Bond Stories 2

So , one day I am walking out of the assembly hall( which is now the library of the school...this makes me really proud of the school...we are one of those schools where reading habit is cultivated...among all the residential schools that I have seen  ...this is the largest library with a huge collection of books of all kinds...and the library is very accessible and active...I think one of the pointers to good intellectual health of an educational institution...)
Bond catches hold of a few senior kids( SC form as we called it which translates to class XIIth otherwise...these kids were into boxing etc...and they were emerging as a bit of a gang...I am not naming any here because they turned out to be fine gentlemen later but this did happen) and pounces on them...these guys were taken totally by surprise as they were taken on by Bond in front of the whole school. So the dialogue went something like this ...'yes yes my frond...MR .... you too...why don't you come here'
There is this guy saying ...'sir but...!!!' but before he could say anymore Bond whacks him...(yes...he did whack them ...but am sure he knew what he was doing as became clear to me later ..whether he did the right thing or not...we can sit on judgement but I guess he curtailed them from turning into full fledged bullies which helped them too in a way...and also the juniors...in that one action of his we knew that if any of these guys ever crossed their line with us whom do we go to)Now , this was a bit of a gang of seniors ...but I didn't really care about them because our paths never crossed and they never bothered me. And I never thought anyone on the campus was capable of bullying anyone else( I didn't...that is how safe I felt at the school...later of course I got to know of certain incidents which should not have happened)...it never did happen to me...I never saw it happening...none of my friends spoke to me about it... so I didn't think bullying existed ...but it did to some extent. However, at this point when I saw this spectacle, I had only thought in mind- 'Keep away from bond!!!' And I kept away.

Now, a year later, as a prefect I had to speak to Bond again about something. I walked up to him. At this point he had an office in the main building of the school- I mean not an office like the Headmaster's office now or anything with secretaries etc but just a room where he could sit and do whatever he needed to...so I entered the room...he looked up at me and I gathered the courage to speak to him about whatever it was...he heard me and then agreed with me !!! To my surprise!!! Now emboldened...I asked him...'sir, if you don't mind, could you tell me why you did something last year!!!' He smiled and said 'yes, yes ...why not my frond!!!' So I asked 'sir, why did you pounce on those guys ...and that too in front of the whole school???' He had a smile on his face as he said 'My frond you think I am a mad man that I would raise my hands on a kid for no good reason!!!' I was silent because that is what I used to think and there was quite a mismatch between that person and the agreeable and fairly gentle senior teacher who I had just spoken to . He continued ' My frond I have been watching these boys!!! Every time there is tuck shop ...they are aalways having a feast...so I went and checked their bank accounts and found out that none of them are withdrawing any money...so then how are they buying tuck !!! They are abviously bullying juniors!!! So, I wanted them to know that I can be a bigger bully than them !!! And I wanted the juniors aalso to know that I can be a bigger bully than them...so if they ever bully them the juniors are free to come and talk to me about it!!!' Well, that was clear.

Bond Stories 1

Why was he called Bond?
Because he knew everything!!!
As a kid, I could never believe that. I could never think that there could be someone who could read my mind that well. But then there were these teachers who made the school what it was. Sheel Vohra was one of them.
Initially I was scared of 'My frond...Bond'. 'My frond' because the way he pronounced 'friend'. It was only in my last years at school that I got to know him better. Here are some of the memories I have of my interactions with him.

