RCEM 61-Group Classroom Antics - continued

7-Mr HC Arulanandan, There was a day when Mr HC Arulanandan caught some boys ‘cutting’ school. He encouraged the boys to ‘escape,’ and assured them convincingly that he wouldn’t report the matter and that he’d cover up. “Go on boyssss,” he encouraged and the guys fled with delight.The next morning, Arul is with the principal in the principal’s office, looking all heroic, and grinning evilly, while the offenders are summoned and caned one by one for their misconduct! From that day, Arul earned the nom-de-plume of Cut Throat, which later abbreviated to Throat with a guttural R!7.2This is Arul’s maths class. Arul is the chemistry master, but a maestro in Maths too.Arul has this set habit of addressing the class at every turn as, “Now boysss,” or “Now gentlemen,” apparently in a show of kindness but his hawk eyes were like gun barrels trained on every boy, and looking for some streak of a failing to warrant severe punishment.Arul takes one full period to explain, using neat diagrams using a variety of colored chalk, just one stocks and shares problem which could be solved in three different ways, to the class. He tells the class that that is all that is to be learned about stocks and shares. And it was true. He did this later for the sure GCE problem on graphs, in just one sum, lining up all the ten or twelve possible questions which could be asked.During one such session Arul cracks a mild joke and the class collectively begins to laugh mildly but there is a distinctive high-decibel voice, very audible within the chorus of laughter, screaming, “Throat!” And the laughter continues and the resonance gradually declines, and Arul’s disposition, smiling and never changing for one iota of a second, the plastic smile still in place but evidently his brain registering the veiled scream, and his strategy now being devised inside his sharp brain.After the laughter diminishes into a forlorn fadeout, Arul very mildly addresses the class, “Now boysss, will the boy who screamed out please admit like an honorable gentleman?” Probably awaiting for some high commendation for owning up, up shoots Jaldeen like a sky rocket during Christmas with raised arm, all relaxed, anxious and smiling.“Get out of the class!” Screams Arul suddenly looking like Hannibal Lecter! And Jaldeen disappears out of the classroom like summer lightning! The Cut Throat at his best!

8- Lab-Boy, Dabare,The chemical store room opposite the twin laboratories is situated on ground zero in the east wing. The two timber doors of the chemical room have a contraption on the outside where a small piece of timber is nailed to rotate so as to temporarily lock the two doors loosely. The storekeeper in charge is Dabare, short and middle-aged with mustache, all dressed up in white shirt, tussore coat and sarong with black belt, and seeming to be tough-looking.Guys leaving the chemistry lab spot Dabare, also called Lab-Boy to his utter disgust, inside the chemicals store. A smart guy quietly but quickly shuts the sole open door and fixes the wooden contraption within a hundredth of a second and disappears with the group. Repeated pushing of the door from the inside eventually would have opened the door. But the shock and humiliation and mental trauma of being temporarily locked up would have decidedly affected Dabare’s already impaired psyche profoundly.At next morning’s class in the lab under Mr Muttiah, Dabare crashes in like a bull in a china shop, raging mad and screaming like a maniac, “I’ll kill the buggers, I’ll kill the buggers!” reacting from his trauma! And he has to be cooled down by the chemistry master Mr Muttiah, while suddenly there’s a shout of “Lab-Boy!” from one of the guys, infuriating and exploding Dabare once again to high heaven! “I’ll kill the buggers! I’ll kill the buggers!” And he is quietly escorted by Mr Muttiah out of the lab.8.2Then one remembers the shock and tragedy Fazal Izzadeen receives when everyone screams in one voice, “Lab-boy!” while leaving the lab and moving past Cut Throat Arul’s room. Poor Fazal takes a deep breath and makes that last scream, while Cut Throat Arul is standing there, rigid as a statue, just behind the door of his room, six inches away from Fazal, like an apparition from Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho! Everyone sees him except Fazal, and it’s just too late to warn Fazal who has already let go his wailing shout! Fazal is taken in by his shirt front and given a finely thundering slap shattering the living daylights!