Days Under the Crescent SunMemoirPune1990s

Poetic Justice, and Other Lessons

/pəʊˌɛtɪk ˈdʒʌstɪs/ noun, and three more

Q.Explain with reference to the context.[4 × 5]

Four English phrases, and the Crescent days that explained them

Every English paper asked us to explain a line with reference to the context. Crescent never bothered with the dictionary. It just supplied the context.

By Vinaay Patil6 min read
A two-panel picture. Left, as an old sepia engraving: a bewigged scholar in spectacles, quill in hand, frowns over an open dictionary at a candle-lit desk buried in leather-bound books, with a bust and a globe behind him. Right, in watercolour: a Crescent schoolboy in a white shirt and yellow shorts sits in an exam hall chewing his pencil over the question paper, while four thought bubbles float above him: three boys at a bench, one yawning; a teacher holding up a test paper; a boy sprawled in the mud beside his bicycle; and a boy gripping the rail of a wooden staircase.
Explain With Reference to the Context · one learnt it from books, the other from lunch hour

Q. Explain with reference to the context

Every English paper at school had one: a line lifted from the textbook, and under it the instruction, “Explain with reference to the context.” Who said it, to whom, when, and what did it mean.

I learnt most of my English phrases the same way. Not from the dictionary, but from the context. And Crescent was very generous with context.

Poetic Justice

poetic justice

/pəʊˌɛtɪk ˈdʒʌstɪs/ · noun

  1. An outcome in which vice is punished and virtue rewarded, often in a fittingly ironic way.
  2. Crescent usagePunishment that arrives on time, for the wrong offence.

OriginCoined by the English critic Thomas Rymer in 1678, who thought plays ought to end that way.

You have had a nice lunch, full of your favourite items. No bhendi, no karela, none of the odd stuff: just good potato, slightly spicy, and a small tinge of jam to complete the flavours…

Such an appetite. You relish it, you stuff yourself, and what follows a nice full tummy and a slightly warm one o'clock breeze is a heavenly sleep. Slight problem: lunch ends at one o'clock, and what follows is an academic instruction session from one till one-thirty, commonly known as a lecture and, innocently, in school, as a period… You are so drowsy you do not care what subject it is. Thankfully, seating goes by rotation, and your stars have aligned to give you the last bench.

Population explosion dictates that you share the bench with two other inmates of the school. You don't mind, because it's nap time, and all you need is a nice flat portion of the bench to rest your head. And you doze off…

But every perfect picture has a flaw, and there it is: the two knuckleheads next to you start arguing. Seriously, after lunch there should be an official peace time. But no. These knuckleheads argue, and they argue, and argue… They do it a bit loudly, and it breaks your nap. But that is the least of your problems, because as you slowly open your eyes, you hear a voice:

“Second row, last bench. Stand up. Come here.”

As you do the long walk: what should I say? “Those two were fighting, not my fault”… “I was just… err… sleeping”… Oh. Can't use the sleep argument, can I? So what should I say? “Those two were fighting, not me”… And what was I doing? Stopping the fight. Listening to the topic on the board… OK, now what's written on the board? There's stuff in Hindi, that looks like a Maths equation, and that surely is a Geography river… Oh God, where are the manners of cleaning the board after you're done?

You reach the front. “Ma'am, not me, he… they…” All three of you mutter the same thing. You look at the other two, amused. Me!!! Knuckleheads, I WAS SLEEPING, stop pointing the finger at me… and then

Three loud bangs. Your left ear is ringing, your sleep is gone, and you are in mild trauma… the two next to you have similar expressions on their faces.

“Now go back to your place and PAY ATTENTION!!”

A two-panel picture. Left, as an old sepia engraving: on a theatre stage a cloaked villain hangs upside down, tied up in his own ropes, his hat on the floor, while the heroine in a laurel crown raises an olive branch and the audience below cheers. Right, in watercolour: three schoolboys in white shirts and yellow shorts trudge back to their bench, each holding his left ear; the first is still yawning, the two behind glare at each other. The teacher in a sari has already turned back to a blackboard of sums and a wiggly river, and an open tiffin of potato sabzi waits on the last bench.
Poetic Justice · the villain in his own ropes; the sleeper with his left ear ringing

Now, you actually deserved a punishment. Not for the talking, but for the sleeping. But you got punished for the talking, which you were not doing… You got punished for something you were caught doing but did not do, when you needed to be punished for something you did do, but were not caught doing.

Fellows, the appropriate phrase for such a thing is “POETIC JUSTICE”.

