Amritsar-Panther Nursery School

Have you ever been the tenth person in a line getting beat by a big fat teacher? Have you ever found refuge in a cactus tree? That is how life was at Panther Nursery school. I wasn’t exactly a tough kid. Not a bright kid either or at least that is what I thought. In Amritsar, brightness mattered on how well you could defend yourself.

Picture this, you are in a class of some 30 kids in which you are the shortest, slow and having the least strength. This is not on how you look at the situation, for sometimes it happens that you turn out to be someone like me in Amritsar. What do you do? You learn to defend yourself. Not every time can you go to the teacher or your parents. If you go to the teachers, they hardly notice you because you are hardly doing well in your studies. If you go to your parents, it becomes very difficult to explain to them, why you are getting beat while everyone else seems to be having a jolly good time!

The recess used to be the toughest of the times. We were not allowed to go out of the class so whatever energy you had to use could be put to good use on the wooden benches which provided an excellent cover as well as a bad hiding place if you were spotted. If you were spotted then you would be targeted by everyone around. Then the kids would choose the weakest kid and try their skills at showing off how to beat him in the best way possible. It was much easier in Devlali where I was out of my dreamy state and more into the happenings of the class.

I always sat next to the window of the class. Outside were trees having dense foliage presenting various forms of birds and squirrels which seemed to be having a fun time frolicking around. They would be playing with each other, running and stopping and searching. Least bothered of what was going on a few metres away in the school.

It is fun to observe a squirrel. It has a long tail, which seems to stand straight whenever it is looking around and observing. It has very strong observation skills as it can spot nuts and other eatables in a second’s time and then it goes jumping up and down, hopping towards its food. It snatches it from the ground thus conquering it completely. Then holding it in its two front paws at first and then only one of them it desperately makes its way to the tree hole where it hides infinite number of nuts for the whole season. The squirrel’s life is full of fun, always searching, running and full of adventures! How many times I would pray then to god to make me a squirrel in the next life!

I wasn’t exactly unhappy with my life. It was just that the squirrel seemed to be freer than me. I would look on enviously from my classroom bench, wearing an uncomfortable uniform and trying vaguely to listen to what the teacher was trying to say. The teacher’s talks never interested me much. I was more into learning practically from nature. I would so want to run around with the little thing, climbing trees, playing around, always up to something.

I remember once that I and my friend Pankaj Das found a squirrel which was lying injured on the ground. It lay there, squirming in its pain and not able to move much. Its mouth was open and it was gasping for breath. We both, being kids and having no idea of what CPR or other life saving techniques meant were confused and thought that maybe it were thirsty. We tried to give it water but it won’t drink. We thought that it must be shy of us and would drink it later. So we took a box, found some cotton and an empty orange peel which could luckily hold water and kept the squirrel in that box. We kept this box under a tree and planned to come back the next day with lot of nuts and water. We then prayed to god for its safety and went back to our class discussing excitedly what we would get the next day.

I learnt safety and freedom from the squirrel. We kept her in an open box not because she could breathe but because then she could see the sky. We kept cotton because we thought her house inside in the tree must be soft too. The water seemed to be the most precious thing we had then, when our small bottles used to hold precious gulps for us to have after a long day at school. Still the small squirrel taught us a lot.

I never saw it again. The next day I found an empty box, when I went back with other curious spectators. Our feverous discussion had had many ears and I had heard that a kid who used to beat me in class was planning to take the squirrel away with him and was going to poke it in front of others for amusement. I had imagined the terrified eyes of the squirrel as it would run around to save it self while everyone gathered and laughed around. The kid teased me saying that I had made it up and had beat me a little more that day but I smiled to myself as I saw the empty box. Only I and my friend knew the place where the squirrel lay so we were assured that it might have got better and gone away. After that every time I saw a squirrel I would think of that box and thank god for saving its life.

Things don’t happen for good all the time. Sometimes it might seem that everything is going right but there might be a hidden problem in it. At such times you should leave everything to god. God awards innocence by saving the life of the squirrel.

