The sun was setting amidst the chirping of birds and the loud shouts of the inmates of our school gymnasium. It was a good time for everyone after an ordeal of drills, map reading, shooting and other not too interesting activities throughout the day.
The camp for that year was organised in our school. All the SSB guys were housed in the school gymnasium and the other guys were kept in the school building. The whole school witnessed a flurry of activities throughout the day which made it a place worth visiting.
Fortunately and to the delight of a lot of boys of our group, girls were also a part of the camp and were kept in the school Infirmary. That made it the most important destination which was rather inhabited earlier by not so appealing sick boys of our school.
We were devoid of any courtship with the opposite sex due to the obvious reasons.
The presence of more than 100 girls sent shivers down the spine of a few of us who took an enormous step that evening. This incident will be etched in our memory for the years to come and will make us laugh for our stupidity due to adolescence.
There were six of us who gathered in Gandhi ground which was close to the Infirmary. But I only remember four of us. S K Nayak, A Jena, P K Mahanta and I.
We were walking together on the ground towards the Infirmary. It was very dark and we could not see each other. We were talking about how we can see what on earth girls do when they are alone. It was also amusing for us to think about the existence of girls in our neighbourhood. While we were walking , we could see the dark figures of two people sitting on the ground. They were 20 ft from us and their distance from us was decreasing. At first we thought them to be our classmates as only like minded people can think of such weird things. However our assumptions were wrong . What we could hear was a loud and commanding shout. We were taken by surprise with the agileness of the unknown figures as they stood up and shouted at the top of their voice, “SAVDHAAN”. They were the camp guards or the so called patrons of the camp who were responsible for the security of the camp. And we had given them a reason to justify their salary.
They surrounded us so that we do not attempt to escape and the person who was behind us hit me hard and shouted, “let’s go to the camp Commandant”. We were scared to our death as that meant we will be expelled from the camp and our Principal will be notified of our noble deeds. There was no way we could have escaped from them.
Deep inside everyone , we had thought of escaping from them as these guys had tried to sabotage our plan and threatened us in our own territory. We were angry and scared. Suddenly S K Nayak and the other two guys started running fast towards the gymnasium. The first guard ran after them. I pushed the other guard who was holding my hand and the remaining four of us ran in the opposite direction. He ran after us but we were too agile for him. We knew the secret paths that led outside the school campus and so we were confident to get rid of the guard. He was shouting while chasing us and we had made up our mind to cross our school boundary. We could not see him later chasing us as we were very fast. We crossed the boundary and ran for 20 minutes without looking back. Suddenly we all stopped beside a tree and what we could see was that,we were 5 kms away from our school. All those years of hard work in running for the cross country had paid off. We had outsmarted the guard and we were very happy about it.
Suddenly we thought of the daily roll call in the gymnasium. The guard might have gone to the gymnasium to take a count of the people. They didn’t have any wireless device or mobile during that time but they could have intimated their peers and seniors. This thought loomed over us a little and then we all decided to go back to the school gymnasium, through the same secret passage. We ran all the way to the school hostels before going to the gymnasium to assess the situation.
In the meantime S K Nayak had informed our mates about our adventure. K S Thakur was looking for us with a big stick in his hand and shouting “Jaagte Raho”, “Jaagte Raho”.I had climbed a tree to reach the rooftop of my school hostel and I saw him wearing a funny silhouette and swinging a thick and long stick. I told my gang about it and they were all thrilled to know about it. So the guards had not intimated anyone. We were relieved to see K S Thakur and then we shared our adventure with him. He laughed to his heart’s content and then we all went to the gymnasium and met S K Nayak and gang. We all hugged each other as if we had won the biggest of battles and we all started laughing at our madness and stupidity.
Not everyone amongst our school mates was made aware of our adventure as it could have spread like wild fire and could have maligned our reputation, not that we had an iconic status.
This incident will go down the memory lane as one of the funniest and weirdest thing to have ever happened. I hope this story will tickle the funny bone in everyone and wish I could recollect the names of everyone who was a part of this madness but I am sure after reading my Blog, they will spill the beans.
The camp for that year was organised in our school. All the SSB guys were housed in the school gymnasium and the other guys were kept in the school building. The whole school witnessed a flurry of activities throughout the day which made it a place worth visiting.
Fortunately and to the delight of a lot of boys of our group, girls were also a part of the camp and were kept in the school Infirmary. That made it the most important destination which was rather inhabited earlier by not so appealing sick boys of our school.
We were devoid of any courtship with the opposite sex due to the obvious reasons.
