Vinasha Kaale Vipareetha Buddhi – Part 4 – 5th Standard

The ink incident was after all a precursor for the days to come. There would be even worser incidents that would change my whole outlook towards a lot of events. However they didn’t involve me personally to a great extent and have therefore decided to skip mentioning them here. However one incident that did involve me and taught me a lot of lessons that I have never forgotten is the ‘bath’ incident.

It goes like this. Dileep, Dinakar(Chikka) and me and another guy I don’t remember used to have fun in the bathrooms after the games period, and just before bhajans. We used to clean up the sink kind of basin that people used to use for brushing, block one end with a cloth, and open all the taps to fill it with water. Once filled, we used to use it as a swimming pool. Also, the hot water tap used to be used to fill bucket after bucket, and simply splash it all over the floor between the bathrooms and the toilets, to get it all cleaned up, to begin skating on the floor, knee-skating to be precise.

And the middle bathroom, we used to block the exits from both sides and start filling water, so we, Jai Sai and Jigmee could use it as a bigger swimming pool. Everyday we used to rush in 15 minutes before games got over and start filling it so that we could enjoy for atleast half-an-hour before bhajans. Jai Sai, Jigmee and Rohit Parmar would jump into the middle bathroom and splash around, while Dileep, Chikka and I would enjoy outside, playing knee-skating and waddling in the smaller pool(well I settled for it because I never knew swimming(and I still don’t) and besides my efforts at trying it have always failed).

Lots of seniors(big brothers) would take offence to it because we didn’t spare anybody, but we were left unharmed only because Jigmee and Jai Sai also happened to be there. Whoever came in got a splashing welcome of a bucketful of water on them. So people would enter from the other door and get through with their work and leave as fast as possible. We always used to have a lookout in the beginning because we used to enjoy till the last moment, and maams’ would always come into the dormitories to herd all the guys for bhajans. So we used to take turns being the lookout.

However after about 2 months of such fun and frolic, not a single maam came upto the bathrooms and so we stopped caring about the lookout job. One fine day(or rather fateful day), we were enjoying as usual, when ‘Tall’ Parvathi amma came inside the bathrooms and in our usual style we saw somebody was entering and we just emptied a bucket on her. Flabbergasted, she screamed at all of us to stop and ran out. We had a good laugh and continued playing. I was just coming out of the bathroom with another bucket filled to splash on the next entrant when everything fell silent. I called out “Dileep, Chikka”, and got no response. I decided they were playing a trick on me, and so ran out with the bucket, and emptied it with all my force.

Guess who was standing there, waiting to get splashed by me. No prizes, it was none other than Warden Aunty. I dropped the bucket when I saw her dripping wet and tried to run. I found that she had closed the door at the other side and was standing at this door. Boy, did we get a thrashing. Even today when I see some marks on me, though temporary, I keep thinking it must have been a remainder of the thrashing we got that day. She caught each of u by our necks and banged our heads against each other(phantom style) and was all the while blasting us about enjoying by wasting water, and about our discipline in general.

We believed we were dead that day, and that she would never stop punching and slapping us. Luckily bhajans started and somebody called her, so she left, leaving us to wash our red faces and get ready for bhajans. Still wonder whether somebody really called her that day, or she left us because she thought we would pass out if she hit us any longer. Well, so much for my adventures with bath.

to be continued… … …

– GUPTA GHOST