The first was when we were travelling for a mid term trek from Gangotri to Kedarnath. A mid term trek was where the kids went out of the school into the mountains for a longish trek. Could be accompanied or unaccompanied by teachers depending on the class we were in. So, while going from Dehradun to Gangotri in a bus where three groups of kids were travelling with three senior teachers- Bond, AD and Mr Vaishnav, we dealt with the bus trudging along the circuitous hilly roads. Then the bus stopped at 'Srinagar'- then a quaint little town nestled in the hills. Everybody got off the bus. So did I but just for a bit. I never enjoyed these bus rides. I like to walk in the hills so I was waiting for that to happen. So, got back into the bus sooner than the rest. I was sitting in the front seat. Mr Dar was also in the bus somewhere in the front. Some other kids decided to use this break time for playing cards. They were doing so in the middle seats of the bus.Bond also hopped on ...walked straight to the middle seats where the kids were playing cards and said with just a tinge of a smile in an absolutely deadpan manner 'My frond my seat is somewhere here ...and that is the END of your game!!!'
Stunning one liner which had the required effect on those who were playing cards!!!

My brother had left for the UWC in the USA after class tenth. I could never imagine that Bond would be interested in finding more about the students who had left school but he was. Sometimes he would walk up to me and ask ' My frond how is your brother doing? ' and then since he knew we were both merit scholars and that my mother was working pretty hard to give us the education we were receiving , he would almost always ask 'और तेरी मम्मी कैसी हैं ?' This was still the time that I was pretty scared of him so I would quickly answer his questions and get the hell out of there.

But then I became a part of the board of editors of the school weekly. AD was the master in charge( master is a teacher) of the weekly. He had started this tradition of assigning one of the editors the responsibility to oversee the publication of the weekly for a particular week. My turn came. I was pretty happy that all the work required to be done was already done by Wednesday. This meant delivering the articles to Mr Agarwal's Commercial Printers, two proofs and finally the page proof. I was set. Though Rajath Shourie had warned me 'Don't think you are done Tyagi...Bond might still make his way to your table in the CDH' And that did happen...on Friday, like a day before the Weekly was to be delivered...walks Bond towards me at lunch. He says 'My frond this is the cricket report for the week...go and give it to the printer' . I tried protesting, 'but sir , the weekly is ready to be printed...can we do this next week? ' Pat came the response ' My frond you better go and give it to the printer or I will go and give it myself' I realised...'my frond Bond' does not take 'no' for an answer. I finished my lunch , rushed to the printer...got the pages changed...the typesetter had to set the types afresh...prepare a new page...he was pretty upset and for a damn good reason...but Bond had said it ...it had to be done!!! Okay this is an aside but let me just mention it here, for some reason Bond would spell  a name differently even if it was in the same article. For instance if he spelt my name as Himanshu at one place in his cricket article, he would spell the same name as hemanshu at some other place and then himanshoo at another place and so on and so forth. A cricket article had several names so you can imagine what plight he had put me in and how I cursed him for doing that!!! But then I got used to it...every time I was close to believing that the work on the weekly is done, I reminded myself, but then there is Bond!!!

So, this was after I had become a school prefect.( The school had a prefectorial system...in those days it seemed important to be a prefect...now of course I think it would probably have been a good last year at school if I wasn't one, I actually think I wasn't even suited to be a prefect since I was least authoritarian, the only lesson I learnt from this experience was that I should not try to be in any administrative position, it would be disastrous) There was a kavi sammelan at school which ended unusually late. Actually it ended at about 3.30 - 4 am in the morning. The rest of the audience was asked to go back to their houses but some of us remained. Bond also remained in the audience. When the kavi sammelan ended, my friends asked me to go to Bond and ask him if we could be excused our first two classes along with PT as we had stayed up so late for the kavi sammelan. As I walked up to him...before I could say a word...Bond said 'My frond I will be in my first class tomorrow and so will you be'. Shocked I was to hear it!!! But then I asked him 'सर तो फिर थोड़ी चाय ही पिला  दीजिये  अब हाउस जाकर भी क्या करेंगे ? सो गए तो उठ नहीं पाएंगे '(Then please give us some tea...now if we go to the house and go off to sleep , we won't be able to wake up) He promptly responded 'हाँ हाँ  आ जाओ !!!' We all went to his house, he gave us tea, and then there was a chatting session which lasted till day break and the first bell. Could never imagine Bond to be so...he chatted and chatted and regaled us with his stories about his years at school.