Vinasha Kaale Vipareetha Buddhi - Part 4 - 5th Standard

The ink incident was after all a precursor for the days to come. There would be even worser incidents that would change my whole outlook towards a lot of events. However they didn't involve me personally to a great extent and have therefore decided to skip mentioning them here. However one incident that did involve me and taught me a lot of lessons that I have never forgotten is the 'bath' incident.

It goes like this. Dileep, Dinakar(Chikka) and me and another guy I don't remember used to have fun in the bathrooms after the games period, and just before bhajans. We used to clean up the sink kind of basin that people used to use for brushing, block one end with a cloth, and open all the taps to fill it with water. Once filled, we used to use it as a swimming pool. Also, the hot water tap used to be used to fill bucket after bucket, and simply splash it all over the floor between the bathrooms and the toilets, to get it all cleaned up, to begin skating on the floor, knee-skating to be precise.

And the middle bathroom, we used to block the exits from both sides and start filling water, so we, Jai Sai and Jigmee could use it as a bigger swimming pool. Everyday we used to rush in 15 minutes before games got over and start filling it so that we could enjoy for atleast half-an-hour before bhajans. Jai Sai, Jigmee and Rohit Parmar would jump into the middle bathroom and splash around, while Dileep, Chikka and I would enjoy outside, playing knee-skating and waddling in the smaller pool(well I settled for it because I never knew swimming(and I still don't) and besides my efforts at trying it have always failed).

Lots of seniors(big brothers) would take offence to it because we didn't spare anybody, but we were left unharmed only because Jigmee and Jai Sai also happened to be there. Whoever came in got a splashing welcome of a bucketful of water on them. So people would enter from the other door and get through with their work and leave as fast as possible. We always used to have a lookout in the beginning because we used to enjoy till the last moment, and maams' would always come into the dormitories to herd all the guys for bhajans. So we used to take turns being the lookout.

However after about 2 months of such fun and frolic, not a single maam came upto the bathrooms and so we stopped caring about the lookout job. One fine day(or rather fateful day), we were enjoying as usual, when 'Tall' Parvathi amma came inside the bathrooms and in our usual style we saw somebody was entering and we just emptied a bucket on her. Flabbergasted, she screamed at all of us to stop and ran out. We had a good laugh and continued playing. I was just coming out of the bathroom with another bucket filled to splash on the next entrant when everything fell silent. I called out "Dileep, Chikka", and got no response. I decided they were playing a trick on me, and so ran out with the bucket, and emptied it with all my force.

Guess who was standing there, waiting to get splashed by me. No prizes, it was none other than Warden Aunty. I dropped the bucket when I saw her dripping wet and tried to run. I found that she had closed the door at the other side and was standing at this door. Boy, did we get a thrashing. Even today when I see some marks on me, though temporary, I keep thinking it must have been a remainder of the thrashing we got that day. She caught each of u by our necks and banged our heads against each other(phantom style) and was all the while blasting us about enjoying by wasting water, and about our discipline in general.

We believed we were dead that day, and that she would never stop punching and slapping us. Luckily bhajans started and somebody called her, so she left, leaving us to wash our red faces and get ready for bhajans. Still wonder whether somebody really called her that day, or she left us because she thought we would pass out if she hit us any longer. Well, so much for my adventures with bath.

to be continued... ... ...

- GUPTA GHOST

Vinasha Kaale Vipareetha Buddhi - Part 3 - 5th Standard

Well, Shruthi maam and Shashi maam weren't the only ones who had something against me. The next in the list is none other than HM. Well it wasn' t actually my fault, but nevertheless I got properly beaten for it.

It all began with my craze for inventions. Always used to be mad about inventing something(still am, keep thinking up new things that can be made everyday), and the fad then were pens. We had just joined the 5th Class and this was the first year in our lives that we were allowed to use pens(had to make do with pencils until then, don't know about other schools, but for us, upto 4th Class end, we had to use pencils, that were sharpened by those machines that were gifted by someone, the ones where you put the pencil in, and and twisted the handle until the pencil got sharpened, really used to be fascinated by it then).

Although I wasn't the pioneer in pens, I did get into some really wacky stuff with them. The credit for being the pioneer innovators in custom-made pens goes to Sadde and Yagna Valkya. They were the ones who first got into this field. Although others before them made minor modifications to their existing pens, these two were really the first to craft an entirely new pen. They had taken the nib and base from a fountain pen(Hero pen), and put it into a sketch pen, and filled it with ink. Was really a marvel of that time, and in no time, the class was filled with people attempting lookalikes of this version(me included, although I was also trying to develop my own model also).

So I decided to one better than them. I took a ball-point pen(ball pen), emptied it throughout except for the body. I attached the filler portion of the Hero pen to its rear end, and attached a conventional nib and base to the front and filled the entire body as well as filler with ink. Thus in many ways it was an easy to fill pen, all you had to do was press the filler, and the whole pen would fill up. And it would last for atleast 2 weeks with the amount of ink it had. Was very excited about it and showed it around and immediately got 3 enquiries/orders for such pens. But my joy wasn't about to last long.

It was after bhajan time, and I just set about making the first of the orders that I had received. Suddenly the whole class grew quiet, and HM walked in. I didn't know, the deeply-engrossed inventor that I was, I was just putting away the pen after completing it, when HM told everybody to line up for dinner. I also joined the lines, and stuffed the pen into my pocket. The ink began to leak(well it was just a prototype and wasn't yet ready for commercial production), and soon enough my pocket began to spread into a blue enlarging dot(which brought to mind a bad reminder of the 'tar' incident).

Obviously HM noticed it and asked me what I was doing, I raised my hand to explain, and she saw it dripping in ink. She immediately demanded to know what was going on, and I pulled out the pen to explain that it was the reason for the whole mess. Unfortunately for me, Shruthi maam went ballistic seeing the pen, adn tried to wrench it from my hand. But being my first successful invention, I wasn't about to let go of it so easily, and starting waving my hand wildly to prevent her form reaching it. In the process, the ink got sprayed all over HM's silver saree, until the pen drained out. By the time Shruthi maam let go of my hand, HM's saree was redesigned into a trendy one(well not everyone would have my kind of taste in fashion, so people who object can ignore that word) with dithering droplets of blue all over the silver.

She just walked out in a huff to change the saree. But my story didn't end there. I got yet another whacking form Shruthi maam for redesigning HM's saree, although truth be told, if she had left my pen alone all this wouldn't have happened. But then, am I to judge events, she too had pressure to react when a student of hers was surely fiddling around(was just saying I could have been spared the thrashing).

to be continued... ... ...

- GUPTA GHOST