We were three—all aged 12—running for cover from the toddy tapper who, with a knife in hand, was coming after us menacingly. We were in Class 7 when this happened at Balijipeta, a small town in the then Srikakulam district in Andhra Pradesh some 40 years ago.
Gasping for breath, we were at a loss as to how to escape unscathed from the unexpected assailant. It was lunch break and there were no classes going on in our school, which was close by. We ran around the school several times hoping that it would exhaust him and he would stop.
But the determined toddy tapper was not dissuaded. To us, he appeared as if he was Yama who looked set to snuff out our lives. Profusely sweating and exhausted, we entered our school building through one of the windows. He trailed us. We jumped out and entered one room after another. This cat and mouse game went on for a while, as we were moving from one room to another to avoid getting caught.
You might be wondering why this man was out to punish us. It was our folly. During lunch hour, we went to a nearby tank to wash our tiffin boxes and saw a pot hanging on a palm tree. The pot was full of toddy. Having tasted toddy before, we were tempted to steal it by hook or crook. One of us threw a stone at the pot. We hoped the stone would make a hole in the pot and we would be able to drink some of the toddy. But our plan went awry; the stone missed the target and hit the toddy tapper who was working in the nearby field. Enraged over being hit by the stone and our act of trying to steal the toddy, he came after us.
Now, we had lost all hope of escaping him as he was searching every room in the school. Then suddenly we were grabbed by the hair by a hand from within a room and the door was closed. We thought we had been saved. We were so happy that we had finally escaped the toddy tapper who gave up his search fuming and shouting cuss words as he left the school.
But hardly had we celebrated our triumph when we were thrashed mercilessly with a cane by the man who we thought was our saviour. He was none other than our crafts master who had long held a grudge against us for having skipped his classes.
This was a bolt from the blue. Cornered, we begged his forgiveness but to no avail. We were spared only when we did the crafts work then and there.
Email: subrahmanyam.d@newindianexpress.com