Oh my God! This was the worst year of my life. Not only all the teachers have been so shrewd, but also that I too fell into strange things, got influenced by wrong things, and the result was that I was among the most punished students in the class. But, remarkably all the teachers that we got that year were really really bad. Almost all the classes used to begin in the similar way. Class monitor silently used to note down the names of the students who were involved in any kind of slightest indiscipline in the time period prior to arrival of the teacher in the class. On arrival of the teacher, he/she used to read the names of those students and the said students have to go upto the teacher. If it would be a boy, he would receive two strikes of the cane/stick on each of his palms, and would go on to become murga for rest of the period. And if it would be a girl, she would stand with hands up for the entire period. Needless to say, that I had my share of punishments in this way many times. But, I was growing older very fastly, and the sense of being a girl was fastly getting into. Those are the years, when girls prefer to stay in groups with girls only, and boys remain with boys. We generally develop a feeling of competition. So, that year if boys used to get punish, we used to enjoy. During my punishments also, I enjoyed if I would be standing next to a boy, who has been made murga because that way his head would be coming close to my feet.
As I said, all the teachers were bad that year, but most outstanding among them was a hindi teacher, who started teaching us from the month of October onwards. And in that period, he did not fail to punish our entire class in real strict ways, every fifteen days. I still remember the detail of each and every punishment he administered to us. Because, the narration of those stories would require another full post, I would describe here all the punishments administered to us by other teachers, and the ones by that Hindi teacher will be described in a separate post.
Let me begin with our social studies teacher, who was also our class teacher. So, she also used to start her period in the same way, by giving morning gifts of ‘four dandas” to some of the boys and telling them to become murga, and telling some of the girls to stand with hands up. Her strikes on the palm used to be real hard, especially in the months of winter. I have also been ‘lucky’ enough to stand with hands up many times. But, my most embarrassing moment came sometime late in that academic year. By that time, I had earned the reputation of a spoilt girl, after I bunked the school twice that year, and both time principal got to know of it (I will explain that later). So, I was talking of my embarrassing moment in social studies class. Once, late in that year, we were told to clean the class. Everybody was busy doing it, and madam was standing at the entrance of the classroom constantly talking to the teacher in next class. I entered in some conflict with the monitor of the class. Desperate, she walked upto the madam and complained of me. Madam called me, and very softly said, “murga ban ja”, with raising her eyebrow and lowering it down telling me “here itself”. I kept standing for a moment, watching the indifference in her eyes, and then followed the instructions. It was difficult to do so, but I had to obey her. I bent down, took my hands behind, raised my posterior, smoothing my skirt and with great effort stretched my arms so that they can reach upto my ears. My forehead neared madam’s feet and my butts hung in the air towards rest of the class. I stood miserably at the entrance of the class. For sometime I kept struggling, sometimes hanging my butts, and then sometimes lowering them down, relaxing. I could of course sense the enjoyment my classmates were drawing by seeing me standing so miserably. But, all this might not have been so embarrassing, had madam did not call a boy from the class later, and told her to simply stand near me facing the class as a punishment. This was the height of embarrassment for me in all the aspects. Myself being a girl- made murga, and he despite being a boy, simply standing. I had my butts facing the class, and he was standing towards the class. At that point of time, I was deeply crushed from interior, and just wanted all that to get over. I can still recall that moment very clearly, and can tell you for sure that after that punishment got over, I did not talk to anybody for rest of the day.
For three days in a week, second period used to be of SUPW, and for rest of the three days, it used to be of Sanskrit. Both the teachers were especially strict to boys. Most memorable punishment experience from SUPW class was a day when all the boys were made murga and girls were made to sit between them. We used to go to the ‘SUPW room’, which had no benches, and we used to sit on the carpet in such a way that in the middle used to be madam’s table and on one side used to sit boys and on the opposite side girls used to sit facing boys. SUPW teacher was a young beautiful girl, who always kept a wooden rule in her hand. In addition to being young and beautiful, she was also very clever. She often used to ask us for our hand to be spread out. She would take the ruler in the air as if it would be coming to our palm with great force, but instead at the last moment, she would slap us on the face with great force. As it used to come totally unexpectedly, we often used to lose our balance. Of the particular day, I was talking about, she made us arrange ourselves in an alternate way, where one girl would be standing between two boys, and one boy would be standing between two girls. And then she ordered the boys to become murga, and allowed us to sit down. And the scene thus appeared was really funny but enjoyable for us. I still cherish that scene. In a Sanskrit period that year, we were supposed to bring our completed project work for submission. But, at the last moment, madam enhanced the deadline for girls by one day. But, any boy who did not complete the project work was made murga with no excuse and had to carry two bricks on his back for the entire duration of the class. She labeled the punishment as ‘gadha’ and not ‘murga’, as they carried the load on their backs.
