“Na dainyam, na palaaynam”

In the sunset years of life, we often dig up old memories from the caverns of our lived history. They come in myriad avatars: some delightful and naughty, some wrapped in sorrow and guilt, some sizzling with blush and shame, and some raring to leap out to tweak your ears for foolish, silly blunders and acts of omission and commission. But yet, what an interesting panorama they present on the whole before you of the unfurling, flowering and then slow fading out of an individual in the journey of life.

The little story above (published as 'middle' in The Tribune, 21 Jan 2015; read the text below) is about a little misdemeanour engineered by me (with my pals) as a schoolboy in our bid to awake to freedom, as it were, from the well-intentioned but rather overzealous imposition of an extra class by our math teacher. What had made it worse was his addictive love for the ‘rod’. And, to complement and supplement it, his sharp, acid-coated tongue that could slash and sting even deeper to singe your very soul by its abuse, taunt, jeer and insult.

Part an adolescent mischief no doubt, this small devilry, however, also bespeaks my rebellious streak: the trait that came to me gratis as part of my inheritance package. The ‘rebel’ has since inhabited a small burrow in some obscure isle inside me, occasionally cocking up its eager rodent-head for a sneak peek of the world… At times also to squeak, sigh, cry, wonder and laugh; and at times – albeit less often – to gnaw or nibble.

This puny creature, mostly meek and quiet, but sometimes restless and whelmed by the bewildering chaos of the world going-going-and-gone andhbhakt and berserk, has been my abiding companion through my life’s mediocre journey. At times I have succumbed to its prods and punches and done its bidding. More often, however, I have hushed it instead for cajoling me to do something, though seemingly right, but too audacious for a timid me– born and bred in an orthodox brahmin home. In my personal life, on social issues, as well as in my profession, I have mostly trodden the beaten middle path under the searing gaze of patriarchy. A daring and therefore nobler course has not been in my life’s menu– a bark and bite here, a shout, scream or a whistleblow there, notwithstanding. But, as we know, barks and woofs from a middleclass status quoist like me – feeble as they are – are inconsequential to bestir the ‘Big Brothers’ of this world (mis-)guiding the destinies of us– the ‘Les Misérables’.

Be that as it were, even in ways small, this pesky little ‘fellow’ inside me has been my liberating force. Whenever my pusillanimity has deterred me from my karma, I have suffered loss, contrition, humiliation and shame– materialistically as well as morally. Whenever I have heeded its whistles and tweaks and done its bidding, I have found myself soaring high into new skies of freedom and happiness…

 

Decades have tiptoed by. From the balmy sunshine of youth, it is now the mellow dusk crimsoned by thought, reflection, nostalgia and reverie. However, my ‘pet’ is alive and kicking. Though rather than us being the arguing, feuding twosome, mostly at loggerheads with each other, we have drawn our Lakshman Rekha and learnt to live in symbiotic symphony like an aged couple.

Lastly, a word, especially for the young: If you have to, better err on the side of valour than vacillation or fear. Didn’t even Arjuna torn by contrition and ambivalence to take up arms, had had to say: “Arjunasya pratigye dwe/ Na dainyam, na palaynam.” (Arjun has pledges two: No cringing; no retreat too.)  An Urdu line (never mind the gender bias!) too says it beautifully: “Himmate mardaan, madade Khuda.” (A man with pluck earns Heavenly help and luck.)

Fortune favours the brave, don’t we say?

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The Text of the 'middle'

'This dated back to the late 1960s when I was studying in a high school tucked away in a remote sleepy Kangra village. I must have been in class IX when this incident happened. We had an excellent maths teacher, known for being unsparing both with his rod as well as his invective-spewing tongue. Finding our class not coming up to his expectations in his subject, he started taking an extra period after school hours. This in a way meant an additional dose of cane-and-tongue-lashing over and above the usual quota during the actual school hours. 

Gradually the insipient resentment began to take root in us. Though the rumblings of unstated protest began to mount with each passing day, we knew no way of remedy or escape. Then, unexpectedly, a young teacher of a robust build joined the school and started teaching us science. He was friendly with us, shared jokes and also played hockey or football in the spare hour. 

One day while teaching in the class, he asked us about the extra maths period. Since we were quite open and frank with him, after initial hesitation, most of us started venting our grouse and resentment over the class. Whether it was well-intentioned or otherwise it is difficult to say, but he started instigating us against this. "Do you think other subjects are not important? Do you think the subject of science that I teach is useless? Or Hindi, or English or Social studies, for that matter? What if we all started taking classes? Where would that lead you to?"

To our raw impressionable minds his reasoning sounded flawless. Sick and weary as we were, his words were music to our ears. To further impel us into affirmative action he said emphatically:" Resolve from this very moment. No extra class from now onwards."

But how could be leave the class without getting noticed when the bell rang? The maths teacher's hawk eye would catch us without fail and we would be in for severest punishment. However we had to. So what we did was that, with our bags packed, and ready for action, as the school bell just began to toll, hurrying to the windows on the wall that opened out into a forlorn path on the side, we made good our escape by jumping off. 

At first only a few of us took the initiative, then a few more came forward and thus by and by in a few minutes the entire class had decamped from the class-room to freedom. Later, when some of us - the gang leaders - met in the evening for post-operation discussions we were full of worry and trepidation about what would happen next day when we went to the school. We slept a sleepless night as guilty fugitives. 

Came the next day. and the regular maths class. We sat dumb-struck, hushed into an unusual silence. Soon we heard the familiar crunch and squeak of our maths teacher's trademark 'desi' footwear that he always wore. Our hearts pounded with increasing intensity at his approaching footsteps.

He entered the class with a new cane in hand, freshly cut from a school compound's mulberry's tree- seemingly ready to strike, sting and hurt. Without muttering a word about our escape, he gave us sums to do. The sums were not only too many, but the most difficult ones as well. Strangely, the fear of special lashing that lay in store for us for our misdemeanour had, perhaps, lent an extra edge to our concentration and sharpness. And save a few, most of us solved the sums correctly in the allotted time. The teacher was pleased. That day there was no caning, no invective. And no extra class as well from then onwards.

A little bit of daredevilry had worked out in our favour and done us wonders. We were happy and relieved.

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