If I were a Principal.

Dumbel PT was very exciting and I would do it dexterously for which I was chosen to lead the PT in the school every morning along with a couple of other students who would take my place as standby if I didn't come to school. Not just dumbels but even the other forms of PT, I will lead that would include the PT in standing and sitting postures. So the lead student would be mounted on a sturdy table in the front row and sometimes on the dais that was a small multi-purpose platform that would be used every day for school assembly for prayers and on special occasions for addressing the congregation as well as to stage plays and other school functions. I was always the youngest in my class from kachchi pehli ( KG equivalent) till the end of my engineering degree. From KG till 3rd standard, 4 classes I finished in 3 years. In the sixties there was a provision that if you perform well in the class you are given an option to appear for exams of the next class and should you clear that, you get promoted not just one class but two classes in one go. When I started in kachchi pehli (one class before class 1) then too my fellow students were older but after the "double promotion" when I cleared both class 2 and 3 in one year, everyone in the class was on an average two year older than me.

 

Most often I was a favourite student of teachers as I was obedient, I think so. Perhaps that's why in the middle school classes (6th through 8th) I got the chance to lead PT. Everyone used to call Dumb Bells "dumbel" and I never knew until many decades later that it is dumb bell and not dumbel and realised it is an English word and not a Hindi one. After passing out from school no one talked about dumbels and the next time I saw them was in a Talwalkar’s gym in Bombay during Asian games in 1982 when there was a frenzy in sports activities. The PT drills got so engrained in me that even today I know all those sequences एक दो तीन चार, पांच छः सात आठ, आठ सात छः पांच, चार तीन बदली कर (one two three four, five six seven eight, eight seven six five, four three change to the next).

 

When I went to class six the school changed from primary to middle. Middle and Secondary both were in the same premises with different class rooms and different staff rooms for teachers. In the middle school we were not taught home science or science but instead we had horticulture (बागवानी). So the subjects were Hindi, Sanskrit, Maths, Social Sciences and Bagwani.  Mr Sabnis was our Principal for the entire school, he was a very handsome, tall man and a strict administrator. I always looked at him in awe whenever I saw him and although his younger son was in my class and I never managed enough courage to go up to him and meet him beyond saying "namaste sir" when I saw him in the premises. His elder son Vipin was in the last year of school when I was in sixth and I used to admire and fancy him as he too was equally tall and handsome and would play cricket with us even after he passed out from school. As every student, I too was fond of cricket and always loved to bowl as a left-hand off-break spinner. I used to manage to spin the "leather" ball on the soft mud pitch that we used to curate ourselves. Now, I shudder to think of the danger the leather ball posed without any safety gear. I always used to wait to bowl Vipin bhaiyya but never managed to take his wicket. The game of cricket continued until I graduated from the high school.

 

The same year my father was transferred to another village on the other side of Sanawda called Badi Billod aka Kali Billod that had pucca approach road. My father also saved up some money and bought a bicycle to save on time as Kali Billod was more distant than Sanawda, about 5 kilometres from home and walking would have taken much of his day. It was a Raleigh, a new shining bicycle that we were not allowed to fiddle with since we didn't know how to ride that’s because we were not tall enough. But I was so impressed with the cycle from this British company that when I got admitted to engineering college many years later and bought my first bicycle that was also Raleigh. Unlike the one for which father paid some Rs 75 six years earlier, I paid Rs 192 for mine out of my own, my scholarship money.

 

