breaking bounds
The school was obsessed with controlling girls, by not allowing them out of bounds, a bit like the purdah, zenana system. Boys on the other hand, could do what they liked and go anywhere, except where the girls were.
The girls dormitory would be locked from outside at night, by the matron. This was a huge fire hazard, all of us could have got singed, unable to escape. The priority was protection of our virginity rather than our safety.
In my 2nd week at school, I was reported by the house prefect for breaking bounds, I had gone to see the school doctor who had invited me for a party. I was a few minutes late, and I was reported by the over enthusiastic prefect to the house mistress, a.k.a. Bucket..who yelled at me for 20 minutes for breaking bounds. I was clueless about what she was talking about.
Another time my friend Titli and I had gone to see if the swimming pool was open. An anorexic teacher Mrs.Wall, reported me to the Bucket again, saying we were secretly meeting boys at the pool!!. I was so upset at the accusation that I cried for half an hour, on how, I could be accused, when I was being truthful.
My house mistress was called Bucket, in reference to her shape. Her favorite word was Rather, “rather it is surprising, that you would not tell me this”. I had a swimming competion at school, and I had my period, I told her the problem. Her advise to me was go swim, and don’t tell them you are down, and don’t say I told you to go ahead and do it. Her husband was called a male bucket a.k.a. Balta.
We were given the MURGA punishment because a girl had shat in the upstairs bathrooms. In this punishment, you sat on your hunches, and then brought your arms through your legs and held your ears, while sitting in this tortuous position. Going to the bathroom was a major problem in school. Their was a continuos water shortage, the flushes never worked. You were only allowed to pee in the bathrooms that were in the dorms. If you needed to go shit, you had to go downstairs, in like an out house with a rusty tin filled with water.
My geography teacher was called pregy, I think she kept trying to get pregnant and couldn’t. She was a meany, and used to pick on certain students whose English abilities were not so good. The poor things used to have nervous breakdowns when she used to call on them. Her most quoted phrase was “open the window and let the climate come in”
My English teacher was called eggy..because he was bald.
Our PT teacher was called oinky..I guess he looked like a pig.
The most handsome teacher, was the tall Bengali with light eyes, who taught physics and photography. Developing prints in the darkroom with him was definitely more interesting than his lectures on pressure, fulcrum and energy.
The cricket coach, who stammered and moonlighted as the history teacher had a wonderful vocabulary when he got excited and started teaching the “vakias”- he used to say Czechoslovakia and then in his excitement he said Yyyogoslavakia..
We were always hungry, even though our parents paid good money to the school, we were not well fed.. We later found out that the food supervisor was corrupt, he bought less food, then he was given money for. So after all our tuck was over, which was in the first month, we found out that the headmaster’s cook, made delicious parathas. We paid the cook Rs. 2 for each aloo parantha, order it during the day, and then secretly just after supper, run to the cook’s house and get the parathas, and eat them by torchlight at midnight.
In our last semester at school, we decided to get wild.. We convinced one of our teachers to take us to a mountain resort called Barog, where one of the girls had a house. The main purpose of this was to have a few drinks and try some cigarettes. We could have got kicked out of school for doing that! She had no idea that every night after she was asleep, we had rum and coke and some smokes.
In the last semester, some of the boys picked up some courage, and came to the girls dormitory at night, and peeped through the windows, and got excited when they saw the girls changing..and talking and cursing..
The girls dormitory would be locked from outside at night, by the matron. This was a huge fire hazard, all of us could have got singed, unable to escape. The priority was protection of our virginity rather than our safety.
In my 2nd week at school, I was reported by the house prefect for breaking bounds, I had gone to see the school doctor who had invited me for a party. I was a few minutes late, and I was reported by the over enthusiastic prefect to the house mistress, a.k.a. Bucket..who yelled at me for 20 minutes for breaking bounds. I was clueless about what she was talking about.
Another time my friend Titli and I had gone to see if the swimming pool was open. An anorexic teacher Mrs.Wall, reported me to the Bucket again, saying we were secretly meeting boys at the pool!!. I was so upset at the accusation that I cried for half an hour, on how, I could be accused, when I was being truthful.
My house mistress was called Bucket, in reference to her shape. Her favorite word was Rather, “rather it is surprising, that you would not tell me this”. I had a swimming competion at school, and I had my period, I told her the problem. Her advise to me was go swim, and don’t tell them you are down, and don’t say I told you to go ahead and do it. Her husband was called a male bucket a.k.a. Balta.
We were given the MURGA punishment because a girl had shat in the upstairs bathrooms. In this punishment, you sat on your hunches, and then brought your arms through your legs and held your ears, while sitting in this tortuous position. Going to the bathroom was a major problem in school. Their was a continuos water shortage, the flushes never worked. You were only allowed to pee in the bathrooms that were in the dorms. If you needed to go shit, you had to go downstairs, in like an out house with a rusty tin filled with water.
My geography teacher was called pregy, I think she kept trying to get pregnant and couldn’t. She was a meany, and used to pick on certain students whose English abilities were not so good. The poor things used to have nervous breakdowns when she used to call on them. Her most quoted phrase was “open the window and let the climate come in”
My English teacher was called eggy..because he was bald.
Our PT teacher was called oinky..I guess he looked like a pig.
The most handsome teacher, was the tall Bengali with light eyes, who taught physics and photography. Developing prints in the darkroom with him was definitely more interesting than his lectures on pressure, fulcrum and energy.
The cricket coach, who stammered and moonlighted as the history teacher had a wonderful vocabulary when he got excited and started teaching the “vakias”- he used to say Czechoslovakia and then in his excitement he said Yyyogoslavakia..
We were always hungry, even though our parents paid good money to the school, we were not well fed.. We later found out that the food supervisor was corrupt, he bought less food, then he was given money for. So after all our tuck was over, which was in the first month, we found out that the headmaster’s cook, made delicious parathas. We paid the cook Rs. 2 for each aloo parantha, order it during the day, and then secretly just after supper, run to the cook’s house and get the parathas, and eat them by torchlight at midnight.
In our last semester at school, we decided to get wild.. We convinced one of our teachers to take us to a mountain resort called Barog, where one of the girls had a house. The main purpose of this was to have a few drinks and try some cigarettes. We could have got kicked out of school for doing that! She had no idea that every night after she was asleep, we had rum and coke and some smokes.
In the last semester, some of the boys picked up some courage, and came to the girls dormitory at night, and peeped through the windows, and got excited when they saw the girls changing..and talking and cursing..
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