The Lost Cane

As the morning-prayer ended, I quickly moved offstage. Amid the pit-a-pat of drum-beats and neatly lined up students, I took advantage of being a member of the prayer recital group and broke away to reach my classroom before the teacher’s arrival. Being a typical Virgo, I have this inexplicable urge to organize and have everything right in place and being the class monitor had exaggerated that need to much extent.

I reached my classroom before rest of the students, made sure everything was readily available and the peon had not forgotten to deliver chalks to our classroom or our competitors (Section-B) had not stolen OUR Chalks. After successfully examining that the duster worked properly and the beautifully mentioned date on the blackboard by the creative girls of our class was correct, I heaved a sigh of relief and took my seat right in front of the teacher’s desk.

The bell rang, first lecture started. As teacher arrived, the class greeted her, “Good Morning Madam” , the most wonderful sound to our ears till date. We took our seats and the teacher reminded us that it was ‘Reading day’. I loved reading day as I was among favorite readers of our class. All the students were supposed to bring books and it was clear from few faces that they were about to get caned. With a deep glance, I gave that ‘Not Again’ looks to my piteous classmates who were made to stand and were about to get punished by our stern teacher.

The only thing I disliked about the ‘Reading Day’ was that some of my forgetful friends always used to ruin it for me. It was really hard to understand that how could anyone forget ‘Reading Day’? How could anyone forget to bring books when it was clearly mentioned in the time-table? Well, I could not apprehend that everybody was not like me. I used to love going through my time-table daily and organize my school bag accordingly, with neatly covered note-books and books, arranged by their size, it gave me a deep sense of satisfaction. To my surprise, not everybody used to enjoy organizing as much as I did, it was inconceivable to me and I always ended up asking the same question, “How could you forget?”

As I sat on my desk with my mind brooding over the lost joy of the ‘Reading Day’, I was interrupted by teacher’s voice, “Shaveta, Could you please get the cane from the staff room for me?” The obedient student as I was, I had no choice but abide. Though my class mates held an image of me as very rigid and Going by Rules kind of a person, I have always had a compassionate heart, even for those who used to call me by names like ‘Hitler’ or ‘Wasp’. I never wanted anyone to get caned; after all they were my class-mates.

Heavy-footed, I walked to the staff room, got exactly where the cane was kept. It was just when I was about to pick the cane up, a thought stroke my mind. What if I forget the rules for once? What if instead of being a class monitor I become the class savior? I found myself dumb-struck as my so-called principles were at stake. As I stood there, lost in my thoughts, I heard a voice, “What happened Shaveta, looking for something?”. My English teacher was standing in front of me. “No, Mam”, I replied. I took the Cane, hid it on the top most shelf, came to the class-room and complained innocently, “Mam, I could not find the Cane, Section-B students must have taken it”. The students smiled at me and my ‘Reading day’ was saved by their wonderful Smiles.