Rule 1
As a new boy, I had not a lot to do on the first day in the study hall. Junior school did not have a big study hall where all the students could fit. Senior school did. So instead we were packed into the same classrooms that were used during the day. Each classroom could hold about 50 pupils, but without the day-scholars (students who got to go home after 3:00 pm), there were only about 25 of us “boarders” in each classroom. The teacher or the matron in-charge of maintaining discipline from 5:00–7:00pm used the corridor to go from one class to the next which were lined along the second floor of the school building. I would later learn that one took allowances in deviating from the pin-drop-silence that was expected as we stared at our books in rapt attention depending on the personality of the one on duty. Some teachers commanded a deeper fear with the use of a cane, while some were more lax and would rarely use the corridor to move from one class to the next.
There we also grade 5 prefects who would shoulder some of this responsibility by the power vested in them by the teacher on duty. By any amount of force, it is a very difficult tasks to force the minds of seven to nine year olds to sit quietly in study for two hours. The last known sapiens who could do that were real Buddhist monks. But given that sitting silently for long periods was their life’s work, one could understand if despite the curtain of authority and the lingering possibility of corporal punishment, there were kids who would prefer to risk breaking the rules. Specially as dinner time approached.
That is what exactly happened. As the end of study neared, there was a murmur that grew louder in a domino effect of kids deciding to set their voices free with tiny whispers. This put the grade 5 prefect in a bad position. He was rapidly failing at his duty. He first tried a — “Boys, shut up!”. The murmurs reduced but only for a moment to come back even louder. Now the prefect had to try something more severe. So with all the force of his mind and then his vocal chords, he mustered a version of — “Shut up, bastards!” in the colloquial. As the “new boy”, I was taken aback at this. The use of a slang was abhorrent. I was sure that the other boy felt insulted too. So when the teacher on duty came on her rounds to the classroom I was currently sitting in, I fearlessly walked up to her to report the incident. The prefect was duly reprimanded. Justice.
But an uncanny silence appeared in the aftermath of this incident. A feather-drop-silence of sorts. Soon the study ended and students duly lined up in two rows in the corridor both height-wise and class-wise before they got the green signal to march neatly to the dining hall which was attached to the quadrangle. The quadrangle could be reached after crossing the first field (The playgrounds were numbered by their sizes). Due to the rules we were not allowed to talk as we marched down towards dinner. Only on entering the dining hall, and saying the grace at our assigned spot on one of the several dining tables that flanked the sides of a long aisle that cut through the middle could we sit down to eat and finally — speak.
My first interaction was with a boy who shook my hand and showed me the container where the rotis(Indian chapatis) were kept on the table. The conversation quickly shifted to the incident during the study period after names and information about hometowns was exchanged. On the table sat about 12 boys, 6 on either side. One could only talk to the closest four without stretching necks or raising voices. Those four, introduced me to the first rule of boarding school — “Do not sneak.”
“Sneak?”, I asked. And I was explained that sneaking was the act of telling on someone to a person of authority. The person who sneaked would carry the tag of a “sneaker”. “But the boy used a bad word”, I defended. “Doesn’t count”, I was told. No sneaking means no sneaking. We are all a united one. Sneakers were not tolerated. And as per legend, when the younger boys sneaked on the older boys, they would just wait till they reached the senior most class — grade 10. Upon with they would either become prefects or ask their prefect friends to use the power vested in them to make the lives of the sneaker miserable. They would round them up in a meeting room and beat them up.
Now I was starting to give way. My imagination had already leaped ahead to imagine the grown up version of the boy I had sneaked on, beating me in a conference room. I quickly snapped out of it and asked my newly acquired friends for counsel. Apologize to him, they said. I let that thought linger. We closed our plates with the fork and the spoon to signal that we were done eating. Dinner ended when a bell was sounded. Everyone stood up and when silence ensued the teacher on duty gave a cue for us to say the grace. We then quietly lined up outside again in rows of two to head to the locker room where we would change into our night suits — again in silence. And line up again before heading to the dormitory where we could talk a while before the lights were flipped out. At 8:30, it was lights out.
