I studied in The Little Flower High School, Salem, an imposing structure with a majestic facade that stood between a vast lake and a sprawling barren land. The school was known for its huge playground. The long driveway leading to the school from the main road was canopied by trees. Between the trees there were stone slabs fixed on short pillars for students to sit on during drill periods and spectators to watch sports events held in the ground.
During lunch hour, we would sit under the trees. It was only after shooing away the crows on the branches overhead that we would freely open our tiffin boxes; else we would have to forgo our meal because of their poo and there was no eatery, let alone restaurants, in the vicinity of our school in those years of the mid-forties.
Lunch over, a few of us would unfailingly go out to have ice cream from a guy outside the school standing near the gate under one of the huge tamarind trees lining the edge of the road on either side. At the very sight of us, his regular customers, he would start chipping a chunk of ice on a wooden chipper, letting the fragments drop on a piece of cloth underneath. He would deftly wrap the chippings over a short bamboo strip giving it an oval shape and pour over it one of the syrups of our choice and hand it to us. Each piece would cost two annas—sixteen annas making a rupee. Sipping and relishing its taste we would amble back towards the school gate.
Once as we were retracing our steps towards the gate, savouring the sweetened ice lolly, we noticed a big snake wriggling at a slow pace in the thick undergrowth within an ace of our school fence. Soon a mongoose too came in our sights. In short order, there ensued a confrontation between the two. As we stepped towards the edge of the road, we could see the snake, a cobra, raising its hood. It was severed in next to no time by the mongoose, the sight leaving our hair bristling in fear.
The blood-curdling incident taught us to drop the unhealthy practice of entering through the fence, as there were times when we had employed the method whenever we were late to the school.
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