Being designated the chaperone of 50 young
men ranging from ages 16 to 18, who have been let loose upon an unsuspecting
world after years of monastic living, is the stuff nightmares are made of. The
dire dream takes on an added dimension of impending disaster, when the said
mentor is a member of the opposite gender and is barely 5 years older than her
wards!
If you haven’t got my drift
as yet, let me elaborate. To put it as succinctly as possible – I was asked by
my school to be the teacher-in-charge of a contingent of 50 Class 12 students of
an all-boys school, for an inter-school competition. And yes, I do happen to be
a lady and I was only 5 years
older than them! (What insanity prompted Bro. Pinto to appoint a ‘girl’ who did
not have an iota of teaching experience, as a teacher in the Senior Secondary
Wing is a mystery I have still to unravel. Good old Daniel’s experience in the
lion’s den was no patch on my first day in school – but that’s a story for
another day.)
In the ’good old days’ when I taught in
Delhi, there happened to be an annual inter-school competition that was the most hotly contested of all the
events in the city’s calendar. The contest had a singularly interesting
nom-de-plume. It went under the banner of “The Bang Club”. Under its aegis,
numerous competitions were held – dramas, debates, singing, music,
just-a-minute……et al – and the institution that accumulated the maximum number
of points was declared the winner – obviously!
Well,
as I mentioned at the start, Bro Pinto decided, in his inexplicable wisdom, to
name me as the leader of the rowdy 50. Now you don’t have to be an Einstien to
figure out that I was a singularly unsuitable choice. But I’m quite sure you
also are familiar with the ancient adage, “Fools step in where angels fear to
tread”. I will leave it to your discretion to decide which category I fell
into. Suffice to say – I was completely delighted by the assignment and decided
to do the event justice by donning my most impressive attire – an Indian lady’s
sartorial ultimate – a sari!
Now the one advantage to
having young men under one’s charge, is that one does not have to fret about
minor details like collecting them at one point, shepherding them about and
generally worrying about their welfare. If anything – the case is quite the
opposite! Your gallant young men are overly concerned about their teacher’s
safety and proceed to set such a ring of security around one that to break
through it, would test the skills of even the most hardened and experienced Ninja.
It was precisely this code
of conduct that resulted in my being assigned an “escort” whose sole
responsibility was to get me to the venue in one whole piece. The duty of this
young soldier designate was to meet me at the gate of the auditorium and whisk
me past security, to the place allotted to our school. Sounds simple enough,
doesn’t it?
Ah! That’s where you are one
hundred and ten percent wrong! What you have not taken into consideration is
two very minor but vital factors.
One – my mature(?) age.
Two
– the nature of my ‘escort’. (Let it be said right at the outset, that Rajeev [his
real name shall remain anonymous] is one of the finest young men I know. A more
thorough gentleman I have yet to come across. That he has a sad propensity to
turn a brilliant shade of red, that would make a rose pale in comparison, when
he is embarrassed, is most certainly not his fault. The good Lord made him that
way and who is to question the wisdom of the Almighty?)
The telling of the tale will
reveal the potential for disaster that lay lurking under these two seemingly
innocuous details.
Suffice to say that all went
according to plan. My boys reached the venue and congregated at the site.
Excitement was running high as our school was leading the field by a mile and
our winning was a ‘given’. All that remained was for yours truly to put in an
appearance.
And that’s where everything
began to go wrong!
Totally oblivious to what
embarrassment lay ahead, I turned up at the gate (clad in my nine yards of
armour) of the auditorium which my
‘children’ had instructed me to report to, and there – as expected - was my
delightful, debonair young hero waiting to accompany me past the tight ring of
security. Again – as expected – I was wished politely by my young man and
together, we innocently proceeded into the jaws of complete and utter chaos!
Now, I do hope you have kept
the two minor ‘details’ that I have mentioned earlier, in the forefront of your
recollection. For this is where the insignificant became an insurmountable
obstacle.
Barely
had we proceeded 10 yards, when a yell that would have woken up even the
deadest of the dead, brought us to a sudden, grinding halt. With bewilderment
we turned to see who/what was hailing us so raucously. Even as we did so, to my
total astonishment, I suddenly found my young hero being roughly taken aside
and addressed in what (they thought) was obviously supposed to be a whisper.
The simple reality is that the so-called soft susurrations would have put the
stentorian command of a general leading his troops into battle, to shame.
Suffice to say – I could hear every word of the ‘soft spoken’ conversation! And
it went something like this:
“Just what do you think
you’re doing?”
“What are you talking
about?” – came the confused rejoinder from my companion.
“Do
you take me for a fool?!”
“What are you talking
about?” – came the second confused rejoinder from my companion.
“Do you think I was born
yesterday?!”
“What
are you talking about?” – came the third confused rejoinder from my by now thoroughly
perplexed companion.
“Who do you think you are
taking inside?” came the irate reply.
“Oh!” said my companion, as
light dawned. “My teacher”, said he, in all innocence.
“I am giving you one last
chance – just who do you think you are trying to take inside?”
By now, Rajeev was a carbon copy of the
proverbial sailor who, when completely and hopelessly lost, is termed as “all
at sea”. That he was clueless/rudderless/lost/”all at sea” was painfully
obvious to even the most disinterested bystander. That he was gradually turning
a most striking shade of red, was also patently clear to even the most obtuse
of human beings. Confusion and embarrassment does that to Rajeev. That it is no
fault of his, I have already given testimony to earlier. Who can question the mysterious ways of our
Creator?