Ans. 1 · With reference to the context

Speaker
The teacher (with her right hand)
To
Three last-benchers, second row
When
1:05 pm, after potato and jam
Meaning
Caught for the crime you didn't commit, spared for the one you did
5/5

Pyrrhic Victory

Pyrrhic victory

/ˌpɪrɪk ˈvɪkt(ə)ri/ · noun

  1. A victory won at such a cost that it is hardly better than a defeat.
  2. Crescent usage14 out of 25. Highest in the class.

OriginKing Pyrrhus of Epirus beat the Romans at Heraclea (280 BC) and Asculum (279 BC), but lost so many men that, according to Plutarch, he said one more such victory would ruin him.

This is a short one…

It typically happens when you top the class in a particular subject… The only problem is that the top score of the class in that subject is 14 out of 25!!!

Nobody believes you have the top score. You yourself are ashamed to claim it. And it hurts when the teacher waves your paper around, saying, “This is the highest score in this paper…”, and you know she is not saying it out of pride.

A two-panel picture. Left, as an old sepia engraving: a Greek king in a crested helmet raises his sword in victory on a rocky hill, while behind him a few exhausted soldiers slump on the ground beside dented shields and a weary war elephant lies down. Right, in watercolour: a teacher in a sari and spectacles holds a test paper high with a pained smile, a pile of papers covered in red crosses on her desk, while in the front row a boy hides behind his geography book and his classmates stare at him in disbelief.
Pyrrhic Victory · held aloft like a trophy, received like a sentence (the artist was generous: it was 14 out of 25)

Such an instance is termed a Pyrrhic victory.

Ans. 2 · With reference to the context

Speaker
The teacher, waving a paper
To
The whole class (and you, painfully)
When
Results day
Meaning
You won. Nobody, including you, is celebrating.
14/25

Dragged Through the Mud

drag (someone) through the mud

phrase · also drag someone's name through the mud

  1. To disgrace someone in public; to damage their reputation.
  2. Crescent usageAn all-white PT uniform on a monsoon road. Followed by: “You make your clothes so dirty.”

Today, if you take a stroll around Crescent, you will find nicely paved roads. Premium-quality tar has been used; in places there are even concrete roads, with raised footpaths and neat lanes.

On these roads, new-age Crescentians march to and fro, smartly dressed in their colours of yellow and white with a brown tie. On their bicycles and bikes they look so nice, their confidence growing with every stride they take in the cool breeze.

Flash back to the early 1990s. Crescent was on what could be considered the outskirts of the city. Tar probably had not been invented yet, so some roads were laid with grey rocks and pebbles, with no tar to bind them. Then there were roads in their natural beauty: no pebbles, no rock, just solid mud. Yes, solid mud, which in the rains used to be about as solid as Jell-O.

Back then there was not much construction in the area, so the wind flowed freely, and the gentle breeze of today had much more vigour to it back then. In that vigour it moved the dust off the road freely, and in some sweeps even the small pebbles were not spared. Sandstorms were a common occurrence.

This dust settled on the leaves and branches of the trees, and in the first rain of the season, instead of nice, pure, transparent water, what you got was dusty brown water falling from the trees. For many years I thought this was the so-called acid rain.

The rains turned the mud into what is called, in colloquial terms, chikhal: a mud pond. And every vehicle that passed created a nice splatter of brown all over. Nature in all its glory!!!

So…

Seriously, WHY did we have an all-white uniform on Physical Training (PT) days!!

Didn't anyone realise that strolling through such a muddy, dusty, windy, rainy environment in whites is dangerous? I mean, what were we in, the Navy!!! We were more like the army, the marines. We should have had army fatigues as uniforms… Why white, which by the end of the day was brown? And to top it all, when we reached home, the statement we had to hear was, “You make your clothes so dirty”… What were we supposed to do? Stop the rain? Barricade the wind? What were we, Supermen from Krypton?

But then there were those days. Going down that muddy road on your bicycle in the rain, sometimes the wheels got stuck in the mud, and then, thanks to Newton's discoveries of momentum and inertia, you flew off the bicycle and into the pond. The white was not some brown any more; it was totally brown…

A two-panel picture. Left, as an old sepia engraving: a Victorian gentleman in a white suit and top hat strides stiffly through a town square while a carriage wheel sprays mud up his trousers and the gossiping crowd and a newsboy gasp. Right, in watercolour: on a rain-soaked mud road, a schoolboy in an all-white PT uniform sits splashed in a brown puddle beside his fallen bicycle, while an autorickshaw sprays mud over two more boys in white holding their school bags over their heads. In a round inset, the same boy, brown from head to toe, stands at his front door with his hands behind his back as his mother looks on, hands on hips.
Dragged Through the Mud · one by the town gossips, one by an autorickshaw; note the hands behind the back

That was the day you went home, crossed your index and middle fingers, and said, “Thank God, I was almost run over by a crazy dude driving a car.”

