Get Out Now!

Sorry Monsieur Dumas for using the names of your immortal characters for my story today. The Three Musketeers Athos, Porthos and Aramis are names of three characters in three different times but finding themselves in similar situation.

Sketch by Maurice Leloir

Athos

Athos was studying in a good missionary school where indiscipline was punished severely. The Christian Brothers were more than capable of wielding the cane with great dexterity and finesse as they could pound the knuckles with the duster. Our man looked small and timid but had a wild streak in him and that would often land him into trouble.

It was the Winter of ‘80 and the class teacher was intensely involved in staging a big school musical which would make him miss the regular classes. The class room was entrusted to the prefects or monitors who were the bright students of the class. This is a mistake that is repeated in schools from time immemorial. If they were to ask the toughies and thugs of the class to be the prefects, there would be perfect law and order in every classroom, for the ‘learned ones’ are always easy to manage. No sooner had the class teacher left the room, Athos and a few others played a prank in the class. They shifted one boy’s books into another’s bag, someone’s pencil box into another and then there was the mixing up of the tiffin boxes which led to swearing and small fights all across the class. The ruckus from the classroom was such that the teacher in the next room went to the auditorium where the practice for the play was going on and reported the matter to the class teacher who was directing the play. The furious teacher ran up three floors and opened the door of the classroom to see her ‘Paradise Lost’. The moment the students saw the man in the white attire, they froze and there was pin drop silence.  It did not take long for the prefects to point fingers at Athos, the original sinner .

Get out now!

Athos went out and stood outside the classroom quietly. He had been similarly punished sometimes for not doing his homework and at other times for other mischiefs. This standing outside was generally for one period of forty minutes but this time it was different. The class teacher said that Athos would not be ever taken back into the class. Now, standing outside has its advantages like you do not have to study and avoid looking like a fool unable to answer the simplest of questions but, in the school that he was studying, it had its own dangers. The headmaster was a terror and, if he saw you outside during his rounds, he would cane you so badly that you would not be able to sit on your bums for the next one hour.  But the good part of such fearful people is that students were all so terribly mortified of him that they would run helter-skelter at the very sight of him. Athos knew the ‘tiger’ was on the prowl seeing the reactions of other boys in the corridor. A couple of times he ran inside the toilet to avoid getting caught by You Know Who. There was the Chemistry Laboratory opposite his classroom and in there was a kind soul, Mrs. Thomas, who after a couple of hours of seeing the boy standing outside took pity and asked him to sit in the safety of the lab.

One whole day went by and the class teacher did not relent. Each time he would step outside, Athos would walk behind him apologizing but all his prayers seemed to fall on deaf ears. Another day went by and the boy just stood intermittently outside the class room and the chemistry lab. On day three, the boy had tears in his eyes and the other students made an appeal to the teacher to allow him inside. After much persuasion, the teacher finally relented and Athos walked in with a smile and his friends welcomed him with a clap or two. Before he reached his seat, the teacher asked the prefects to move his desk from the current position in the rear of the classroom to a place next to the dustbin near the exit door.

That’s the right place for you!

And so Athos remained next to the dustbin for the next couple of months till he moved to the Senior School building but for those months he faced the missiles of paper balls and stuff other boys in the class would throw at him. He was truly a ‘rubbish’ student.

Porthos

It was the beginning of a new academic year in college. Porthos, along with his close buddy Ranjeev, was at the cafeteria enjoying the morning tea and bread pakora. Both were in the second year of their undergraduation in a well-known college in Delhi and their first year results were almost identical….roaring forties! But they would never let their dismal academics interfere with the carefree life in the campus where the canteen was like the fun-pole of their universe. It was here that they fell in love, almost daily, with a new girl. It was here that they could be themselves, not afraid, not ashamed and not liked.

While sipping tea, the duo saw a girl in a noodle strap top leaving little for the imagination. The two just could not stop staring at her with eyes popping out. And they were not alone. Almost everyone present there was simply bedazzled, including the girls. Being stylish was one thing but this was going too far by Delhi standards in the early eighties. Anyway, with a heavy heart the two reached the lecture room where the Department Head, one of the most senior and respected professors, was setting the tone for the new session. Porthos and Ranjeev were, as usual, perched at the far end of the class when our man showed his artistic quality and drew a sketch of the cafeteria girl in the dress on the last page of the new notebook. Ranjeev saw the picture and laughed and then both of them started giggling as the professor was equipping the students with the reference books on Medieval Indian History.

What is so funny? There you two, at the last row…did I say something funny?

No Ma’am.

Then either tell the class your joke or just leave the class.

Get out now!

Porthos wanted to apologize but before he could utter a word, Ranjeev, got up,  picked up his satchel and started walking out. As if he was hypnotized, Porthos started following Ranjeev with equal confidence as the professor and other students watched on. From that day onwards, the duo never came back to this professor’s class for they, in some time, started playing for the college soccer team which gave them a solid excuse to get official exemption from attendance. Porthos was truly an ‘outstanding’ player.

Aramis

Aramis was a young man of twenty-four and undergoing induction training a part of his first employment in the eastern part of the country in the late eighties. Life seemed beautiful with good food, lovely stay arrangements and good amount of fun apart from some boring lectures. One afternoon, during tea break, when all the other trainees had gone down to the cafeteria for hot beverages and cookies, Aramis took charge of the blackboard. Armed with a chalk and a duster, he penned a poem of about twelve lines on why no one should ever study Accounts. Satisfied with his literary creation, he went out for his hot cuppa and was late to return to the class. As he approached the lecture theatre, he could feel the heat inside. He walked in and could now see the Head of the Academy shouting at the trainees for their misbehavior in the previous class and the poem on the board made matters worse as the Finance Head of the company had come in to take the next session.

Who has written this? I want the person to stand up.

Surprisingly, the entire group stood up taking collective blame rather than pointing at Aramis alone.

Whoever has done this should at least own up responsibility and not act like a coward.

Aramis put his hand up.

Get out now!

Aramis walked out leaving the class in complete silence and walked towards the office.

After a while the Principal came to his room and called for the stenographer. Our man stood there as the Principal dictated a letter to the Personnel Department rusticating Aramis from the campus. It was not the digital age then and the letter had to be taken in person for approval to the Corporate Office   which some distance away. Till the time the approval was awaited, he was asked to go to his hostel room. With fear on his mind, he went in, switched on the ceiling fan and in no time fell asleep soundly only to be woken up by a loud banging on the door by security guard. It is now part of the folklore in the campus how the suspension and rustication of Aramis was collectively fought by the fellow trainees in true Gandhian style of satyagraha and fasting which forced the Principal to tear up the suspension letter. Aramis was reinstated, thanks to his friends who stood up for him.

d’Artagnan

All the three musketeers Arthos, Porthos and Aramis were asked to get out ingloriously at different stages of life….during childhood at school, as a sophomore in college and as a young man at work. How the old d”Artagnan will get out of the world is to be seen…..will he be crying like Arthos, stride out confidently like Porthos or go to sleep peacefully like Aramis, is something he cannot predict. In pensive moments, I too ponder over how this final exit will be for me. Even if I wish to go the religious way made famous by Anup Jalota in the bhajan….Jab praan tan se nikle… I will never qualify for such a saintly departure with all the things I have done in this lifetime. Having seen some sad, long and painful ends, all I want is a quiet final exit where I am not an ailing burden to my family. Maybe, the way Don Corleone passed away while playing with his grandchild in a garden would be a nice way to go. It would also be good to have a lot of old friends around me till the end with whom I can share jokes, fight over politics and meet once in a while to relive the glorious past and shout out loud….All for One and One for All.

SS