More than just rage

Satyawan Malik

MATHEMATICS, radio  and  the newspaper carried  masterji so far that he  would often forget his meals placed  beside him. His passion for perusing The Tribune and making me read it was (mis)construed as an irritant to my childhood rusticities. But no excuse would prevail over his didactic side that zeroed in on the fruits of self-restraint, honesty and perseverance.  

Usually, Sundays and summer vacation were a village schoolmaster’s  heavenly days to ‘mend’ his own lottery of kids. The working days were less rigorous and hence more welcome. Ruefully, my mother pitied me for my day-long lassitude and I her for not differentiating between old and recent newspapers, except identifying the photographs on the front page.  

The first week of November 1984  saw a sudden closure of schools. Indira Gandhi’s assassination had caused a blanket mood of ire, gloom, loss and fear among the masses. 

The situation for masterji turned precarious as his school was at a stone’s throw from a gurdwara at Lakhanmajra. The ‘dheemi gati ke samachar’ on the radio would give a modicum of information. So,  ‘this is the end of the news’ was followed by his own long narratives picked from the newspaper. 

One day, The Sunday Tribune,  brought from Jind by a village shopkeeper, was torn to pieces by a berserk  monkey as it was left outside by mistake, inviting masterji’s unusual wrath: ‘Unthinking people can never be made sensitive to the distress and the needs of others... you will never do away with slumber and ineptitude. Your indolence makes me insolent. Your lame excuses and aversion for the newspaper can’t be helped. Will it ever enter your mind that a newspaper is not just a piece of paper... It is food for the mind? Asli andhaa vo hota hai jiski akal pe patthar pad jaye (There is none so blind as he who will not see). One does not know how to read and the other only knows ways to avoid reading the paper... The whole country is lost in grief and strife, but this house is fraught with heedlessness and insanity, which cannot be counselled! This is a teacher’s house where people come to learn and the reluctance of  my own kids is inexplicable. You can lead a horse to water, but cannot make it drink!’  

My mother, who often pursed her lips, while handing him an old newspaper, said inadvertently: ‘Re-read and cram it if you cannot stay relaxed... and don’t behave as if we have killed Indira, looted your Sikh friend or locked your school! Nor was the monkey trained by us!’ 

Her outburst did nothing to soothe his frayed nerves, rather it made him more petulant. Even the monkey mischief was anathema to him now. Nothing went unscathed. 

Was it simply the loss of a newspaper or a graver tornado followed by loot, arson, massacre and barbarity that vexed his mind, ruffled his conscience, battered his nerves and lacerated his heart?