Dear Reader,
I am here again. In the last post, I detailed my becoming Middle Pass. Now the next mile stone to pass was to become Matric Pass. The School from which I passed Middle was called Rugh Nath Mandir School. This school was supposed to be teaching only upto grade 8. Our elders at home decided that Sri Pratap High School should be a good school for me to continue my studies. The school was situated about two to three kilometers from our residence. That distance was a normal walking distance for school those days. No school buses. The school was a big one. There were six sections in Grade 9. I was allotted Grade 9F. There were about 40 students in each section. There was a dedicated room for each section. All Grade 9 sections were on ground floor whereas Grade 10 Sections on First Floor. The benches and seats for the students were fixed to the ground and there would be sufficient natural light through the windows. Here we had electrical light connection but no fans and no lights in the classrooms. The school was properly staffed and the teachers were better educated than my previous schools. All teachers there were at least graduates. About 10 percent staff had post graduate degrees. About 75% staff had Bachelor of Education degrees.
I studied in this school with more seriousness. The math teacher luckily happened to be better than what I had faced in grade 8. The Science teacher though good, would always be dozing off in the class. (He was reported to be giving lot of home tuitions before and after school hours. He was basically coming to school to rest.) The medium of instruction for Math and Science got changed to English. For rest of the studies it continued to be Urdu. We had a science laboratory. We would have a Science Practical class - one per week. On this day, all the students would cramp inside the laboratory and the teacher would set up an experiment. We would just watch. If it was an experiment on Light, we would file past his table, bend down, close one eye and look through where the teacher would ask us to look at. Even if we would not see what he would say what we would observe, we would shake our head to pass on without pausing. In all these two years (Grade 9 & 10) not even one student handled the laboratory gear for the experimentation with his own hands. Here is the explanation. The government sanction for grants for purchase of equipment and consumables would be issued around 15 March every year. The purchase had to be made before April 1 failing which the grants would lapse. Suddenly the half a dozen shopkeepers in the city would get crowded and in no time and all the available supply would get sold out. This would leave about 80% schools unable to make purchase. Now there would be two routes to show the expenditure and avoid getting the funds to lapse. One was to obtain an Invoice from the shopkeeper with an arrangement to get the supplies later in the month of May/June. The other was to get a false Invoice from a shopkeeper and draw Government funds without ever receiving the supplies. Here the money would be split between the headmaster/principal, science teacher and the accountant. The shopkeeper would also get a cut. For this reason, our school did not have the supplies for us to experiment as we should have but did not have it. Sad and bad. In a subsequent blog, I will tell you that I became a science teacher in this school for a year after my graduation and during this time also same situation in the laboratory.
I passed my Matric with 509 marks out of 850. This was second division. (The first division started from 510 marks). I was happy and satisfied with my result. Our elders were happy too. First division pass out used to be appreciated. I was almost a first divisional.
S.P. Degree College was adjacent to our School. The college had a huge ground in front of impressive buildings. This ground had areas for Soccer, Hockey, Cricket Volleyball and Lawn Tennis. Every day there would be some game being played there. During recess and after school hours, we would cross from our school area to college area through the breach in the stone wall, just to watch the games. I have watched Pratha Bomber playing as Fullback in Soccer for the Police team on this ground. Pratha Bomber was a Kashmiri Pandit Mr. Prihvi Nath from Rainawari, a police man by profession. He was the only Kashmiri Pandit playing Soccer for a team in the tournament. He was known for kicking the soccer ball from one end to the other end as a normal kick. He was later promoted to a higher post only for his talent. He was very popular in the crowd and his kicks were loudly applauded.
There is another person whom we would watch. He was known as Krishna Hookh. He was a sports guy. He would live sports, eat sports, dress sports, and sleep sports. He would be there on the field as a hockey player. Then he became a hockey referee. He had a handicap. One of his eyes would blink without control. He would be nicknamed as "vozamala" (Lightening). If there would be a foul and his eye would blink at that time resulting in him not giving a signal to stop for a free shot, the disadvantaged team players would attack him with the hockey sticks. The other team players and the second referee would rush to save him. This would happen in all the games. All of us in the crowd would shout "vozamala". He would be a referee for Volleyball games too. He would be sitting on the high stool with the whistle held by his lips. Someone in the crowd would just shout "vozamalla" and then run away. Hooku sahib would dismantle from his high stool and run after the one who had uttered the word. This would happen a number of times during a match. Even when he would be walking on a street, some one would be uttering this word and he would utter profanities all around for everyone to hear. This person later became vice president of the Indian Hockey Federation at national level.
My next blog would detail history of events, social customs and the political situation in the 1940's and 1950's as I remember. Hopefully wait for that one to follow tomorrow.
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