Fellows, the phrase for this is “DRAGGED THROUGH THE MUD”. The uniform, every PT day, literally. Your good name, every evening, at the door. Except on the day you landed in the pond. That day, you had an alibi.

Ans. 3 · With reference to the context

Speaker
Mother, at the door
To
A boy in a formerly white uniform
When
Every PT day, June to September
Meaning
Dragged through the mud by the road, then blamed for it at home
5/5

The Cure Is Worse Than the Disease

the cure is worse than the disease

proverb

  1. A remedy that does more harm than the problem it was meant to fix.
  2. Crescent usageTo keep you off the slippery stairs, you are sent down the slippery stairs.

OriginAn old idea: the Roman writer Publilius Syrus (1st century BC) noted that some remedies are worse than the disease, and Francis Bacon said much the same in his Essays (1625).

Whenever you visit an old 14th-century fort, there is always a section of it, a partially collapsed wall, a stone bridge, an overhanging arch, around which a warning sign is posted, telling you that this is a dangerous structure, way past its validity, and may collapse at any time, so better stay away from it.

Similarly, at Crescent High, there was a structure…

Made of iron, an L-shaped staircase connecting the ground floor to the first floor, with wooden steps encased in an iron frame…

No, the structure was not crumbling. Solid iron could withstand another fifty years…

Yet the structure was deemed unsafe…

WHY?

Because the wood in the stairs had become old and smooth, it had lost the ability to provide a grip, and hence there was a chance of somebody slipping…

Actually, somebody did slip on those stairs, and then it was realised that it was risky. It was more of an afterthought than a forethought. The stable door, as they say, was locked after the horse had bolted.

Anyway, there was no warning sign posted for this danger. There was no yellow “Floor is slippery” caution sign. No skull and crossbones with a lightning bolt beside it…

Crescent had a unique solution… highly ingenious… During the busiest hour of the day (lunch time), Patel T sir had to finish his lunch early and was posted at the top of the staircase on the first floor, to dissuade anyone from using it…

The ingenious part of the solution was not that a teacher had to hurry his lunch to be posted in time, nor that the same students had to be dissuaded every day, as if telling them once was not enough…

The real ingenuity was this… A silly student would come up from the ground floor, take on the slippery wood, and manage to reach the first floor safe and sound, only to be heckled by PT sir, and at times even get a slap on the wrist, so that next time he would not do it… YET he was then sent back down to the ground floor by the same stairs (wooden and slippery), and told to take the other staircase!!

A two-panel picture. Left, as an old sepia engraving: a medieval physician in a long robe and hat looms over a patient with a mere sniffle, holding a huge saw, a jar of leeches and a giant funnel, while the patient shrinks back into his pillows. Right, in watercolour: at the top of a wooden school staircase with shiny, slippery steps, a moustached teacher in spectacles, still eating his lunch roll, points down; a schoolboy in a white shirt and yellow shorts edges back down clutching the railing, one foot sliding. Beside them, a plain concrete staircase stands completely empty.
The Cure Is Worse Than the Disease · for your safety, please use the slippery stairs once more

Why!!! I think the risk of slipping is at least twice as high going down the stairs as coming up… yet… why was the student asked to go down the same stairs!!!

Why!!! Why not put a rod or something to block the entry at both the top and the bottom? Why place a teacher to man the crossing?

And above all, why!! not change the wood on the steps to something non-slippery?

Fellows, the phrase for this is “THE CURE IS WORSE THAN THE DISEASE”.

Ans. 4 · With reference to the context

Speaker
The teacher on stair duty
To
A silly student who made it up safely
When
Lunch hour, every day
Meaning
To keep you from slipping on the stairs, you are sent down the stairs
5/5
Answer key

Four phrases. No dictionary, no grammar book; just a lunch, a results day, a monsoon road and a staircase.

If our English teacher had ever set these four as RTC questions, I would have scored full marks. Which, come to think of it, would itself have been poetic justice.

— Vinaay Patil

Today's Vocabulary

Definitions as per the Crescent dictionary

Poetic justice
Wrong crime, right punishment
Pyrrhic victory
14/25, top of the class
Dragged through the mud
PT whites, June to September
Cure worse than the disease
“Go back down. Take the other stairs.”
Explained with reference to Crescent

Days Under the Crescent Sun

Stories from school days and a 1990s Pune childhood: plans that were too clever, teachers who were never questioned, and the people who made it all bearable.

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