School Culture

A strong blow on the back from the behind, you see a monster in your teacher scolding you, catching our ears"Kali payale! Punjabi passangaloda Pesaraya?". As a school going young boy, you do not know what to answer the Teacher as you have not done anything wrong by speaking to a Punjabi guy on the road who is known to you so  well as you know your classmates! Broadly, all the north Indian boys were called Punjabis and reciprocally they called all south Indians as Madrasis . Yes, I still remember our vice-principal Sri Ramakrishnan sir who was also given a farewell name by the school boys as "velakkennai"! He also lived in the same area that I lived and was seen everywhere in and around Karol Bagh wherever i ventured to meet my friends! The constant fear of getting spotted by this sir talking to anyone other than a madrasi was haunting and became a hopeless tension to such an extent that i started pestering my parents to shift from Karol bagh.  This could not be done as the house that i lived in was bought by my father in the year 1957 and there was no way that we could leave the house and go elsewhere? The street or the mohalla where i lived had a mix of people from Punjab, U P, Bengal and other places and naturally, they were all friends who played with me and came to be part of me, later in  life! Fearing punishment from the teacher, many of my school mates desisted from making any friends outside our community.  This had direct impact on many of my  friends as they did not know where to put Ka and ki in Hindi resulting in corections each time they chose to speak in Hindi!!
The reality of Life is totally different and Hindi has assumed so much importance that it makes your life easy wherever you go?  We have realised the importance of having friends from different communities for a peaceful co-existence! I, somehow, wriggled myself out of this knot to make lots of friends other than the south Indians and I am thankful to God for giving me such lovely, wonderful friends in Punjabis, madrasis UPites, Bengalis, Maharashtrians, gujaratis and other communities.  United we stand and divided we fall ! This oneness is the cause for a stronger India for all times to come.  Jai Hind !!