Thrown out of School...

“Rishi, what are you doing? Stand up!!!” 99% of the aches in my little 13 year old head could be attributed to this female…… the vice principal of our school… Her panache of nailing innocent students like me for the most trivial of offences was legendary!!! Like today, I had just passed a note to the girl in the next row that read “what a fart class”…. Cmon, in college, ppl find it hard to sit through a whole hour of lecture…. Back in school it’s much much longer and more boring…. And Indian history of all subjects!!!

“Get out and kneel down for the rest of the class…..” ohmygod!!! Dint she know what was going to happen!!! The whole school would see me!!! My fragile male ego hurt, I sought revenge… the rishi jokes for the rest of the day didn’t help either.... but back in sixth standard you don’t really get a lot of classy ideas…I did what any self respecting boy would do…headed off to the hood…. The boys toilet… and scribbled the most venomous vilifications ever conjectured against mankind…. Dog… donkey…. Stupid old woman in love with the school sweeper!!! Ok… granted that my vocabulary wasn’t exactly pronounced and well developed back then…. But it was enough to assuage the bruised ego… and face it, my peers were idiots like me.. they for certain would appreciate the jokes!!! I headed home in the evening… smug at my success…

The next day dawned…. For the first time ever in my life I looked forward to going to school.. Trivial formalities like the morning prayer and assembly completed, we settled down for the more important issues of the day…. Attendance…. Mutterings all around…. The back benches full of juicy gossips about my bold exploits!!!

“Rishi Iyer”

“Present teacher!”

“Ah…. Yes…you are in serious trouble young man! go to the vice principal’s room, will you?”

To be fair, they were quite chill about the whole thing…..there was some amount of yelling… understandable…but no caning…which was fortunate…. But to cut a long story short, I found myself standing outside the principal’s room listening to her call up dad and abusing me… “sir, is this how u bring up ur kids??? You know how difficult it is to get an admission here? This school has been founded on Christian principles… we give lot of importance to discipline…blah blah blah” it was quite painful standing there listening to her go on and on…. “you come NOW this instant and take him away… he is expelled… No, there is no way he is continuing in this institution now!!!” hang on, WHAT???? Expelled??? I was overcome with shame and shock… what wud mom tell??? The moments passed on like years….

In less than half an hour, my dad’s car screeched to a halt outside the school….i was relieved…had complete confidence in the old man!! He’d pull me out of this mess… hez an awesome guy…. I smiled as he came in….. no…he is not exactly coming in…hez running in… never before in my life have I got a shock like this…. He came straight at my throat, ripped off a coupla my buttons….and beat the shit out of me…. “IS THIS WHY U COME TO SCHOOL???? you are way past the line!!!” the words hurt much much more than the leather belt on my back….. soon enough, the teachers and the principal were begging him to stop… sir, please control yourself…he is only a small boy…. Poor thing.. he is just naughty that’s all… “STUPID BOY RUINING MY NAME!!! how dare he do somethin like that!!!!” no no sir… we will talk to him…please don’t beat him like this….see how afraid he is….

GO AND SIT IN THE CAR!!! YOU ARE GROUNDED!!!

Ten minutes later, the door of the car opened and my nemesis got in …I was terrified to even look at his face…. “dude, don’t be so upset….i’m sorry… if I hadn’t done it, they wud have thrown u out!!! now cmon n cheer up.. i'll get you an icecream and we'll go watch a movie, what say?"