Schooled Under Mulberry Tree

 

Author: 

Suri@blogger.com 

My classroom could boast of four brick walls around but no roof; I and my fellow classmates sat on wooden boards with black slates on our laps. Writing chalk was supplied by our school teacher.

If I were to eyeball my classroom today I would say it was around 12 ft by 12 ft in size within the four brick walls with no plaster on them; each wall standing 8 ft high. Two of the walls had openings without window frames and the entry door was 6 ft by 3 ft with a wooden door frame with no doors; a small piece of iron railing with holes in it hung from the door frame.  

Corrugated zinc (aluminum?) sheets to serve as the roof for my classroom were on order but had not yet arrived. They would not be received for another year either because someone had messed up with the purchase order for my first school or they were taken away to build military barracks in east-Bangalore to house returning WWII soldiers from my hometown.

There was a mulberry tree going through my roofless classroom. A blackboard was nailed to it, and my first teacher had a wooden chair to sit by the blackboard.

When it drizzled we just put the black slates on our heads to protect ourselves; when it rained it was a prickly storm of silky worms dropping on my head from the mulberry tree wanting to pick my brains. They too wanted to learn I guess for I would see them ready every morning to do their push-ups on the lowest branch of the tree.

We would enter the classroom to the sound of an iron peg hitting the iron railing piece hung by the front door frame. My tallest classmate with her impressive height of 4 feet on bare feet could reach up to the railing piece, tiptoed, to ring us in and out of our classroom every day.

The only thing I remember about my class leader, the tallest girl in class, is that her red skirt came up to her knees; she had red ribbons on her parted hair. And, her skin color was lighter than mine; she had fish-shaped eyes with pupils that were grey. She always wore a black dot on her forehead.

My classmates comprised of 14 girls usually dressed in colorful skirts and white petty coats for tops; I remember going to school in khaki shorts and a white half shirt; we all squatted on 8-ft long wooden boards, 5 each per board, placed in 3 rows flat on the ground. It often drizzled in the morning in my hometown keeping the ground moist throughout the rainy season; the wooden squatting boards were the best furniture we had in school.  

The name of my school was 'Stree Samaj Shale'. There was no other school near our home; my parents had no choice except to admit me to the 'Stree Samaj Shale'; I was under 5-yrs of age then.

Soldiers who fought in WWII from my hometown had probably returned a year before I was even born to bring about a baby boom in my town during the years 1941 to 1942; there were more girls than boys born in my town; almost 2-girls to a boy (not sure why;) hence there were more KG and primary grade girl-schools than boy-schools in our area.

We used black slates and hard chalk to copy the alphabets that our teacher wrote on the blackboard. As I was the only boy in my class I had to sit on the front wooden board under the watchful eye of my teacher with 2 girls to my right and two to my left who often bullied me to show what I was writing on my black slate; I was a year younger than most of them I believe and skinny; I was a little kid with a running nose on most mornings. 

At times, a tiny greenish or whitish caterpillar, chomping in merriment with eyes shut, would loosen its grip on a mulberry leaf above my head and fall on my head as I wrote my alphabets on the black slate.

If I ever yelled because of the worms falling on my head, my teacher would extricate them from my unkempt hair with a scorn on her face. However, would punish me by sending me to the back of the classroom for disturbing the rest of the class. 

She would ask me to 'stand still facing the back wall of the classroom for yelling when all were copying from the blackboard without complaining. I would stand there... the rest of the class hour, wiping my running nose. The tall girl squatting on the last row of wooden squatting boards would often turn around & giggle at my plight!

There were many mulberry trees around my classroom. The entire school comprised 3 such classrooms and one office room; my first school had been hurriedly set up on a mulberry farm to accommodate the bumper crop of 5 year age kids, some older too, as the fierce WWII fervor was ending in my city.

My city had contributed a lot to that war effort too; the city had no funds to build better schools. My parents were told that all corrugated zinc sheets meant for our school roof had been used up to build the housing complex of Madras Engineering Group (MEG) Military Barracks at the East Bangalore area and the Bangalore Cantonment that boasts today the famous MG Road, Field Marshal K.M Cariappa Memorial Park and Parade grounds.

On the last day of my first year at school, I took my 1st-grade final exam. We all had come prepared with clean black slates ready for the finals just before the summer holidays.  

All 52 Kannada alphabets had been neatly written by our teacher on the blackboard before we walked in for the exam. Whoever completed copying the alphabet neatly could leave early on that final day of my 1st year at school even before the final- tann, tann, tann... sound of the iron peg hitting the iron railing piece hung by the door frame to serve as a bell! 

I wanted to beat the tall girl, my class leader, who often giggled at me. She was eager to finish first too to retain the class leader title I guess. I scribbled fast... for I knew the alphabet by heart by then; remembered how to write them too since my big sister Sharada had made me practice them at home before the final exam. The tall girl may have struggled a bit I think, because her mother tongue was not Kannada; it was Marathi.

Before I could copy the last few alphabets she had already finished. She stood up abruptly from the squatting board in the last row… rushed to the teacher to show her finished work before me.  In that frenzy, her newly starched skirt tied to her slim waist dropped below her waistline exposing her panties to the five of us squatting on the front board!

The front row of squatters, 4 girls, and I giggled; worms on the mulberry tree stopped their push-ups and stared too... some lost their grip; some fell on my head as usual and I yelled loudly. I was sent back to the back wall to stand still till the entire class finished the exam that day. But the other girls who giggled were not sent to the back wall! My first school teacher was a sadist, did not like me... one odd boy with a squint, in a class full of girls! 

I graduated alright from that school only because those worms growing up to become caterpillars and butterflies picked my brains often on rainy days!

My tall class leader was not to be seen in my second year at that school. I guess either she joined a private school or her parents got transferred to a different city. I have not seen her since that year. If she meets me today wonder if she would recognize me!