Grasshopper Chronicle (Part II Ch 4 )

Father was excited to take me to the high school. Before taking to the school, he took me to Mukul darjee, tailor Mukul Sarkar. He was the most famous tailor. We bought cloth from the shop of Kamala Marwari then took the cloth to Mukul darjee.  We used to call him uncle. Uncle took measures for my new set of uniform- khaki shirt and white pant, half pant that is. Much later we came to know that half pants were called shorts and full pants were actually called trousers. Father then took me to the book stall and got me the whole bundle of books and told Pradip Saha, the owner of the book stall, to keep giving me as many books as I wanted till the amount crossed rupees one hundred. I was elated, I could buy books virtually for free. But in his shop he had mostly school books, and he did not have those great books that we used to buy on the market days; those detective series, rupkatha series, the ghost stories and all.

            On the first day to the high school mother instructed me before hand, ‘When you go to the new class, make sure that you sit in the front bench. Don’t be meek to settle in the back benches.’

            I said, ‘Ok’ and said, ‘What if everybody’s mother gave the same instruction to their sons?’

Father took me up to the gate of the new school, Jagomohan Vidyapith High School. The biggest school in the whole of Golakganj. There were plenty of students. Many students came on bicycles. My mother put all my books in a new school bag and she slung it around my back. She also gave me a water bottle and small pack of tiffin in a plastic box.  I felt great, for the first time I wore uniform, and also little afraid, I began to miss my LP school. As I was walking to the school compound, one of the teachers came out when he saw my father. He took me to the class and told me that as soon as the bell rang, I was supposed to stand in the assembly. The bell rang and we stood in groups in the assembly. Unlike our school there we sang the national anthem, Jono gana.., Before that one of the teachers said ‘sabdhan’, ‘bisram’ and all of us began to move our legs together. One teacher came and corrected us. Then we started the song. In our earlier school we used to sing bhajan like Raghupati Raghava. Here nobody sang that song. Then the Headmaster said something we could not hear. There were a lot of students, Class V to Class X. From Class VIII onwards there were girls. Once the assembly was over everybody went to the classes neatly one after another, like ducks going to a pond. But the girls did not go to their classes; they went to a room which we later came to know was called girls’ common room. There were two common rooms, one for the girls and the other for the teachers.

            In the class all the students were not from our school. There were a lot of strangers in the class and we were not speaking to them. They came from various other schools. However, Manoj asked one of them, ‘From Which school are you from?’ The other boy said, ‘From Abhyashan Vidyalay.’ We were shocked to hear the name. Mahendra Basfor put his hand on his mouth and giggled. Manoj said, ‘What? Is there anything like that around here? Where is it?’ The other boy replied, ‘Inside the BTC compound.’ Manoj said, ‘Inside the BTC compound? Are there schools also, for kids inside the BTC compound? Is not it the place where teachers get training?’ The other boy proudly said, ‘Yes, ours is the school where they get special training.’ Manoj added with a lot of air, ‘I am from Chinmayee Buniyadi Vidyapith.’