In Mumbai, standing in line is a way of life. I didn’t think the same back then, though now it runs in my blood. We used to stand in line only to get beat by our teachers or to be punished by standing in line in front of the class. When the period would get over and we would go back to our benches our backs used to be white with chalk powder and blue with stick marks. It used to be dreadful to stand in a line and wait for your number to come. You could see the stinging pain in the kids in front of you as the teacher would lash on their hands. The hand would go down in almost the same momentum with which the stick would hit the hand. The cry coming out would be real, not made up; the way kids have today when they have to stand with their hands up in class. Our class monitor was quite a tyrant and would write anyone’s name who would not keep their head down on the bench. We see a familiar scene in the movies these days when the terrorists keep the normal civilians under their line of fire, while the poor victims sit huddled up, hiding from the eyes of those cynics, with their head down and eyes stealthily watching if the terrorist would look at them. The only problem was that in this case the terrorist would write your name on the board and then the boss would come to beat you up with the meanest cane you could imagine.

We would prefer the fat stick. That hurts less as it covers a bigger surface area. The leaner canes were much more lethal and would hurt for a long time later. They would leave blue lines on your hand, each for the 10 times you would get hit. The pain would be immeasurable. It would make you remember god most of the times. You would see red before your eyes every time the stick struck you. What was more terrible was seeing 9 more kids go through the same plight before you. The countdown would go on as the sounds of the sticks and shouts of the culprits would mix with the sniggers and sneers of the rest of the class as they watched the ordeal. Many of us would piss in our pants and the teacher would be shouting more at us then. I was the most frequent pisser. More because I would feel the pain and the injustice of the whole system with every time I would get hit. It would rise more every passing day and finally turned me into a very silent kid who never spoke much or said a lot.

I would never forgive my teachers through my life. They beat me and would insult my mother by complaining against me in front of so many other people. My mother would dread meeting my teachers in a market or a meeting as they would shout and insult her for the way her boy was always untidy, slow and wicked in his ways. I thank god for giving my mother the strength to withstand it all. I wish I could meet those teachers now. I would like to teach them a thing or a two about manners, about giving respect in order to get respect and about humility.

The only refuge in my school was the cactuses which were found at the end of the school play ground. There was a dirt mound having those cactuses and I with my best friend would always go and hide there whenever the games period came. In school time, my classmates would choose the weakest kid around, which would usually be me or my friend and would bang our heads on the bench. They would try out all their skills of self offence and would win if they could beat the shit out of us. I know I should not use such words in my writing as it makes it crude but to make you understand the situation it is very important for you to look at things the way they were. Sugar coating it all would end up in the loss of intensity of the whole matter.

The cactus provided an excellent place to hide and discuss future plans. We would discuss how we could save ourselves, how we could do well in school work and would imagine weird stuff like flying away or digging the hole till the end of the earth. The other kids used to be busy playing football or catch the den on the ground while we kept ourselves busy with such antics.

Once a kid in my class was beating Deepak. He would always choose him and pick on him because he was very silent and would take the hits easily. He would also cry and would let the other person win without much trouble. Something happened to me and I pushed that boy and slapped him. He never expected this and he took up a life long revenge on me. I turned back to sobbing Deepak and told him, “Don’t worry, I will always be there to watch your back!” For that one second I had become the strongest boy on this planet. I was very happy and felt powerful. I was all washed out the next minute when a fist punched me in my back and I fell on the table. After that the kids pointed their antics at me more than my friends because I had tried to resist.

Tipu Sultan was a very famous character than. The epic which used to be shown every weekend on TV would show this warrior riding on his horse back, wearing his turban and having a sword in his hand. Everyone in the class would form groups and play as the tyrant brits who were the enemies and Tipu Sultan and its army as the heroes. We would play at an old fountain which had no water in it so that you could easily climb down in it. For us kids it was huge, having circular steps in between which lead to other levels above. It was royal white and provided a good place for us to play. While playing once a scheme was planned against me in which I was made Tipu Sultan. I rode around on my imaginary horse as some kid pushed me from a higher level and I fell on the ground thus getting a cut on one of my eyebrows. I still got up on my own as everyone else stood laughing and wiped the blood out of my face and went about catching two other kids instead of one. They were all surprised and I triumphed yet again! I still remember Tipu Sultan and still have that scar on my eyebrow.

The Panther nursery school taught me a lot of things. It taught me how to defend myself when everything was against me. It taught me about the higher power; It taught me not to be bad to others and to have patience with the slow and weak. It taught me to shake both my hands vigorously, so that the hands become hot and hurt less when you get hit by the cane. It also taught me a very important thing that nothing is constant as time passes by. I remember saying bye to Deepak Das as he came to school for the last time and took my address. He promised that he would stay in touch. Unfortunately, even my dad got posted in a few days time and I couldn’t send him my new address. I still remember him sometimes and all those talks behind the cactus!