Babyji

Author:Abha Dawesar
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780307424891
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2007-12-17T16:00:00+00:00

xvi

Hulla Gulla

When I arrived at school there were armed security guards all over campus. They looked at the students, especially the tall boys, with some hostility. They stopped kids who were carrying anything more than schoolbags and inspected their belongings. They had been called in to stop any untoward incidents related to Mandal. Clusters of students and teachers spoke to one another in whispers. There was an atmosphere of mutiny everywhere. The bahadur from the principal’s office found me as I was walking toward the Pushkin Block.

“Babyji, the principal Sahib has called you.”

I went to the principal’s office.

“Anamika, the milieu is very uncertain. We plan to continue classes for as long as possible,” the princi said to me, then paused dramatically.

“But?” I said, raising an eyebrow.

“But Delhi Administration might declare that all schools should close. We will be powerless then. I want to discuss how we can ensure the students are organized in that event.”

“We should make sure there’s a list with phone numbers of all the students and teachers of each class. The subject teachers should also give a four-week study plan to the kids,” I said.

“Four weeks! Our Head Prefect is a pessimist!” he said.

“One never knows. I remember the curfew in 1984 went on longer than we thought.”

I tried looking for Vidur and Sheela after I spoke to the princi, but it was impossible to find them in the bedlam. In the assembly ground I made announcements over the PA system, continually asking classes to line up, but they fell on deaf ears. Instead of lending an air of order to the campus, the military guards had had the opposite effect.

“What is this hulla gulla?” the princi asked me as he came up onstage.

I shrugged.

“Tell everyone to get into line,” he said.

Stretching my authority to its limits, I started addressing the class teachers over the PA system. “Mrs. Thaityallam, please get IX E to line up,” I said. Technically it was the responsibility of the teachers to make sure that students formed into lines. The Head Prefect was meant only to assist the teachers. But it was a real joy pointing out to Mrs. T., the biggest stickler for duty and decorum, that she needed to get on with her job. I thought she’d be furious with me, but she gave me a hasty glance when she heard her name and rounded up her kids.

By the time we gathered for assembly we were fifteen minutes behind schedule. We sang Schiller’s Ode to Joy, and then a small child only a little older than Jeet read the news. He was terribly nervous at having to speak in front of the school and swallowed up a lot of words in his haste to finish reading. His thin legs shook under his gray shorts. When he walked back I patted his head.

The school talk was given by a girl in the senior class, who spoke about the mother goddess figure in the Harappan civilization. I thought of India every time she said “mother goddess.

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