It was a warm night of October ’98, when I was six. My father who was working in the North had returned for a fortnight’s leave. He always used to take care of my studies whenever he was back at home.
Once I remember of being admonished with a shower of darting words, when he saw me trying to tuck in all the books at once into my schoolbag, while packing up the next day’s class timetable and was advised to put them one by one. Another time I was scolded for the dancing doodles of my ne’er-go-well perplexed handwriting.
This time he opened one of my texts and found the book falling into pages and the pages torn into pieces. I was never that little brat who back-answers with a sullen face or the one who sticks out his tongue with a scowl.
Once I remember of being admonished with a shower of darting words, when he saw me trying to tuck in all the books at once into my schoolbag, while packing up the next day’s class timetable and was advised to put them one by one. Another time I was scolded for the dancing doodles of my ne’er-go-well perplexed handwriting.
For the first time in my life I found him losing temper over me. He burst into rage and rather roared like a lion. I was already crying when he spanked hard upon my shanks, the first and only time I was ever beaten by him.
My shanks shook with pain and the rest of my body trembled with fright. My cries reverberated round the walls and my tears flooded the floor. For such was the blow that a six-year old boy cannot help throwing up, engendered by the endless sobbing.
In fact, I am fortunate not to have a knock-knee or a bowleg at the slap of his heavy hand. Well he is not the one to be blamed, it's the Indian tradition of "spare the rod, spoil the child".
Since then i handled my books with caution and care. One would hardly find any dog-eared pages in my books and never a scribble. They are all kept anew despite countless number of daily uses. I have mastered myself in the tactics and techniques of using books without hurting or harming them.