But there was an excitement to ride a bicycle. I think I was in class 7th when one day I decided that I will ride a bicycle. I had done that a couple of times earlier with Damu and managed to balance it well. Since I was not tall enough to get over the bike, I used to ride it what we called a kenchi (scissor) style. It was very common those days for kids who didn't reach to the height of the seat. In kenchi, you would put one foot on ground and take the other on the peddle of opposite side and by giving a push through the paddle you will bring the cycle in motion and paddle only half and half while balancing the cycle, both your feet are still well below the front bar where at times a passenger would sit. When you become expert but still not tall enough, you would paddle full circle rather than half and half. So that day I sneaked out of the class on some pretext and picked up a bicycle from the cycle stand, I didn't know whose cycle that was and rode that home that was less than half a kilometre. I had nothing waiting at home so I simply drank a glass of water, there was no one home so no questions asked. While I was returning back to school at the main cross road that was the highway connecting Indore to Ahmedabad, it was an upward steep slope and my kenchi style could not give enough thrust and just when I reached the road, I couldn't balance and fell down, my head hit the road and I passed out for a couple of minutes when I came to my senses I noticed a couple of buses had already passed and had steered away from me. I got up little shaky and walked to school with the cycle, I had no clue what I was doing but managed to put the cycle back to where I had picked up and went to my class that had just started. There was blood on my collar and someone noticed and told the teacher who promptly sent me to Dr Khadaite's home and I was given dressings both physical and otherwise since Mrs Khadaite was like my aunt, my mother's classmate-sister who went together to the silai-school. Somehow I thanked my stars that it didn't get flared up or was it, I don't remember that.

We used to call our school’s annual functions "gatherings" and that was the best time of the year in the school although I never took part in any cultural events, which were the best part besides the feasts that were an everyday occurrence for all the three days. Every evening there used to be cultural events and during the day there would be sports competition. The sweets for the feasts would come from Indore and from each of the high school class a select few students would travel to Indore with a teacher and bring lots of sweets depending on the contributory collection. In the middle school we considered this very privileged activity since we were not allowed to go to Indore for this and this was restricted to high school classes only. I think in the 9^th standard I got my chance when I too went to Indore and to Sarafa Bazaar where Sweet shops were concentrated, with a teacher and a couple of my classmates. Out teacher had some social visit and we decided to take a break and went to Alka Talkies near Jail Road to see a Biswajit- Babita-Helen starter film "Kismat" and I still remember the song "kajra mohabbat wala.." in which Biswajit was dressed as a woman to hide from cops or someone. This was perhaps the first occasion for me to watch a movie in a big hall on my own besides some movies that I saw in Dewas in Mahesh Talkies or Nagar-niwas talkies during summer vacation with family. Oh yes, there was one more occasion when we had gone to Indore to our Bua's place when I was 9 or so and sneaked out on my own and went to Neelkamal talkies in Nandanagar area without telling anyone. The movie running inside the hall was Rajesh Khanna starter Aakhri khat. I had no money to buy ticket and stood there in front of the entry gate for a long time, may be 10 or 15 minutes when a gatekeeper asked if I want to see the movie, he knew I would love it since it was a story of a small child played by Master Bunty who was too small and had disappeared and the movie revolved around that event. I was only too happy to see the movie and when I got back home, no one even noticed that I was missing for over 3 hours.

Record-action, as the name suggests are the dances performed on stage when a song is played in the background. Unlike current days when you play a song over Spotify or YouTube, back then you had a gramophone record player that will play the choice of your song over a poly-vinyl record connected to an amplifier system. They were itemised songs unlike the item songs these days. Students would practice them for weeks before they put up the show. Since there was no access to the real dance in the movie, the choreography would be done by someone who has seen the movie or often times by watching the performances of some other troupe that occasionally put up shows in Betma, where an artist has performed/danced on the song. The songs that were quite popular and performed year after year were like "jhumka gira re, Bareilly ke bazaar men" and “Paan khae saiyaan humaare".. there would be some comic skits and parodies too that would make people laugh heartily, like the one that Damu created and that still tickles me to this day. " Tumane kisi ki bhens (buffalo) ko jaate hue dekha hai, woh dekho mujhase ruth kar mera paada ( a buffalo calf) ja raha hai”. The original song being: tumane kisi ki jaan ko Jaate huye dekhaa hai, Wo dekho mujhse roothkar, Meri jaan jaa rahi hai".

One day there was an extempore speech competition and I got the chit " if, I were a Principal".. I came on mic and started with this…

“If I were a principal, I would remove the attendance register and I will allow everyone to do what they want to. I will tell teachers to distribute sweets in the classroom and I will debar teachers to punish students and so on and on forth for about 10-12 minutes and everyone had a hearty laugh and I won the competition, thanks to jury who loved my sense of humour.

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Representative picture of PT exercises with dumb bells taken from Internet.