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.
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.