So Rajeev resorted to one
last desperate appeal, that he couched in (what he thought – give the poor man
some rope!) the most original of terms, “WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?!” (Perhaps
poor Rajeev thought decibel level equals originality of speech – who knows-
like I said – give the poor man some rope!!)
“Trying to smuggle your
girlfriend through, are you?”
Knock me down with a
feather! Is THAT what they thought?
“Dress her up in a sari and
pass her off as your teacher! Take us for fools, do you?!”
Have I mentioned (poor) Rajeev’s
propensity to do a God-given imitation of a rosy rose when he is in an awkward
situation? I have? Ok then – he was in, officially, the all-time most
virulently awkward situation of his LIFE!! And the flower mentioned would have
given every one of its legendary thorns – and petals – and perfume – and
countless poems dedicated to it, for even the merest tinge of the shade that Rajeev
was now flaunting.
Yet again my dearest hero
fell back on his strongest weapon – albeit a trifle shortened and blunted and
the worse for the rude, untimely wear it was unnecessarily being put through -
“WHAT????!!!”
This original turn of phrase
was followed by the anguished cry of a soul tortured beyond belief – “You think
she’s my GIRLFRIEND??!!!”
A confused, bewildered – at
a loss for words – Rajeev is a sight that would melt even a mass murderer’s
heart. I am no such hardened criminal. Neither were the forty-nine remaining
Columbans on whose delicate ears had fallen the sorrowful cry of their mortally
wounded comrade.
With one accord, forty and
nine robust young men and one petite, (sari clad) damsel jumped headlong into
the (no longer) whispered fray.
And all hell broke loose.
Do you recall Mark Antony declaring,
“Let loose the hounds of war”? Well, it was not the hounds but great big,
battle-hardened, ravening wolves (and one petite, sari clad, damsel – no I will
NOT be compared to a horrible wolf!) that were unleashed.
“Are you calling our teacher
HIS girlfriend??!”
Wait a minute – was I
hearing this right? Shouldn’t it have read as “Are you calling our teacher his
GIRLFRIEND?”????
But
time and tide waits for no man – or (confused) woman – and before I could take
up the matter of the indeterminate stresses in the phraseology, I found myself
protectively surrounded by all fifty of my gallant warriors who somehow managed
to keep me within their protective ring without once coming even within
brushing distance of me, whilst simultaneously bearing down upon the hapless
youngster who had dared to voice such a completely unacceptable perspective of
the situation.
“You called her his
GIRLFRIEND?”
Ah! Now the stresses were
where they belonged. But I digress…..
“You blithering idiot
(suffice to say that I do not believe in sullying my readers’ ears with the
actual vocabulary that was being utilized – even the much experienced Ancient
Mariner would have turned the same shade as Rajeev was still proudly(?)
displaying), can’t you SEE she’s our TEACHER?”
Now when one has fifty burly
hoodlums (and one petite, sari clad, damsel carefully balanced in the midst of the
eye of the storm) advancing threateningly upon one, even the bravest man is
bound to quail. Let it be mentioned for the record – the ‘man’ in question was
not ‘brave’ even by the widest stretch of the imagination. Within a matter of
seconds, the miraculous transformation from man to mouse, took place before our
disbelieving eyes. Gone was the bully of a few moments ago. In his place, was a
cringing, sniffling semblance of the human species, whispering (and this time
it was an actual whisper – we had to strain with all our might to distinguish
his words), “But…. I thought….”
“You THOUGHT?” came back the
outraged cry from half a century (and one sari clad damsel) of irate vocal
chords.
There followed the longest
half-a-minute of painful, dead silence.
And then the hiatus was broken by the most
ridiculous question of the evening, “Do I LOOK like his girlfriend? Do I LOOK…….?!”
No prizes for guessing who
the speaker was.
No prizes for guessing what
happened next.
You guessed? Absolutely
right. The tension was suddenly totally dissipated by the roar of laughter that
broke the shocked silence that had followed my incoherent query.
With one voice fifty – and
one (don’t forget the man/mouse still cringing in the corner) – voices
responded with the words,”Yes, you DO!!!”
Oh
dear. Sometimes honesty is a distressing, undesirable virtue. Did they HAVE to
choose that moment to display their Columban upbringing?
Let the record show that it
was now not Rajeev but I who was awash in a blaze of colour.
Mustering whatever shreds of
dignity I had remaining to me, I summoned up the one weapon in my otherwise
toothless armoury, that not one of my boys could stand before.
I looked lost.
Immediately, fifty young
gentlemen rushed to the rescue. “We were only teasing, Ma’am. Of COURSE you
look like our teacher. No, you DON’T look remotely like his girlfriend. PLEASE
don’t look so upset. Honest …….”
It was all too much. First poor
Rajeev’s distressed demeanour. Then 50 pairs of puppy-dog eyes….What does a
damsel do?
She melts, of course!
Out came the sunshine. The
smile peeped through. And fifty delighted faces broke into broad grins,
immediately followed by the rude and familiar sounds of young men who are very
comfortable with their (not so) senior counterpart,” Weeelll – actually we did
mean it, but….!!!”
“Come on – it’s almost time
for the results to be declared. Hurry up!”
And off we trotted
companionably, all differences forgotten, leaving in our wake one very, very
relieved young bully-never-to-be-again.
We won.