And then we had the mathematics teacher from Orissa. She used to look sweet, but she looked terrible with a ruler in her hand. The most terrible moments in her class used to be the ones, when she would be checking our notebooks. If it is your turn to get the notebook checked, then be sure that you would return back with tears in your eyes. For every mistake, she would hit you on your hands with her ruler. And if the number of mistakes would be too high, she might even tell you to stand in punishment. Punishments would vary as per the number of mistakes spotted in the notebook, but her favorites ones were kneeling down, toes touching and murga. She even had a characteristic way of using her ruler. To girls, she would hit in a routine way, asking for their palms and hitting them in the air. But to boys, she would tell to keep the hands open or inverted on the table, and would then hit them hard with her ruler. Her hits used to be so hard, that boys used to cry even on the first mistake. And they were really afraid, when she used to tell them to keep the hands inverted on the table. Thankfully, we girls always got it in the air that too on the open palm. I was once told to kneel down, when she found my homework very dirty. And another punishment that left the impact on us was the one when were all made to stand touching our toes for the entire period that too outside the class, exhibiting ourselves to students of other classes.
Almost every teacher that year had punished us at least once in such a way that we would not forget that. An interesting punishment was administered by drawing sir, who made us all to stand on the bench with hands up and then constantly he kept telling us funny things that was making us laugh, but we were told to keep the pin drop silence. Similarly, once we were told to stand holding our ears in the library.
Suddenly, something strange happened to me, and that changed the attitude of all the teachers towards me. Once, in the games period, just out of excitement, my friend Smita and me jumped the wall of the school and entered into a nearby office. We had heard that they have a real good canteen, where we can get tasty bread pakoras. In the excitement, we lost the track of the time and failed to realize that the games period was over and we should have returned to the class. By the time we returned back, the next period too was half over. Though, nobody noticed us jumping the wall either while going or while coming back, but the teacher in the class had already realized that our bags were there, but not us. She had already dispatched our bags to the principal room. When we reached to our class, and politely asked “May we come in?”, she only asked us for our palms to be straightened up. Nobody would believe me if I would say that we were strictly punished the same way as boys are punished. We got real hard strokes of a wooden ‘phatta’ on our palms (twice each), and mercilessly told to become murga. No explanations asked, no excuses offered. Even though, madam was busy teaching, she kept a vigilant eye on us. She did not allow us to relax our butts for more than two minutes. We were both trembling, and by that time we did not even know that our bags have already reached principal’s office. She kept shouting us every now and then till the end of the period. When the period finally got over, she told us to stand up. Our faces and our ears were completely red, and we were breathless. But, instead of having any mercy on us, she slapped both of us tightly some 2-3 times, making us look even more red. She then told us to walk with us to principal’s office and she even did not know by then that we had gone out of the school in the previous period. On reaching the principal’s office, we were first asked, where have we been? Unfortunately, we told the truth! That turned the entire scene against us. As the previous period was the games period, we were handed over to PET madam for further punishments. She found it to be a right opportunity to try all sorts of punishments on us and that too for rest of the day. We were made to kneel down in the playground with hands up for long duration under scorching sun. We were made to make two rounds of the playground with hands up. We bent down to touch our toes in the school ground itself and we made lots numbers of utthak baithaks. By the end of the day, we had received some 20-25 hits of ‘hockey’ everywhere ranging from arms to palms to butts to thighs to lower legs, everywhere. We had all our hairs untied, shirt coming out of the skirt and badly crushed down. We left the school with an instruction to call our parents next day. This meant, that we would have to share it at home also and receive further punishments at home also!
