Bang it Goes!

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.