The Gong Strikes

In school our activity was dictated by one single object more than anything else. The Gong. We had a love-hate relationship with this metallic object. My first target of the day was to listen to 9:00 gong. In a race I could defeat time but I was rarely able to defeat this 9 o'clock gong aka school bell. I always thought it rang too early. I hated this bell. But sometimes I also prayed that it rings early, on the day I had to recite a poem which I had not by heart-ed. When the gong stuck 3:30, it use to be the happiest moment of our life. It marked the end of school hours and a banging of Happy hours. Once Mr. Banerjee was wicking the entire male population of the class for planting a cracker in bathroom and the bell rang before my turn could come and I was "Saved by the bell".

This story goes way back, when we were school kids - could get away with shorts without anybody giving those "odd" looks. I guess - we were in the ninth grade. Well, probably we had passed the "roaming in the shorts age" but then given our (at least mine) physical development we could have very well be considered in the "shorts" age. Anyway this story has nothing to do with these mundane stuffs. It’s about something more profound, something out of the ordinary, something that happens once in a millennium and I (along with a few of my classmates) was blessed to see this in real action. This is the hilarious story of Mishra (Abhi) and the Gong.

Our school (St. Xavier’s' School, Bokaro Steel City) was divided into four categories. Category 1 was the primary school (Std. I to Std. III) - Before you ladies point out we (Abhi and myself) belonged to this section in terms of out mental age but the teachers were of different opinion. Category 2 was middle school (Std IV to Std VII). Category 3 was high school (Std. VIII to Std X) Category 4 was +2. All the four categories were under different administration (different set of teachers, vice-principals etc). For readers convenience (in case (s)he has not figured out), we belonged to the elite Category 3. As a part of the category 3 administration, a student from Std. IX was given the responsibility of declaring the beginning and end of a class. An electric bell was designated for this purpose; the student had to ring the bell at correct times. Well, given the delicacy of the problem this person had to be a "responsible” one. Essentially this student had the power to determine the duration of a class and the recess. Guess what, the authorities of the 200 students in Std. IX picked up Mr. Abhishek Mishra as the person designated for this task. Abhi with his innocent smiles and sincere looks was able to convince the authorities that he was the perfect candidate. I am not too sure if he still enjoys the same attributes but have heard of his last accomplishment was almost a year back when he was successful in convincing his “princess” to be his "woman" of the life. Anyways, this decision of Abhi being the "bell-master" was welcomed by all of us in the gang - after all we knew the actual person behind the mask. Now the recess time was increased from 45 min. to 51 min. -by cleverly manipulating the time - the last class before lunch and first class after lunch lost 3 min. each. The introduction of Abhi also lead to a much shorter history and geography classes. And to our delight, the class-test no longer were the standard 40 min. test, but a full 45 min. test - those extra 5 min. gave us more time to sneak into the neighbors copy and get a couple of more marks.

But then one cannot have the honey without the bee(s). One day there was a power shortage - phenomenon rare in Bokaro although a part of the then Bihar. During times like these the electric bell did not function and Abhi had to use the metallic gong - This was a big circular metallic disk (made of Copper I believe) and a wooden hammer to strike. The idea being to generate sound waves of high amplitude by striking the hammer against the metal. This gong was placed somewhere in the middle of the building, Abhi had to leave the class and go there. So, Mr. Misha walks to the gong to declare to the rest of the school that the agony for the last 40 min. (the last period) session is about to end and a new one is on the way (the new period). Confidently he picks up the hammer and aims at the metal. To our surprise, the first sound of the gong was unusually weak - very low intensity, as if instead of hitting the metal the hammer had hit something else. What "something else" - it took us 25 min. to discover this. We will come to it shortly. The weak first sound was followed by flurry of more hits on the metal - which was fast compared to the normal "Mishra-hit" frequency. Anyways, the teacher for the next class stepped in, opened her standard book and started talking gibberish - well for me it was for sure gibberish. But there was no signs of Abhi so far - we were all puzzled. My wild imaginations started exploring its own grounds. May be he met "someone nice" on the way and decided to drop the class - well anything is better than the stupid history class. He must have gone to the ice-cream parlor nearby .... Then I cursed my fate for not being selected as the "bell-master". Another stream of thoughts lead me to the idea of Abhi being moved by the chirping birds on the trees and inspired to write a poem. Just for your information Abhi was into writing poems those days. Some of them were really insane - I cannot resist myself from writing one of them which at that time I liked:

" Bhale Sir (head) ke bajaye ho bel (shaved-head) par pocket mein ho kanghi(comb) tel (oil)"

I guess this was a poem about the new generation of students which Abhi despised. We were the elite ones, in case you did not get it.

Coming back to the story - I still remember my promise to talk about that "something else" that the hammer had struck. My imaginations took me to some other places before Abhi broke it by entering in the middle of the class - we were already 25 min. into the class. Turns out part of my imagination was correct, he did have a "company" - the "company" of a nurse who took 20 min to bandage his injured thumb. Yes, Mr. Mishra had struck his thumb with the hammer -it happened something like this. He was holding the gong with his left hand, with the thumb stretched towards the center of the gong. He had the hammer in his right hand and with full force he struck the hammer into his right thumb. So now you know what that "something else" was thatAbhi had struck. The amusing part, if I may say so, was the way he described it. It went something like this - "Kya batayen, ek hath mein gong tha aur ek mein hathora. Humne hathora angoothemein maar liya".

Strange we (the entire class) found amusement in somebody’s agony and foolishness - but that’s what most people are like.