The Curious Case of a Little Book

It was the magic nineties. Hindi songs were jazzy, actors were yet to discover designer clothes, yellow pants and red shirts were in fashion, all songs sounded the same, and the centrefold of a magazine carried an actress in a saree.

Yet in those magical days, for some reason (out of curiosity, out of sheer excitement, out of sudden impulsiveness), three little friends decided to read a Filmfare magazine after lunch: a special issue dedicated to the Filmfare Awards.

Between them, these three ninth-standard students would not have watched more than nine films in their lifespan so far. Yet since this is India, and we like to debate, they were debating the worthiness of the awards: who deserved what, and who got an award without deserving it.

Now here you have to remember one thing. To talk about an actor's performance in a particular film, it is not compulsory that you have seen the film. You could still talk about that performance with authority, and that authority had a gradation within the folklore of Crescent.

Grade A: If you had seen a previous film of the same actor, you had top-grade authority, and your word was held in the highest esteem. It did not matter that the film you had seen (Hatimtai) had nothing to do with the film under discussion (Caravan), because all actors had similar roles in all their films.

Grade B: If a family member, usually an elder brother, had seen the film and commented on it, you could use his comment, and its authority transferred to you. After all, nepotism and India go hand in hand.

Grade C: If a neighbour had seen the film, you were still entitled to use their opinion.

Grade D: If your friend had got the review from a family member of his who had seen the film, well, you had a certain authority.

And there were similar grades below. All of them, however, were held in higher esteem than the members of the jury, who had actually seen the films and voted for the winner. After all, whom would you trust more: your friend's neighbour's friend's sister, or someone like J. P. Dutta!!

Anyway, coming back. Anuj was speaking with Grade B authority about one actress's performance (Madhuri), and Sameer was at Grade C, trying to justify another (Sridevi). Chetan was, well, just turning the pages. After years of textbooks whose paper was so rough you could use it for polishing, getting his hands on something glossy was too much for him. He probably did not know paper could be smooth and shiny.

As the debate raged, PT Sir (Patel T) saw a bunch of boys looking at a glossy magazine, and his internal sirens went off. He approached the group without making a noise. (He only said "What are you boys doing?", and probably blew the whistle too!!) But for the boys, the injustice meted out to Sridevi was more important than anything else in the world. Until PT Sir tapped Chetan on the shoulder. Chetan turned around, and the flipping of pages stopped.

Anuj and Sameer had got so used to images changing in front of their eyes that when a picture of Rahul Roy stayed in front of them long enough to register in their brains, they too stopped debating.

The next few minutes saw frantic action. The magazine was ripped from Chetan's hands and went flying. By now the commotion had reached the ears of a couple more teachers, and they gathered too. It was three teachers against three students, and the students knew they were doomed. "Sorry." "It's not mine." "It's his." "It was lying here." "We don't know."

Lunchtime was over by now, and a curious crowd had begun to swell to watch the spectacle. None of us knew exactly what had happened. But hearing a teacher scold "Is this why you come to school!!", and to someone else for a change, is sweet music to your ears. And the way hapless students said "Sorry" and "Not me" was so compelling, so full of drama, that it was hard to miss such an event.

Actually, no. Not everyone was interested in the drama. For me, drama was lame; we were there to see some action. After all, once we saw PT Sir with a stick in hand, two teachers with a reputation for slapping, and three rodents in front of them saying "sorry", there was bound to be some action.

Within moments we were rewarded for our patience. First came a body blow to the face: SLAP. Anuj went into shock and instinctively raised a hand to cover his red cheek, which left his legs undefended, and BAM, the stick found his leg. For a moment he tried to guard both, one hand on the face and one on the leg, until he realised the hand was not made of steel. The hand withdrew. BAM, another one on the leg.

Wooooh. Now Sameer and Chetan were in a fix. Drift right: the slap. Drift left: the stick. Both drifted left.

It may look like the dumb choice. It isn't. Every true-blood Crescentian knows the stick is the smart one, for two reasons.

One: evasion. Your neck is not flexible. Dodge a slap and it only lands somewhere worse: your nose, your eyes, the back of your head. The stick aims at the legs, and with legs one can dance. Missing is easier, and if you are wearing leather shoes, a hit on the shoes barely counts.

Two: feedback. A slap reports straight back to the teacher's hand. If the palm feels that nice hot sensation, it was a good hit; if not, they go for another one!!! A stick only reports that it hit something, not how hard. This is where FAKING comes in. Even if the stick has only grazed your trousers, FAKE it like anything ("eeew… oowww… ohhh"), clutch your leg as if it has been hit by a bullet, and the hitter stops, satisfied with their effort.

So you see, Sameer and Chetan were smart. That is what all Crescentians are:

not smart enough to avoid trouble,
but smart enough to get the better odds when in trouble.

Usually a SLAP and a BAM would have been the end of any situation at Crescent High School. This, however, was DEFCON 1: a magazine, a glossy one, with photos. The matter was escalated.

