Spare The Rod ?
Father Beech was a bull of a
man who, the story goes, could lift, over his head, an average size
seventh standard schoolboy, purely with the strength of his mighty
right arm. Nobody that I know, had actually seen him do it, but legend
has it that he could roll up his sleeve and perform the feat anytime,
and none among us whom he taught English Language, English Literature,
and Scripture, at St. Mary’s school in Bombay, long, long ago, in the
nineteen-forties, ever doubted it.
I enjoyed English Language as a
subject, although I’d frequently get into a tangle over grammar.
However I had a powerful imagination and a certain facility with words,
which managed to see me through examinations. English Literature
though, was another matter altogether. It included large amounts of
Shakespeare, most of which I found beyond my comprehension and which, at
exam time, diluted the marks earned from my answers on the works of
other authors. The result being, I seldom passed an examination in that
subject. Scripture was optional, but I chose to study it in spite of
the boredom it induced in me, since the alternative was Hindi, and one
look at the Devanagiri script froze the blood in my veins, although I
was quite happy with the language as it was spoken.
On reflection, it is understandable that my sort of
student would run foul of a teacher with Fr. Beech’s temperament, and
what made life painfully difficult for me, was that the padre with the
strong right arm, had absolutely no hesitation in supplementing his
teaching skills with frequent use of a malacca cane.
The first time Fr. Beech had cause to discipline me, was
in Scripture class when I was asked to narrate one of St. Paul’s
journeys in the New Testament. I naively admitted I had forgotten to
learn it, whereupon the cleric smilingly told me that, for the next
lesson, not only was I to have a fairly good idea of what St. Paul had
got up to on his travels, but I was to know the text by heart. Came the
day, and I glanced through the chapter in the ten minute recess before
the Scripture period. When asked to say my piece, I started off in
grand style, and had Fr. Beech nodding approvingly at the part where a
mysterious voice speaks to St. Paul, who was also called Saul, saying:
“Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” After that, I ran out of facts
but soldiered on with my version of the narrative, keeping a straight
face and using what I thought were genuine biblical phrases and
expressions such as “Thou shalt not sin”, “Thus it came to pass”, and
”Forgive us Father for we know not what we do”. Just when I felt I had
the situation well under control, Fr. Beech raised both clenched fists
above his head, and cried “Enough! Come to my room directly after
school.”
At the appointed time, I
presented myself, looking sheepish and dejected, as I felt was expected
of me. “Ah, there you are”, the padre greeted me genially. “Come right
in”. Smiling, he produced an evil looking switch from a book rack on
the wall, and pointing, first at my hands, and then at the seat of my
trousers, offered me the choice of where I wished to be thrashed.
Without a second thought, I held out my hands. For a lad of my age, my
hands were huge. A medical student, after staring at them, once
pronounced me ‘acromegalic’. I thought he was being rude until I
consulted the dictionary. Then I felt he was probably right.
The switch came whistling down.
As it smote my palm, my fingers closed over it, and I tugged gently. My
tormentor wasn’t expecting that and, to his surprise, found himself
empty-handed, with me pointing the cane at his midriff. Rather like a
swordsman disarming his opponent and having him at his mercy. I held
the pose long enough to convey the idea, before restoring the switch to
its owner. After that display, I felt I had earned the right to make a
dignified ---- if not triumphant ---- exit, with my head held high. I
was mistaken. I found myself being seized by the neck and doubled over.
There followed six excruciatingly painful strokes of the cane, upon my
rump.
In the years following that
encounter with the disciplinarian Beech, and leading up to the school
leaving examination, I was chastised several times by the padre, and
never once was I allowed to take it on my hands. I thought familiarity
with the punishment would lead, if not to outright contempt for it, to
at least a partial numbing of the nerves under the seat of my pants.
Neither happened. I considered myself lucky if I could space out the
canings so as to be fully recovered from one painful episode, before
running into the next.
Through trial and error, I found
that the most effective way to achieve this, was to do my homework,
and study diligently. It probably also accounted for my passing the
final Senior Cambridge examination, albeit by the skin of my teeth,
when all around me, expected me to fail. As it happened, I did fail in
history and in geography, and since both subjects belonged to a
‘group’, I should, by rights, have failed the entire exam. What wrought
the miracle of my getting through, was the fact that I managed to
secure five ‘credits’. Three of them came from Fr. Beech’s subjects ;
another, by way of a fluke, in mathematics ; and finally one in French,
in which I received home tuition from my mother who, like Fr. Beech,
was a disciplinarian, and a great believer in strong arm methods.
I remain passionately opposed
to the use of violence in disciplining schoolchildren. At the same
time, my list of academic achievements is so woefully short, that I
treasure my Senior Cambridge certificate which I know I would never
have obtained, had I not been painfully coerced into studying. It
leaves me undecided whether I am glad or sorry I was made to suffer in
school. Under the circumstances, all I am prepared to admit to is :
“Sweet are the uses of adversity- sometimes."
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