Chapter 10: Belt Lashing Begins.

As mentioned in the earlier passage I always used to secure ranks, (read some rank… as long as the rank column was not blank and held a numeric value … it would do) till I reached the secondary or more commonly known as the 5^th standard.

My worst nightmares began when I could not understand a word written in Marathi or Hindi, agreed that I was born and brought up in Mumbai, but my vocabulary in Hindi was not the pure one that was supposedly taught at schools, and my Marathi vocabulary was limited to a few slang’s that would cause the person at the receiving end to commit suicide… provided he/she understood the meaning of the abuse in its completeness.

As for understanding what was being taught at those classes, I could put one and one together and make up my own understanding of the message that was more or less in parallel with the original conveyed. As rightly put by one Ms. Salvi, our (yes I had other south Indian devnagri challenged friends) Hindi was like “tera maa aaya, mera maa gaya” which was supposed to be funny to the rest of the class, but I still don’t get the underlying pun, but I laughed at it any way… laughing is good.

My belt lashing sessions were inaugurated by one Mr. Rodriguez, who used to teach us Marathi, he used to be a strict sir and most of my colleagues would be scared shitless in front of him, just a few of us viz: me, Harish and Rishiraj used to scare the begeezes out of him… He was of the belief that if you could teach obviously at the speed of light you can obviously cover more ground (he was in love with the word obviously… is it obvious, it would be correct to say that he was downright abusive with it). So most of the studious classmates of mine would some how over clock their processors and learn in his high speed sessions, as for me… I would sit and stare…

He used to give loads of home work to be done, which I would never be in a position to start, as I did not understand the questions in the first place, not that I did not try, I used to scan the entire test books comparing strings that resemble the question and copy 2 sentences above and two sentences below the location of the string (if found) and more often than not, it turned out to be correct answer, well that was one of my guarded secrets.

But I was not always lucky to locate all the questions and Rodriguez, considering my south Indian “marathi teriyadu” background used to graciously pardon me for a few questions undone, and I was happy to get away with caning.

As my luck would have it, once I was unable to locate even a single one of the question that he had assigned as homework (I realized later that I was looking at the wrong chapter) but that did it, I was profusely caned, and a remark written in my calendar (which is a small book that serves as a messenger to the parents about the homework given, and the remarks about the child, more often than not the remarks generally spell disaster, its not once that I have seen a professor give a good remark and asked to get the same signed by the parent) and was asked to get it duly signed by my dad. I did protest with loads of sorry, I wouldn’t repeat the same, with real tears but this person had the heart of stone… (This was what infuriated me and I lost all fears to this guy…)

Come evening 6:30, I am in shivers, my mom doesn’t have a clue why I am scared shitless, the door bell rings, enter (stage left) my dad. I wait for him to freshen up and have some snacks and then meekly go to him with the remark.

He asks me what is it for, and I tell him the reason, he get up, closes the window, takes out his belt and lashes me till I am half dead.

I don’t blame my dad, with his brothers always questioning my upbringing (which they feel wasn’t strict enough) in public; this was just his way of venting out his frustration. Had I been in his place, I would have also done the same thing, now it makes sense, but then it did not.

Not only was I lashed, the remark was left unsigned, I did not bother to ask him to sign it again… however at night I was running a temperature, his conscience hurt and he came and apologized to me, he also went to the extent to say that he would come down the next day to my school and screw my professor. That cheered me up a bit; my dad really did care about me, if only I could study a little.

The next day, I was prepared for my Marathi lecture, In enters Rodriguez, and starts checking our homework, I haven’t done mine, he then asks me to get my calendar, to which I comply, he looks at the remark page that is unsigned and takes me down to the principals office.

The principal then for the secondary section was Father Frances Gonzalez, a level headed person who listens to both side of the story before deciding the convict. But for some reason he was pissed of that day, he asked me if I had shown this to my dad, I said I did, he asked me to swear by god, I did, for some reason I did not appear truthful to him, he asked me for my dads telephone number, I gave it to him, he called him up… spoke with him… hung up… and asked me to show him my back, I did… I was excused from the room, Rodriguez how ever did stay behind… what transpired between them I really don’t know… but his teaching skills improved after the incident, and I did not receive any more remarks from him in my calendar. What I did get to know was my dads reply to the Father, the conversation went something like this:

Just the crucial part:

Father: I guess that your son hasn’t shown you the remark he had received.

Dad: he did show it to me.

Father: Oh so you forgot to sign it?

Dad: I did sign; didn’t he show you his back?

Dad: Father, at least the professors should be a little considerate, we hail from South India, I cannot speak Hindi properly, I survive through English, at least my son is making efforts, please try to appreciate it next time around, I would be belting my son for every remark that he carries home to deter him from getting more remarks, however you please ensure that I don’t belt my son for a reason that’s plain unreasonable. Thank you father, I really appreciate your calling, have a great day.

I love my dad.