In the 1950s, pranks in educational institutions never ever descended to the vicious levels one sometimes hears of today. Vexatious at the most, in those days it was an innocuous means to dispel the monotony of school or college life. In the process no one was scarred physically or mentally though one’s illusions about schools being synonymous with discipline were sometimes dented!
In our all-boys boarding school in Tiruchy, pranks were aplenty and varied—like slyly lacing a bully’s mug of coffee with castor oil and enjoying his subsequent discomfiture, de-buttoning the trousers of a sneak (including those fastening his fly) or ‘watering’ a snob’s new pair of sneakers to prevent him flaunting them during PT classes.
Squeamishness was never a problem. Slipping a wriggly lizard or cockroach down the back of an unsuspecting boarder hunched over his homework was a temptation some just couldn’t resist. What ensued was hilarious—with the victim doing a frenzied dervish-like dance to shake off the intruder. Parasitic bedbugs used to make life hell for us and another ploy was to plant a fistful of these in a boarder’s bedroll and wait for the ‘drama’ that unfolded when he hit the sack at night.
Our perverse inventiveness knew no bounds. Taking potshots at classmates with paper wads propelled by a rubber band fastened to one’s fingers was risky and could earn one a sound hiding (pun intended!) from the headmaster. But a few ‘snipers’ specialised in this form of ragging, sleight of hand enabling them to get away with it more often than not.
One Diwali an ear-splitting firecracker, mischievously timed to jolt us and disrupt the 9 pm study hour, went off prematurely as the school’s grumpy cook shuffled past it, scaring him out of his wits. He retaliated by feigning shock and injury, resulting in our going to bed supperless that night—with the cook gloating over our plight!
Well aware of our penchant for ragging, the hardboiled warden sometimes gave us a dose of our own medicine so to speak. At 5.30 every morning he would stride into the dormitory, snapping his fingers audibly and repeatedly to wake us up. If one didn’t get up soon enough, he would just flip one’s camp-cot over, unceremoniously tossing the occupant to the floor. If that “rude awakening”, as a wit termed it, didn’t arouse the sleeper, assuredly nothing ever would. To reverse an old saying, we sometimes got as good as we gave!
George N Netto
Email: gnettomunnar@rediffmail.com