Amit and I went to the same school, same class and sat together on a bench that was cramped with fellow students. We went to the prayer together. On a basketball court, we were made to stand in six lines, three for boys and the other three for girls right at 6.30. As the Headmaster came out from his room with long strides with dhoti-end trailing and stood at the top of steps, we started Jano gano mono odhinayok…. .There were some lines when he along with other teachers looked askance at us as the chorus went on “Jomunar Ganga” and “Uchhalo jalodhito rango”. After the prayer, Chitra didimoni, our Maths teacher, with a solemn sullen face snapped, ‘Ganga doesn’t come out of Jomuna and Uthkol shouldn’t go berserk with Uchhalo. And if it does then the whole thing really looks a grand rango (travesty)’.
Before the D-Day, for a week or more, we did some march pasts and drills under the guidance of our drills teacher. We thrust out our hands and legs and that was what we did as march pasts. On the given day some of us were destined to falter as they were the usual suspects. Our scheduled march past the distinguished guests went awfully awry; some going straight and some strayed. As a result, the drills teacher’s tense face twitched and his ever-broadening forehead (hair, as usual, was receding the fifty plus man) creased distinctly before the august gathering that included the Secretary, President of the primary section of Town School and the Commissioner of the ward under whose jurisdiction our school fell. We did not care. We only counted time when orange-scented biscuits (two in number) and lozenges (again two in number in rustling wrappers) would be distributed. But that time was hard to come.
After the so-called march past there was a series of speeches by the guests and the teachers alike. They sometimes pushed their specs up that slid down the noses; sometimes they folded up their punjabi sleeves; and in between they lifted their hands to hammer home certain points they believed important to us who braved scorcher from red-hot sun.
Biscuits and lozenges did arrive at the end of programme. There were much pushing and shoving and elbowing and scampering to get our (over)dues (tiffin was declared to be given at 8.30, but was served two hours later) of biscuits and lozenges.
We left our childhood ages back. Now we have become what can be called as full-blown man. But, I doubt, if the culture of lectures and “tiffin” has changed at all. The lectures go on, rage on before a gathering that is tired in soul and hungry in bellies for biscuits and lozenges.
The independence of getting morsels of food lies in dependence of tolerance level for lectures.