The Girl who was never 'caned'

By the time you're in Class 8,if you are a 90s kid, you'd have been 'caned' at some point of time in school. That scary feel which comes when you have to open your palms wide for the brutal stick to fall on it, is something we must all have gone through. But not Serah. She had never been caned.

Pious Sir walked into 8B that day with his tattered old map. And tattered old map always held a cane within. So when he stated calling out roll numbers that day (he never called kids by names, only numbers.), there was that usual nervousness in the class.

Anjo ,Shreshta & I held our breath, crossed our fingers and prayed that our numbers wouldnt be called. God answered our prayers and called Serah instead. The poor thing stood up and tried answering ,but somehow words didnt make sense.

Usually ,Anjo would whisper or scribble the answers on the table for me & Shreshta , but as Serah was one row behind us, that couldnt work. I tried opening my notebook for her to peek, but i guess my wonderful handwriting looked like a bunch of squiggles to her. She was still stammering.

Well, his patience was running out and he walked forth towards Serah, asking her to extend her hand. But Serah had no intentions to taste the cane, so, surprising the whole class, she started running away from him!

Now that was something we had never seen, and never expected to, in Class 8.

'Stop running and show your hand ,or I'll hit you wherever I can reach!' he threatened

'No, No, Sir! Don't beat me! I'll write imposition! As many times as you say!'

The cat and mouse game inside class couldnt go on forever, so Pious Sir gave up and gave her a tonne of imposition to write. We all had a jolly good laugh and were happy that we lost quite a few minutes from the dreaded 45 minutes of history. And the girl who was never caned, remained uncaned.

May be the way i've written this won't make things seem as lively as it actually was. But way back in 2003,when this happened in a morning history class, it was one of the hilarious things that ever happened. :)

:( :)

a group of friends

class time fun

teases and laughs

'intersting pen'

friendship pacts

signed and torn

comes a new year

comes new surprises

silence and no chatter

a quest to know why

a piece of paper

alphanumerals scattered

'it's not from,me,but him'

says the messesnger

alone inside my room

upon my study table

time,time again

i try to make sense

one new method tried

and it all fell to places

'***** ***** ******'

a lump inside my throat

butterflies inside my tummy

what do i do now?

what shall i say now?

pretended i didnt know

pretended i didnt care

until that fateful day

my friends tried to say

then i had to say

that i knew it too

but right now i dont want

all this silly stuff

let us both be friends

let us both grow up

let us stand on our own legs

and let us then decide

it took a lot of coaxing

to get him to talk to me

but then with time

the best of help

we grew to be good friends

and then to best of friends

and then,my best(est) friend

inaugerating pens

letters in old notebooks

words written in blood

poems and quotations.

walks to tuition class

waits till i go back

drenched in the rain

feelings unspoken

fights in between

always solved by friends

trys to move apart

but always comes together

when new people came

when new loves blossomed

the old 'friendship' couldnt resist

to see it silently

denied being jealous,

but jealousy was all

untill i had to go and say

i felt the same too.

but time cahnges people

time changes things

my bird was not the same

i'll never get the same

together the journey went on

with rough moments now and then

passions grew stronger

they expressed

egos too, may be

and they too.

the next separation was

for me the worst by far.

no one can get it

not even him

and so the distance's far

tried to be close still

but somehow didnt work

had to part our ways

a year of solid silence

talks are now not real

and when real ,not right

lives have twisted,tangled

lets not get them mangled

memories just come

when we least expect

a song,a sight,a note

is all that it takes

I LOVE SPORTS TOO

And the ball fell into the hole! Oh my God, did i manage to do that?Wow! No, i'm not playing golf here. I managed to actually hit a cricket ball. My brother just bought a new cricket bat, a pair of cricket gloves and this lovely new ball. So, at 12 in the noon, with the sun glaring at us from above our heads, we were out trying the new goodies he bought. I had my cap on, i was holding his new bat, i was wearing his new gloves (I didn't even touch that thingy he called an abdomen guard. Yuck!) and i just hit his brand new ball into a hole which lead on to the gutter...Guess he was too shocked to see

a. me actually hitting a ball he threw

b. his brand new ball going down the drain

Anyways, he didn't run after me, but went to fetch buckets , garden hose, a long rod, etc etc. I was safe.

It was funny, watching him sticking his head into that hole, getting his white t-shirt dirty(for which he'll get a firing from mom) . Ah, for things like these, i love sports.

Most people in our school loved the sports day because they wanted to participate in the events and wanted to win. Most people who didn't like sports, or had those blue/pink books from PC TC would bunk sports day. I don't like this competition business, but i really love sports day.Since our school's play ground shares a wall with the Lourdes Cathedral cemetry, someone or the other always had to climb over the wall, give the dead a visit and get their ball back. As our little playground wouldn't be sufficiant for all the events, we go to Thope stadium for sports day. There's a lot of things that you could do besides sports!

Like, howmany icecreams can you eat without getting tired of it? That was one 'sweet' thing about sports day. There would be an icecream van and you'll have to fight your way through the crowd to get to it. And before that, you'll have to decide who would go get the icecream because walking from the gallery across the stadium to the icecream van was a tiring sport event in itself. And to decide who's purse would be emptied out first...

Most of us wouldv'e got atleast one pinch, beating, spank on the head etc etc during school days, but has anyone hit a teacher? Well, one sports day I did. Just for the sake of participating, i had signed up for discus throw. A calm and quiet event with no running around. I was sure i wouldn't even get past the qualifying round, so all i had to do was to throw this discus thingy once and then i could go back and 'relax'. I didn't make the qualifying mark when i threw the discus, but poor Preema Miss gave a high pitched yelp and clutched her bu, her dorsal side. Is that why i got low marks for Malayalam in the first couple of exams in eleventh?

That reminds me, why do teachers detest some sports and games even on the sports day? It was all about having fun , wasn't it?While most people were on the ground, running and sweating, some of us were having fun on the gallery playing our games. Like cards? Annie had bought a brand new pack of cards and Vineetha, Annie, Francis, Jimmy and I were playing bluff. (just a harmless game of bluff!) Enter S.M.S (a.k.a Shan Maria Sister). She gave us a biiig scolding (jus us girls, coz the boys were no where in sight then. Hmph! But it was better coz girls playing cards alone was a less serious crime than girls and boys playing cards together), next was talks by Hipson Sir and finally we had to go over to Stella Miss, our Class teacher and apologize. And she wanted us to go and apologize to SMS if we didn't want to apologize to the Principal herself. Thankfully sportsdays are conducted on saturdays...no one seemed to remember the rougue girls on monday, so that was the end of that.

Still, i love sports days...you walk around the whole place, make friends with people of all classes, cheer for players from your house, cheer for friends from any house, the games you play there changes from 'charlie chaplin went to the market' to name place animal thing to dumb charades to anthakshari to truth or dare to cards...Or you could even go back to childish games and be your silly self.

Anyways, my brother couldn't find his new ball. But he did keep a brick or two at the opening of that hole.