The rest of us were asked to disperse back into our classrooms, which we had already begun to do anyway; once the hit is delivered, the wonder is gone. But as we went in, PT Sir, surprisingly, said to the Three Stooges, "Come with me. Let's go to the Vice Principal."

Crescent had an absentee Principal. At a comfortable hour she would take a nice stroll from her house and walk into the Principal's cabin, which was… 50 metres south-west of her home. There she would sit, and after a few hours she would return by the same path. The monotony was broken on only two occasions, 15th January and 26th August. Ohh, the other way round: 15th August and 26th January. And yes, on those days the walk was the same, only in the other direction: 50 metres south-east.

So the school was actually run by the Vice Principal, Ejaz Madam. She spoke faster than anyone else in the school, and most teachers smiled a lot while talking to her, maybe because they had no idea what she was saying. When a matter like this was brought to her, she had two very predictable responses:

So, understandably, on the walk from the class to her office, Anuj, Sameer and Chetan were praying for the first option. Chetan was having a tough time: faking his leg pain while keeping up with the others was proving a bit too much for his acting skills. Anuj and Sameer had already folded their hands in prayer mode. Anuj was also looking at the sky; either he was looking up to God, or the slap was having a disorienting after-effect.

The Three Stooges arrived at the Judge's doorstep. The evidence, by now rolled up into something resembling a medieval scroll, was presented to Madam Judge.

Her fury was something of a repeat telecast: "Is this why you come to school?" Then she withdrew to deliberate with her jury.

Her Grand Jury had two permanent members: Joshi Sir, who hardly said anything, and Shine Miss, who said many things ("We should make them stand as a punishment." "We should call their parents."). The complainant, in this case PT Sir, usually became the temporary member. He had no major role except to go along with the majority.

So the unanimous decision was: "Call your parents."

Anuj and Sameer went straight into cry mode. "Sorry." "Never again." "Please." "Not mine." "His." "Sorry."

Chetan was silent. His heart and eyes were fixed on the glossy magazine, which by now had transformed from a rectangle into a cylinder. The cover had some wrinkles on it. If the actress on the cover had got those wrinkles in real life, she would have been very sad; Chetan's sadness was at about the same level. After all, it was his first glossy book.

"Until you call your parents to meet me, you cannot sit in class."

Now everyone went silent. Anuj and Sameer knew cry mode was not helping. Being smart Crescentians, they abandoned the failed strategy; the situation was too hot to be handled by apologies.

Chetan, well, was still sad-faced, and speechless.

That day they stood outside until the end of school, with repeated reminders of the sentence they had received.

On the way back, the Smart Crescentians worked out that the issue would fizzle out on its own if they did nothing, apologised the next day, and kept on apologising. They were confident of getting through. So they eliminated the option of calling their parents; they could not risk a nuclear explosion at home.

Chetan, however, had been taken by his sadness into a meditative state, and in this calm he had become an even smarter Crescentian. He announced that he would ask his parents to come and meet Madam the next day. Anuj and Sameer were shell-shocked. They were nervous, and they also had a moment of glee: nervous because it would now look as if only they were disobeying a direct order, gleeful at the prospect of the drama of Chetan, his parents and Madam Judge all together.

Chetan did bring his father the next day. They had a conversation with Madam Judge, after which Chetan was sent back to class, and into the perpetual good books of Madam. Anuj and Sameer had to endure the punishment for another two days, but they stuck to their resolve and the issue finally fizzled out. They had, however, entered the perpetual bad books of Madam, and they paid for it dearly: every time anyone in their class did anything, they were the first to be punished.

For years it remained a mystery exactly how Chetan had pulled off this stunt. He kept mum about it; he knew not to trust anyone with his trick. He was smart. It remained the most fascinating suspense of the school: how did he do it???

After all, he had entered the jaws of a shark,
and was in the grip of a python,
yet he lived.

Years later, like O. J., he came out with an "if I had done it, this is how I would have done it" version of events. Here is how it went.

Chetan went home and told his father the following story. Anuj was copying in a surprise exam from a book in which he had written all the answers in short, keeping it on his lap under the bench. He saw PT Sir coming, so he pushed the book to Sameer. Sameer kept it on his lap, but when he was asked to stand up, the book fell. Chetan, sitting next to Sameer, saw the book and INNOCENTLY picked it up, and that is when PT Sir caught him sitting with the book.

The next day his father came to meet Madam, and the conversation went like this:

The mix of "I agree" and "BOOK" meant that nobody discussed what the book actually was. Anyway, it was an awkward conversation for both the parent and the teacher… more so for the teacher.

Finally Chetan was let off scot-free, along with a medal of honour: This boy is truthful. Tells everything at home.

Anuj and Sameer were in shock, but they never tried to copy the strategy. They did not have the guts.

And well, Chetan became the toast of the town.