How many of you have never ever got a beating in their whole of life. Beatings from your teachers when you were in school, beatings from your parents when you were still not ready to go to school or whatever sort of beating. And, all those who are nodding their head silently or jumping with pride ,in response to the above question…GET OUT. Stop right here, close your browser windows and do not dare read what’s written in this sad sad post of mine.
My life has been an exciting one, mostly before school and during school days. 4 years of college were also pretty exciting. And although i was universally known and accepted by my parents and my teachers and professors as some sort of a genius and that too an intelligent one at that, i have always been involved in a lot lot more tragedies, got more beatings and scoldings, than other intelligent guys of my age generally got. 12+ years of school were full of painful beatings from i guess at least more than half the teachers i had at school. In fact, there was a time in my early childhood, when i thought that my registered name was either “GET OUT” or “SHUT-UP”. My teachers it seemed knew me by only these names.
Like when the English teacher hit me on my knuckles with a wooden scale. I think it was class 3rd. And this particular English teacher had a reputation for hitting on the knuckles of juvenile kids with a wooden scale. Rumor had it that she had broken the hand of one such kid, and although no one had ever seen the broken kid, we were all terrified of her. She even looked like a devil, i thought.
So one fine day she walks into the class, tells us to open our registers, and goes on to dictate four topics, one for each page. They were pretty trivial topics, you know the postman and the milkman types. I got a bit over-involved in sharpening my new pencil or something (we still wrote with pencils those days), and by the time i was ready with my pencil, registers were shut and textbooks were open. So i had to quickly just note down the topics and open the textbook for study.
After school i went home and after a rather short period of play, sat down for homework. So i opened the 4 topics, and stared at them for some time. 4 topics, one on each page, i wondered. Then i stared at the wall in front of me. 4 topics, what was i supposed to do with them, i wondered. The teacher definitely didn’t tell us to do anything. So i just continued staring at the blank wall and the 4 blank pages interchangeably for about an hour, till my mom intervened and broke the silence, with a piercing yell. After that i just closed the register and did my other homework.
Next day, English class, Teacher walks in. “Open the 4 essays”, she roars. “What essays?”, i squeal to my partner who sat next to me. She was too terrified to speak however, but i got the hint, that the 4 topics were essays to be written as homework. And then, i got a few wooden scales on my bare knuckles with only a couple of other dim-wits in class, followed by a “GET-OUT”. How does that not come under child abuse, pray tell me. I was only in class 3rd then.
Such beatings continued over the years. I got beatings from the child-hating teachers and the peace-loving teachers as well. I managed to get a few tight slaps in Sanskrit too, generally believed to be the most peaceful of all subjects. I hadn’t done my workbook, as i had a few doubts. But i had already been slapped right and left, before i could even tell my doubts and a high-pitch “SHUT-UP” thrown at my face. I totally forgot all doubts after that, and i got a few more slaps for that too.
Even the games teacher with an obvious drinking problem, got to clear his hands on me. It was a cloudy day outside, so we were having an indoor session. And obviously kids will do mischiefs when left to do so. Next, this teacher comes to my seat, bends me down, and delivers a full punch on my back with a bang. For a few minutes, it was total darkness, and the stars seemed brighter than the moon in front of my eyes. One solid punch it was. The class fell silent after that. I guess, that was his intention after all. Unfortunately i was the chosen one for the experiment.
One major beating that i or we got, came in class 7th. You see,there was this rather tall, hunk of a teacher whom we generally referred to as Peter Gomes – The Killer (named after a rather cruel Englishman who supposedly did a lot of atrocities on indians, in a popular sitcom back then). So his reputation always preceded him everywhere. In a way it covered up the fact that he wasn’t such a great teacher of mathematics at all. But no one dared to question him, leave aside stand up to him. He had his own torture methods, like pinching hard in the armpits, slapping us hard in the face as he would ask us kids,”Kutub Minar dekha hai?” and making us run 3 laps of our huge playground in the name of fitness. So you see, we all simply dreaded him and to top it all, he was my class teacher(which meant i had him for more time than the other sections). But the worst was yet to come.
One fine lunch period, i and my group of friends, brought a pack of WWE Trump cards, a huge hit those days, to school. We were pretty excited and we played it the whole 30 mintes of lunch period. We were just kids then. But tragedy struck, 2 periods after lunch. We were in the middle of an English class, when in walked The Killer. Along with him was the guy whom we had refused to let play with us, in the lunch period. So, the 4 kids(including me) who were involved in our innocent trump card game were summoned to the front of the class, our charges were read out to us and we were sentenced to an undecided punishment. It started off with a few slaps from the English Teacher whose class it actually was. Of course, The Killer gave us everything he had, slaps, pinches, all of it. We were then taken to each of the 4 sections of our class, and were given beatings from all the teachers whom we found in those sections. We were then made to kneel down in front of our class, and our class teacher(The Killer), ensured that evey teacher who passed our way, did give us atleast one slap. I think , all 5 of us got at least 20-25 slaps each, that very day. Those slaps are still fresh in my head, my cheeks rather.
The class girls , ofcourse had to tell everything to my mom who came to get me after school, even before i could reach my own mom. So, a few more slaps were received. One of the worst days of my life till date.
So, beatings continued. English-Hindi-Science-History-Geography-Maths, i scored everywhere. No wait, i think the History teacher was in love with me. She kissed me too. It was embarrassing though back then. But the other teachers continued with their beatings on me. I even got one tight slap from one senior most Maths teacher in the school, when i was skidding and rolling on the tiles of the floor with my friend, on the way to the toilet. I later learnt, that i was the first junior kid to ever get a beating from that particular teacher. Quite a distinction.
The last slap i got was in class 11th, when i had gone to call someone from the other class. In a particularly jovial mood, i had joked with the teacher present in the class, who turned out to be in a not-so-jovial mood. I got one slap, and the girls spread the news like wild fire to all other sections by end of day. Is that called being famous, or notorious. Anyways ,So, you see, i grew up in a rather tough environment, where each day was a challenge for me to survive without a beating. I failed on most days. The next task then was to ensure than mom never learnt about what happened in school. But thanks to the stupid girls of my school, i failed at that too on most days. But i guess, i grew tougher and all after each such beating.
That was how my childhood and school life got shape. Or rather lost shape, i would say. Life was tough for me, i tell you. And one of the biggest advantages of being a grown up is that you don’t get beaten up by your teachers by any stupid thing you do. You may be laughed at, mocked at, teased, scolded, but never beaten. That’s the charm of growing up. Or is it? So all grown up dudes and dudettes, all those who had the right to read this post, share with me the worst beating you ever had in school. I bet, that would be fun.
So what are you waiting for. I am waiting to hear your stories…
THE MIRROR 99 