At home, embarrassment continued. First of all, parents were agitated that why they have been called in the school. On learning the mistake I had committed, I received a series of slaps from my mother. She kept pulling my ear, and kept slapping me. In the evening, when papa learned of the same, he too was very furious and told me to stand in one corner holding ears. Compared to the series of punishments I had received since morning, this looked relaxing. But, mummy was still furious, and she interrupted my calm by repeatedly using her chappal on my butts, while I was still in the punishment. Punishments at home were not very harsher that day, probably parents had realized by my face that how much I had already received in the school. However, next day in the evening, after my parents had a meeting with principal earlier in the day, my home too turned a hell for me. I had been to a unique punishment that day. I was told sit on the feet holding my ears, and then I was told to ‘hop’ (jump) all around the home. It was similar to frog leaps, except that the leaps had to be made with ears in the hands. It was damn difficult, and I was told to go jumping the same way to each and every room in the home twice. That took shit out of me. I was told by mummy that this was a Korean punishment, which is generally administered at homes. After my two rounds were over, I was told to hold the ears criss-cross and do utthak baithaks. Strangely enough, this treatment made me a ‘mutineer’ and instead of getting disciplined, both Smita and me vowed to do even worse thingssssssssssssssssssssssssssss.
So, very soon we bunked again. And this time not only the bunk was longer, but we too had gone to a greater distance from the school. And not only that, even the punishments too were harder this time. We had learnt from some boys in the class that there is a ‘farm’ of fruits nearby, where we would get very nice fruits on the trees. Even though, we would have hated to do such a thing at any point of time, but annoyed by the insensitive nature of our teachers and parents on the previous occasion, we decided to do bad things in life. So, alongwith four boys of our class one day, we ran away from the school to enjoy the ‘treat’ on a farm. Initially, we enjoyed the outing. We walked for some half an hour to reach upto the farm. On reaching there, we scaled the wall there itself to enter into the farm. It was like a jungle. Trees were dense and loaded with fruits- mostly peaches. Boys generally climbed up, and threw down the peaches for us. We were so happy that everything was going fine, but suddenly from nowhere the owner of the farm appeared. He was a fat and tall sardarji and looked like a demon. His voice was too heavy and with a single shout he managed to get us all lined up. He was holding a six feet long bamboo in his hand. Now, we were all terrified, and nobody could speak a single word to him. He simply told all those four boys to become murga there itself, and they strangely obeyed him. Nobody tried to run away from there. We had a chance to do so, but we did not do it. He brought a smaller danda and beat them all with it on their butts. He told both Smita and me to 25 utthak baithaks and we too obeyed him. Then he asked his staff to bring four pieces of ropes to tie the hands of the boys together. Boys resisted, but they were helpless. Then he made all of us to sit into his open jeep and drove us back to our school. We reached back in 10 minutes, but it appeared lesser. We were all terrified, and I was on the verge of getting a heart attack. That was the end of all the masti for all of us. He handed us all over to our principal. And we were all in for a strong dose this time. Boys still had their hands tied up. We were all told to line up in the ground and soon we were told to stand with hands up for the entire day. Some 3-4 teachers independently supervised us, and they all asked us for our palms to be caned. Invariably, all these supervising teachers- both PETs, class teacher and principal they all caned us independently. Next day in the morning, we were caned in front of entire school as well, and next day also we kept standing whole day with hands up. At the end of the day, we were handed over suspension notice for one week. We were all suspended from the school for one week. My ‘five friends’ too must have been ‘warmly welcomed’ for this achievement at their homes, but for me that one week was like a hell. Same day when I returned back from school, thanks to my brother, I was sentenced with ‘rigrous punishment’. It was decided that for one week, I would not come out of my room, unless there are natural reasons. No TV was allowed to me, and no bed was given to me. I had to sleep on the floor only for one week, and all I could get access of was my books. For next seven days, I daily had to do 50 utthak baithaks early in the morning in front of everyone at the home, and was also sentenced with at least one hour of murga and one hour of hands up daily any time during the day, when at least two members of the family can supervise me. But frankly, my punishment hours used to be the fun hours for rest of the family, they made me do it prior to dinner, when everybody would be at home. Nevertheless, this one week of embarrassment had a long lasting effect on me, and I had decided to not to do any such mischief ever again in my life.
Following this, I had earned real bad name in the school. I was among the worst girls of the school, and every teacher thought it to be his/her moral right and responsibility to punish Smita and me in the class. For any small mistake, which could have easily been forgone, Smita and myself were punished harshly. Minimum punishment for us was hands up. We often stood up on the bench, or knelt down, or touched our toes, or have even been made murga, just as I mentioned of my punishment by the class teacher in the beginning of the post.
And if you think, that I had enough of the punishments in the sixth class, then hold on. I haven’t even started mentioning of my hindi teacher and the tution teacher. 