Trigger warning: Physical abuse, Inappropriate behaviour
It was a normal afternoon, the one where everybody was lazing around, and nothing really happened. I was heading to lunch when I received a message from a friend who rarely texts.
The message read: “You know what? Ramesh Sir got fired.”
I replied: “Oh. Damn. Why? What happened?”
In that very instance, I knew how ridiculous this question was because almost anybody in our school could correctly guess why they would have got him fired – students and teachers included. What I also knew was that all of us would still propose this question casually.
See, the thing about our school is a majority of the population resides within four blocks, and honestly, everyone knows everyone. Somebody or the other is somebody or the other’s brother or sister.
Generations have come and gone.
Stories have echoed.
Curriculum has been changed and replaced.
Rumours have spread like wildfire.
But the power of whispers is still intact.
Last I remember, school was nearly nine years ago, and attending his class was around 12 years ago. Twelve years is a vast period of time, it almost feels like a different life. Sometimes, when me and my friends sit around and talk, I seem to remember a few moments, but often, a significant part of my brain feels blank, as though they were convincing me that a dream was real, that it had happened. I had woken up one day and just forgotten. It may be that with every passing year, my memory is failing me, which I guess can be accounted as good and bad.
Still, even with a few roads of my mind dug up and blocked, his presence is strongly felt. Except, it’s for all the wrong things and with a strange feeling I can’t describe creeping up beneath my skin.
Perhaps fear always remembers.
He was a Sanskrit teacher who invariably started the class with Ramaha, Ramou, Ramaaha. Several years later, and several tries later, I beg your pardon, but personally, I still haven’t been able to articulate the use of such a subject and a teacher. Both, to me, seem pointless. Let alone making a difference that shaped a student’s future, they haven’t even added a tad bit of value.
When I think of him, the mental image that pops up is of a man wearing a white-checked shirt, brown formal pants, frameless glasses, and a huge Naamam on his huge forehead. A class of young minds gathering from various corners of the school for a third language period would break out in mischief and laughter but drop dead in silence immediately the minute they know or realize he is arriving.
Daily, as he stepped in, we would all try to gauge his mood, only to fail.
On some days, he would just stay still, and silent on his table with a face that was unreadable.
On other days, an angry tiger would prowl around the bush in search of it’s prey.
He would usually walk around the classroom with his rough hands tied to his back, investigating each notebook thoroughly. One day, like all school stories go, we were assigned a set of tasks that had to be completed but weren’t. The ones who hadn’t finished were asked to stand.
Nobody did.
So, he got up from his chair in an intense force and took three big steps towards us. Afraid to death, immediately, 5 of us stood. Another ten followed, slowly, fully aware of what was to come.
The only sound that could be heard in the entire room besides the creaking of the fan was silence. Heads lowered down in shame. Not one person dared to look up, so much that we couldn’t keep track of where he was walking; who was the prey?
And before we knew it, we heard a loud thud.
Like an atom bomb was fired mistakenly right near our ear.
The kind of thud your fellow batchmates from neighboring classes would come running to enquire about in breaks. When we lifted our heads to see who got hit, the boy in our class rubbed his back excessively because it burned terribly. Embarrassed and teary-eyed, he mumbled a few words.
In a swift motion, a slap came his way.
Another word, another slap.
His ear suddenly turned a strange red. Heads lowered in shame once again. Soon, the shit show would be followed by a lecture, and all of us would be made to sit down.
A sigh of relief.
But that day, that didn’t happen.
Instead, he made his way to the other corner of the classroom, where girls were predominantly seated. Under the desk, trembling legs struggled to stand straight, hands were held fiercely, and for a brief moment, we had forgotten to breathe.
He would stand in such close proximity that we could literally smell the stink of his mouth. It would fill us with discomfort and disgust. Eventually, the question would come up.
“Why didn’t you do your homework?”
Ramesh sir would get nothing in response. Then, he would raise his hand, and in that fraction of a second between the movement of his hand and the hit, we would flinch and close our eyes in terror. He would pause and then hit. Occasionally, he would go to the extent of pinching us, young girls, inappropriately, and the entire class would watch us visibly uncomfortable with this act. We stood there like a stone as if born with an innate quality of tolerance.
Time and again, this happened.
Yet, not a word was spoken.
And with every loud blow that echoed and lingered uncomfortably in classrooms then, and relived in many therapy sessions years later, he would not give us lessons to learn but scars to remember.
Retrospectively, it’s not to say we were oblivious to our surroundings or the actions that took place right in front of our eyes. I don’t know if we owe it our conditioning, dysfunctional societal structures and thoughtless ideologies or a bit of everything that teach us that hitting children and misbehaving with them is okay.
We knew it was wrong but thought or were taught it was right.
Collective trauma and fear run through our generation that we are now struggling but learning to let go with baby steps. Schools shouldn’t feel unsafe. They should be spaces where children are able to make mistakes freely, speak their hearts out, explore themselves to the fullest extent, and have the room to ask questions about almost anything.
I was told that a few girls had reached out to the female teachers to receive help, and they had acted immediately. It took ten years, and I’m only sorry for the terrible childhood we all had to endure – We didn’t know any better.
And how much ever I tease the Gen-Z’s for the abbreviations they come up with and their obsession with weird stuff, given my boomer tendencies are really starting to show, I’m only glad that they have a voice that is full of courage and kindness, creating and paving the path of safer spaces for each other.
We only have each other.
Well, I guess there is some hope.