I am In Fifth Grade

We moved into a new place. For a change, it wasn’t a rented house, but a leased one, for five years. Thus for the next five years, I lived in a single house. From fifth grade till 9th grade.

But we were sharing the house with the house owner. There was a common veranda. In the left there was a room and that was for the owner. Then a hall and to the left a bed room and that was for us. The hall leads to another ‘area’ which had a room in the left side (for the owner) and a kitchen in the right side (for us). This ‘area’ was for the owner but we can’t go to our kitchen without using it. So, though it wasn’t a common area, it was a ‘walking’ area for us. The terrace was common.

With this setup, there weren’t any privacy. Most of the time, the owner and their people walked thru our hall, if we kept the door open. I did not like this place. But as a kid, there weren’t any choice.

This house had a small story. The land surrounding this house is very vast. It had three compound wall and the back was open to the land, but with some small foundation like stones. The area belonged to a rich man, who also was a top bureaucrat. My owner served this family for long. So, the rich man gave a small part of his land for free. Not only that, he pushed him into a government job using his hold. My owner then built a house in that land. He had a wife and when she died of some reason, he married her younger sister. When I started living there, that lady was pregnant.

Their family had 4 members. House owner, his wife, wife’s mother and eldest sister.

We were not supposed trespass the surrounding land. But it looked like a small forest. It had many trees, like a small Tamarind tree, Jack fruit tree, Plum tree, Papaya etc. And there also were trees which in Malayalam is called ‘Manjadi’. Still I don’t know its English name. It is a tree but had its fruit look like a pea. And the seeds are blood red. We used to use these seeds for playing.

The owner had a dog. Or better I say we had a dog coz, many a times, we used to feed him. This is the first dog that lived with me or my house. This dog never had any particular place to sleep and it slept here and there. Most of the time, the dog was untied and it used to wander around in the ‘forest’ area. When we became friends, he used to accompany me, half the way till my school. Some students stoned him and may be that is one of the reasons he followed me only half the way.

This dog was brown in color and was very playful. It really played ‘catch me if you can’ with me. If I run he will try to catch me and when I am caught, he will either jump over me or bite me without hurting !!!

Then, one day, my dad brought one kitten. He too loved cats just like me. This dog tried to catch the cat so many times. But finally, it gave up its enemity. I trained this cat to do his ‘potty’ keeping a tray of sand. Coz, we used to keep the cat inside during night, locked. He used to return at night wherever he was.

I wasn’t aware of Pavlov and his experiments. But a similar thing happened with my cat. This cat had a small milk bowl. Sometimes, there will be ants in it. So before pouring milk, I used to tap it to remove the ants or dust. And then, whenever we tap that bowl, the cat used to come running. This is the case if we just happened to drop the bowl or kick the bowl accidentally….he will come running and then demand for milk.

My school was about 20 minutes of walk from this house. Sister’s school also was at somewhat similar distance. Mine was a Boy’s school and hers was a Girl’s school. We did not have a proper neighbor as such. Later on, a family living in one of the opposite houses became friendly, when one of the girls there became a friend of my sister. I have never been there, though.

In a house just opposite to my house lived a politician. He was a Trade Union leader and a member of the State Assembly. His both sons studied in my school (my seniors). One of them was into active politics and became a Member of the Parliament.

My school was a breeding place for politics. Most of the students were inclined to one of the political parties. Two of my cousins were also in this school and the eldest was into active politics and became School Chairman at some point of time (and then became a ‘Corporator’ – member of a Municipal Council). He was a leftist and I turned into a Rightist (then to a centrist).

Since my school admission was done at the time of closing the admission, I was assigned to a division called ‘I’ (A to H was full) and the funny thing is that the division I did not have a class room. And our class teacher what a Craft teacher!. He sits in the Craft room and we pple were divided into small groups and put into other divisions. Thus I became part of the A division. But the Proper A division students considered us as some second citizens, at least in the beginning and there was a wrong belief that we are not good at studies and hence we got the last admission. Thus even getting a seat to sit in the bench was a small issue at the start.

I had to wait till my first term exam to prove that ‘I’ does not stand for Idiots. I was well ahead of most of the A division students. But I failed in English and ‘A’ division class teacher (who used to teach English) even insulted me in front of the class by means of some comments.

For the next term exam, I scored very good marks in English and my teacher commented in front of the whole class that ‘He copied it from somebody else’. I felt humiliated and insulted.

I did not like that teacher. He was a stubb looking unfriendly man. Ours was a government school and the uniform norm was only white shirt and black trousers. We can wear any kind of foot wear, no neck tie required. And this particular teacher asked us to wear a tie and we looked odd in the entire school. I don’t know who intervened; he finally dropped the idea after a few months. When there were student strikes (which was the national festival for this school and we kids actively participated in most of the student protests, shouting slogans.) he asked us to hide somewhere and once those protesters are gone, come back to class. But we passed this info to our seniors and they ‘taught him some lessons’ (some even damaged our class room!!!!). I did not like him at all.

There were so many poor students in this school. Many of them came to school without lunch. The government used to provide some food. But there existed a parallel system here. Issuing food packets. And this responsibility went to that class who were on ‘duty’

It was called ‘Class On Duty’. The school management will put up which class is on duty for a week, on the notice board. And it is the responsibility of that class to look at the overall cleanliness of the school etc. And some students from that class takes initiative and goes to other classes and gets a list of students who are willing to bring one extra lunch packet. And next day thy go to that classes and collect the food packet and keeps them in the Craft Room. The poor students can go and get a packet ( a typical a food packet is usually rice and some curry packed in plantain leaf and then wrapped using news paper)

I still remember the name two three students from my fifth grade. One is Arun T.G, who was very good at studies and a very good orator. He got many prizes in elocution. And he was a well behaved student with a smiling and pleasing face. Then Hari Prasad, who became my friend and remained as a friend till P.U.C (12th grade). I don’t have any other special memory about my 5th grade. No need to talk about the atmosphere in the house. There weren’t any change. And I did not see any change approaching me even at the end of the horizon. ….