As I lay in bed, settling in from everything that had unfolded during my first day, I had a sinking feeling about this new adventure. I wondered how far my parents were in their journey back home. The winds clattered on the high tin roofs of the dormitory. It was early March and the heavy blanket that I lay under provided comfort. But that and laying horizontal, I realized are not enough components to fall asleep. At home, I usually went to sleep at 10–10:30. It would still be about an hour of lying quietly by myself before the needle of the clock and sleep arrived at that time. Thoughts of what my new friends told me continued to linger in my head.
It was not before the recess the next day that I finally had a chance to break free from the routine and walk up to the 5th grader prefect to apologize. To my comfort, I was let go only with a rejoinder about not repeating the mistake. My imagination replayed the episode of Where Sneakers Get Beaten in Meeting Rooms for a few seconds and I promptly nodded in ascension.
Not many days later, I got a chance to prove that I had really learned my lesson. After lights out in the dormitory, silence was to be maintained. The senior school warden did rounds for a while to ensure that was the case. In the silence of the dormitory, even whispers could be picked up. Yet, as the warden went between the junior school dormitory and the senior school dormitory, there were moments for whispers. The warden walked around with a torch in his hand. The light from the torch would give away when he was approaching as it lit up the walls of the dormitory. If one watched more carefully, the slight swinging of the light on the wall and its increasing intensity would be enough to estimate both the gait and rate of approach of the warden before you finally heard his footsteps.
If there were no footsteps for a while, and no light from the torch on the walls, it meant that the warden was either doing rounds of the senior school dormitory or had retired to his premises which was a small room attached to the junior school dormitory. At the present moment, there had been no sign of his approach. A murmur grew progressively louder as whispers compounded. When there was yet no sign of approach, a few 4th graders grew bolder. They decided that they had not expended their energy for the day and got out of their blankets to jump on their beds. One kid must have started it, a few others joined. Most of us lay low. And in their frolic, they were caught off guard. A familiar light switched on at the entrance of the dormitory. It did not move. Its intensity signaled arrival — not approach. The warden had stood there quietly with his torch switched off all this while. Letting this mania unfold. But in the dark of the dormitory there was no way for him to know the identity of the real culprits. To make matters worse, the 4th graders who were jumping on their beds just as quickly slipped back into their bed as the switching on of the torch.
What followed was that the warden walked in with footsteps that sounded angry. Even as he switched on the overhead lights over only the grade 4 section of the dormitory, he exclaimed — “I know who you are! Just step out.” No one moved. So he moved to the farther end of the dormitory and arrived in the section where the culprits were last spotted. “Class 4, own up!”, he said. No one moved. No sound was made. “Last chance, you know what is coming for you!”, he said in a louder voice and waited. And waited a little more. When no one reacted, he promptly went to his quarters in the dormitory and came back out with a hockey stick. “Class 4 — stand up on your beds”, we complied. “Do you want to tell me the names of the boys who were creating the menace?”. No one spoke. Rule 1 — sneaking was not allowed. We were all united.
“Ok, Turn around and bend down”. I trembled. I did not know what was coming. Punishment. But of what sort. It would hurt, but how bad? Everyone complied. The warden started from the bed at the farthest end, handing down a hockey stick hit to the buttocks of every 4th grader with a measured and practiced force. As he came closer and closer to my bed, my anticipation grew. I was bracing myself for what I knew was coming. I was imagining the pain, calming my fear. Holding my bent down position which was getting uncomfortable. And then I was hit, like the guy to the left of me and the guy to the right of me. I experienced a sharp pinching pain which lingered. It was absolutely uncomfortable to be hit in the March cold almost before falling asleep. It was more difficult to keep the bent position without flinching or exclaiming. Short exclamation were allowed. But any gasps longer than a few seconds were shut down by the warden.
After going through the entire grade 4, the warden gave us instructions to go back to sleep. The lights were turned out again and discipline was restored. I lay in bed, still recovering from the sharp pain of the hockey stick hit. The situation felt helpless. You were not at fault. But, endurance was the only key. There is nobody you could go to. Nobody you could turn around and talk to. You could not swallow it all, and when the pain and the insult subsided, will yourself to slumber. I realized this whole thing was a mistake.