The presence of more than 100 girls sent shivers down the spine of a few of us who took an enormous step that evening. This incident will be etched in our memory for the years to come and will make us laugh for our stupidity due to adolescence.
There were six of us who gathered in Gandhi ground which was close to the Infirmary. But I only remember four of us. S K Nayak, A Jena, P K Mahanta and I.
We were walking together on the ground towards the Infirmary. It was very dark and we could not see each other. We were talking about how we can see what on earth girls do when they are alone. It was also amusing for us to think about the existence of girls in our neighbourhood. While we were walking , we could see the dark figures of two people sitting on the ground. They were 20 ft from us and their distance from us was decreasing. At first we thought them to be our classmates as only like minded people can think of such weird things. However our assumptions were wrong . What we could hear was a loud and commanding shout. We were taken by surprise with the agileness of the unknown figures as they stood up and shouted at the top of their voice, “SAVDHAAN”. They were the camp guards or the so called patrons of the camp who were responsible for the security of the camp. And we had given them a reason to justify their salary.
They surrounded us so that we do not attempt to escape and the person who was behind us hit me hard and shouted, “let’s go to the camp Commandant”. We were scared to our death as that meant we will be expelled from the camp and our Principal will be notified of our noble deeds. There was no way we could have escaped from them.
Deep inside everyone , we had thought of escaping from them as these guys had tried to sabotage our plan and threatened us in our own territory. We were angry and scared. Suddenly S K Nayak and the other two guys started running fast towards the gymnasium. The first guard ran after them. I pushed the other guard who was holding my hand and the remaining four of us ran in the opposite direction. He ran after us but we were too agile for him. We knew the secret paths that led outside the school campus and so we were confident to get rid of the guard. He was shouting while chasing us and we had made up our mind to cross our school boundary. We could not see him later chasing us as we were very fast. We crossed the boundary and ran for 20 minutes without looking back. Suddenly we all stopped beside a tree and what we could see was that,we were 5 kms away from our school. All those years of hard work in running for the cross country had paid off. We had outsmarted the guard and we were very happy about it.
Suddenly we thought of the daily roll call in the gymnasium. The guard might have gone to the gymnasium to take a count of the people. They didn’t have any wireless device or mobile during that time but they could have intimated their peers and seniors. This thought loomed over us a little and then we all decided to go back to the school gymnasium, through the same secret passage. We ran all the way to the school hostels before going to the gymnasium to assess the situation.
In the meantime S K Nayak had informed our mates about our adventure. K S Thakur was looking for us with a big stick in his hand and shouting “Jaagte Raho”, “Jaagte Raho”.I had climbed a tree to reach the rooftop of my school hostel and I saw him wearing a funny silhouette and swinging a thick and long stick. I told my gang about it and they were all thrilled to know about it. So the guards had not intimated anyone. We were relieved to see K S Thakur and then we shared our adventure with him. He laughed to his heart’s content and then we all went to the gymnasium and met S K Nayak and gang. We all hugged each other as if we had won the biggest of battles and we all started laughing at our madness and stupidity.
Not everyone amongst our school mates was made aware of our adventure as it could have spread like wild fire and could have maligned our reputation, not that we had an iconic status.
This incident will go down the memory lane as one of the funniest and weirdest thing to have ever happened. I hope this story will tickle the funny bone in everyone and wish I could recollect the names of everyone who was a part of this madness but I am sure after reading my Blog, they will spill the beans.
Areee tu toh santosh se Mrsantosh kumar das ho gaayaaa ..... lagtaaa hai tera budaapa aa gaya ...u wrote story just like ... dada dadi sunate hai apne bachpan ki kahaniya.....h eh eh he h eh anyways thts really goooood
ReplyDeleteHey Thank you Armit...Are hum ab bade ho gayen hai yaar..thoda baut to dikhega hee...but always young at heart....tune Daddu kee story padhi yaa nahin...?
ReplyDeletePerseverance - Did you try the next day with a change in strategy with the help of your core competency ?
ReplyDeleteInnovation - Could you ignite the same aspiration within your class mates ? Did they advise any idea ?
Proactive - Running in all directions was reactive. What was the proactive plan ?
Martha Sir...
ReplyDeleteWe were too naive to have even heard of such words then.All we wanted was to prove our Machoism.
1..Perseverance:The next day we had thought of not looking at the girls, even in our wildest dreams.
2..Innovation:Rather than consoling us, our friends had a field day laughing at us and being happy with our failure.
3..Proactive:There was no plan B.There never was for us during the fiasco or even in our personal lives sir.