THE HEAD TEACHER UNCLE & THE SCHOOL

The last bell tolled as we played on. It was too loud. Louder were we to pay heed to anything else.

  It was time for the school to fall in the prayer line and sing the inaugural song. It was, however, not the national anthem. It was a motivational, instructive song to start your day. 

  But, we missed two sounds of the piercing bell. We, the five boys of the 2nd grade.  

 Suddenly the man, who brought teachers the tea and dusted their tables, began to hit the bell furiously to invite our attention and we rushed in to join the prayer. As we ran past the man, he looked angrily at us. And, before the head teacher could spot us last to join, we made it through.

  I remember I could hear my heart still hammering inside as I tried to sing the song. May be the hearts of my playmates too. This hammering of hearts was from playing and not from fear though.

  I could only lip-synch to the song and nobody knew I was not singing at all. Inside the classroom, we were some 20 pupils sitting on our own square-cut rags – vividly designed, coloured and sewn. Our school boxes contained the books and the rags. There were no lunch-boxes. We used to get our free lunches at school. It was soaked grams mixed in the puffed-rice and half of a peeled onion and a green chili. So workaday, yet so amazing to eat that lunch on a hungry belly.

  Everyday, we used to bring the rags along with the books. My mother had sewn me a very nice piece of sitting-rag. I saw her sew in needle and threads using her old, torn, unusable clothes whenever she was free in the afternoon. Often times I sat by her to watch how nicely she did.

The head teacher entered the class.

We already got warnings from the assistant teacher calling our roll numbers, for being the noisy players out in the compound before the usual midday break.

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