As the new capital of Madhya Pradesh was announced in 1956, there followed soon the development of a new township with its well planned roads, parks and government residential quarters that posed a marked contradistinction to the old, congested, Nawabi city that Bhopal heretofore was. This event was followed by the announcement of the huge industrial suburb, in line with Prime Minister Nehru’s vision, of the Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited where some 18 thousand workers were employed. The BHEL was even more tidily developed than the new Bhopal area. New government schools had come up but it was thought that for the high officials of the state government as well as that of the BHEL that these government schools, most of which had Hindi as their medium of instruction, would not serve the purpose. Thus the government allocated sizeable tracts of land to educational missionaries and there came up new schools, separately for boys and girls.
Our story concerns one such boys school which we may call the ‘Modern School’ and the times which we are talking about are the 80s. To secure admission to the Modern School was a dream for most denizens of the city. Its fee, though not prohibitively high, would yet call for some adjustments elsewhere in the monthly budgets of most middle class families. But the real obstacle in admission lay elsewhere. Not only did the school conduct a rigorous entrance test but subsequently interviewed both the candidate as well as the parents. It had to be ensured that the parents themselves were reasonably educated or else – it was thought – how would they ensure that their wards met the exacting standards of learning which also included rigorous and regular home assignments? Admittedly some exceptions had to be made in the admission process. Since even an educational institution with lofty ideals needs money to run and grow, some allowance was made for children whose families could make handsome donations to the school in cases where their children were not found meritorious enough to make the cut.
The school had a number of buses plying across the city which brought the students as well as some teachers sharp on time. The buses started their route from the farthest location and as they approached the later stops (those close to the school) students did not get any seats and had to stand holding a bar. A few buses had too many children standing and when a concerned group of parents sent a letter employing the metaphor that the children were often packed as sardines, the school authorities took serious affront and asked the guardian group to send an apology letter.
It was mandatory that the students conversed with the teachers only in English. Many children were overawed by the teachers who seemed to be figures, very different from.uncles or aunts they had seen in their families or neighbourrhoods. This often created an environment which led to strange happenings – like cases of children in lower grades, with their bladders heavily tested, frantically waiting for the period to get over, as they could not muster the courage of interrupting the teacher in the middle of the class to seek permission to go to the toilets. The difference between home and the school could not have been sharper.
The central character in our story is a boy named Pradeep – his father was an upper division clerk in one of the government departments and it was only through merit that Pradeep secured his admission in Grade 5. Before that Pradeep had studied in a less coveted private school and had consistently been the class topper. He had an elder sister and a younger brother who too studied in the other school.
On the first day of joining the new school his mother placed a small Ganesha idol in his pencil box. Pradeep then walked with his duck back school bag to the bus stop. At the bus stop stood four or five students along with a lady teacher and Pradeep through an admonishment was soon made to learn that the first thing one had to do at the bus stop was to greet the teacher.
That year Pradeep’s mother had largely been in indifferent health. A modestly educated housewife, she had been in amd out of the local government hospital – Jayprakash Hospital, named so after the ’77 elections. While at home, she usually felt weak and weary and this naturally created some housekeeping problems. Often in the school tiffin Pradeep could only take slices of bread with jam, while other children brought a variety of items like poha, upama, aalo-paratha, idli etc. The children usually inattentive in the class, through some inexplicable psychological process, exercised high attention towards what others brought in their tiffin-boxes, sometimes to the extent that the tiffin became an inseparable part of the child’s identity. Nicknames like ‘Idli Raveendran’ or ‘Dhokla Parekh’ were common.
It was usual for a new student, coming from a lesser school, to find himself a little intimidated in the new environment of the Modern School. Pradeep’s case was no different. For quite some time, he had been quite inconspicuous in his class. The students who had been in the school kindergarten onwards were more vocal in communicating with the teachers in English. Pradeep was thus slow to get his act together. His scores in the first trimester were not good as in his earlier school he was not familiar with simple score-enhancing techniques, like underlining key words with scale and pencils, which he discovered were almost customary in the new ambience he found himself in. Slowly he gained confidence and the scores in the second trimester were much better. For the first time, the class-teacher, Miss Sudeepa Gupta, took notice of him.
