.
Back home, while I had it all, I never learnt what money, time and freedom were. In here, pocket money doesn’t come easy. An Orangeball or Lactofun make for a banquet; a ten rupee note is a gold mine. You have to wait until the following Monday to get ten more. Or if you can impress Mr Khatri, maybe you could break the record set by the house captain and dig out more than forty. And time and freedom? You simply can’t ask for that. Routine keeps you running in a treadmill.
“James?...James?”
Thoughts dissolve in an instant when I hear somebody calling my name. I am still in the dayroom. It’s my turn for the money. “
“Do you need? Pocket money?” Mr Khatri is on the top of his lungs. I know the drill.
“Yes sir. Only ten.” As if I have other choices.
The dayroom smiles. A crispy ten rupee note lands in my night dress pocket. I move back to my desk.
I guess I’ve got the hang of it.
The system. It becomes predictable over time.
Soon the bell will ring. Milk and biscuits will be served downstairs. People will make noises as soldiers do in wars, in local pubs, for a few drinks, as if they’ve never seen milk and biscuits before. We’ll make our beds, pull off the green bed sheets, unroll quilts and drop mosquito nets down. Mr Khatri will come for one last inspection. After everybody is in, the group captain will switch off the lights.
Then there will be darkness. No homework. No punishments.
No pocket money. No chits and no more quirks. Not a single obligation to fulfil. An unbroken stint of nine hours. Freedom.
- Anik Yadav
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