In the junior grades the school ran on the concept of class teacher who taught most of the subjects. Except for games and physical instructions, all teachers were lady teachers. Miss Sudeepa, Pradeep’s class-teacher, took all classes except Hindi and Art and thus most of the hours were spent in her company. While teaching her favourite story, Tagore’s ‘Kabuliwala’ she remarked that whenever she read the story, her eyes welled up. It was her custom to have the reading of such texts done by the students – each student reading the lines of a certain character. The teacher would give cues to express appropriate emotions which reading of a certain passage required. This would make the story classes very engaging to all.
The school, and each class in turn, was divided into three groups called ‘Houses’ and all students across the grades were assigned a House. In a Day-school, the concept of a House hardly meant anything of substance, it had always been an Indian imitation of the British ‘preparatory schools’ which were all boarding schools. It was only during occasions like sports or cultural meets that the House spirit really came to fore when the aggregate performances of all participating students of each House were tallied and trophies handed out to winning one. After every trimester new House Captains were selected from each class.
In the beginning of the final trimester, when the students of the ‘Blue House’ stood to be surveyed by the Class-teacher for the selection of ‘house-captain’, some faces beamed with hope and enthusiasm while some others knew well that they did not have a chance in hell. When Pradeep felt Ms. Sudeepa’s eyes pausing at him for longer than what he was ready for, his heart skipped a beat. “Why don’t we make a new boy,” – that was the term employed for those who joined the school that year – “the captain.” Let us give the chance to Pradeep. The badge of ‘CAPTAIN’ went to Pradeep which he was expected to wear on his tie everyday.
Pradeep happily showed the badge to hsi mother and siblings, the sign of his first success at the new school. His father too was happy in his usual undemonsrative way. The badge could be either pinned on to the tie or stitched. Pradeep’s mother wanting to exercise greater safety stitched it and from the next day it was a different Pradeep walking around the school premises, conscious almost all the time of the badge he wore.
The role of a house-captain entailed a few regular tasks like checking, on a daily basis, each boy’s pencil box – whether it carried the stipulated items of two pens, a pencil, an eraser, a sharpener and a ruler, whether during the morning school assembly each boy had his shirt neatly tucked in, task of selecting a boy to read the daily news during the first hour and write ‘Daily Words of Wisdom’ on the blackboard. Like other fellow captains, Pradeep too began to perform this task in dutiful earnest.
About a fortnight later, Pradeep’s mother suffered another illness. She was restricted to bed for most of the time. As a result Pradeep had to go for school for four days in succession in the same school dress. His shirt had marks of ink and was unironed but he still had to do the captain’s task. Miss Sudeepa noticed him and was aghast to see his dress. “Wearing this dress, you are checking the tidiness of your house,” she shouted. He could not say anything in response. The teacher too did not ask for any reason for his condition. “I can’t have such a boy as a house-captain. Remove the badge and give it back.”
The first period of Geography had started. Pradeep was struggling to take the tightly stitched badge off his tie. He was desperately attempting it, and in between his mind was faintly hearing the words like GDR and FRG as the students looked at the map of Europe in their Oxford School Atlas. Within a few minutes the badge got completely disfigured and Pradeep suspended his efforts.
As the class finished, Ms. Sudeepa called for the badge. Pradeep stood up and again started making efforts to get it off. The teacher came forward and looking at the badge’s condition, her temper flared up “Fool, don’t you have any brains, did not you realise that when you stitched, it could only be removed with a pair of scissors. This badge is of no use now. You bring ten rupees tomorrow covering the cost of one such badge.” Pradeep heard a few giggles from his classmates.
While returning home in the school bus, he took the tie off and reaching home cut the badge off his tie. He tried his best to put the badge back in shape. He thought that the badge was now looking quite alright. In case the class-teacher did not accept it, he also sought the sum of ten rupees from his mother on the pretext of the sports meet fee.
Before the first hour began, he returned the badge to Ms. Sudeepa. “This badge would be of no use now,” she repeated what she had said the previous day, though in a more mellowed tone. Pradeep then gave the ten rupee note to the teacher which Ms. Sudeepa listlessly accepted.
For next few days, Pradeel put the tie on only on his way to the bus stop and again removed it on the return bus trip. After about ten days of the incident, Pradeep, a little lax with passage of time put on his tie just while leavinh for the bus stop, his elder sister who was oiling her hair in the courtyard outside asked, “where is your captain’s badge?” “That role was for a month. It’s over now,” he said in a lackadaisical manner, trusting her sister not to have remembered the day of his appointment. Saying this he walked out with an air of nonchalance.