Where is your undergarment...?!!

So you read the previous post of mine below this one..eh. And you think you have a pretty good idea of what a sample I should be. Right you may be. But come on man. The displays of my gems were at least not as dazzling as those our physics teacher, the much revered (???) Mr. Gera, flashed that day in the midst of our Maths class! Yeah...the same Mr. Gera whom we all were so jealous of, for he had that distinguished luck of having two additional sister-in-laws in his home over and above a personal wife of his.

"Wow! Such a lucky man" remarked Gautam, who joined with me new in class 12th in the DPS.

I always write DPS for Deewan Public School. That gives me some pseudo satisfaction of having studied at a DPS at some point in my school life. And then, recently due to the much envied MMS scandal, DPS has acquired that cult image among all us youngsters. By the way Gautam and I were seat mates for the entire last year of our school. A dashing dude he was. Crush of girls. Envy of mine. He had all those junior cukoos of our school in his colony whose profile I still sometimes visit on orkut. He was after all from a military family. All those military people have such pretty daughters. I sometimes think I would be able to ask someone out, someday. Gautam knew all those bad things I considered would spoil your future career. Coz you know bad guys do badly in studies. And as my mother sang to me when I was even smaller 'Padhoge likhoge banoge nawab, gandi baatein karoge to hoge kharab.' So I was a good guy. Though what I have become today is a different matter altogether. And that I was largely and more importantly correctly perceived as a moron was far from my awareness.

And when Kargil war happened the fund collection effort picked up in our DPS too. Vinod sir started calling people by roll numbers and the people would come and pull a hundred rupee or fifty rupee note, all of them.

"Whoops...what do all their dads do! They all sure make good dough." I said.

Their khoon pasina must be very efficiently convertible to currency notes.
I brainwashed Gautam throughout the 41 roll numbers that came before us that since our dads had already given a day's salary to Kargil effort we would give only 5 rupees.

"You see, we don't even earn yet!" I explained. Gautam's eyes glistened with admiration.

"Roll number 42" called Vinod IAS.

Yeah he was an IAS, for he was practically Invisible After Sunset. And we all feared the black. But that was much before the Pulsar 180 hit the streets. May be one of my classmates' dad later switched over to Bajaj Auto Ltd.

And so Gautam marched to the front of the class to the class teacher's desk and offered a 5 rupee note for contribution.

Potato curry to someone expecting chicken for dinner.

I admired him now for more than his looks.

"Katora le ke bahar sadak pe khada ho ja!" growled Vinod IAS with an unbelievable saturnine face.

The class burst into a laughter. Yeah I too giggled, for his face was flushed blood red and the idiot was looking at me accusingly. I had just suggested pal. It was all your decision. My eyes conveyed. He immediately pulled out a fifty rupee note and put that on the table. And my heart sank. What the hell. Now I would also have to give a fifty.

"Roll number 43" came the roar.

So here tottered the comrade with sunken spirits, for his dad was the 'Ek akela insaan jo subah se shaam tak..khoon pasina ek karke ghar mein kuch kama ke laata hai aur tum....', as my mother used to tell me whenever I did some loss because of my stupidities, and here I was going to throw away another of a fifty out of the family bowl when that 'Ek akela insaan jo khoon pasina ek karke kama ke laata hai' had already paid a day's salary for the effort. No. I can't do that to my dad. All that khoon and pasina, that somehow mixed daily and got stored somewhere to convert into green colored thick currency notes at the end of every month, flashed before my eyes in that short journey from my seat to the class teacher's desk. Sometimes that Khoon Pasina mixture did not convert itself into currency notes on time and we would have to be extra frugal until it got converted which sometimes would not be until the end of next month and in very rare cases until the end of next to next month. No. I can't do this. My embarrassment would be my contribution to the family earnings. And with my new found confidence I offered a 20 rupee note to Vinod IAS.

Thud! Went the final nail into the coffin. Hammered by roll number 43. His expressions were like those of an Indian soldier who had fired at a Pakistani soldier in the Siachen glacier only to find the rifle empty because a class 12th student in DPS had not paid a full fifty rupees towards the Kargil effort. But the impact was lighter this time. Gautam had taken the initial and stronger blow. The Soldier was already half expecting an empty gun. Besides his favorite student I was, for I got a 95 in the first term exam just 5 days after joining the school. Gautam, Mayank and all other cursed me for what I had done. They all had to bear all that flak from Vinod IAS before their mothers in the PTM after the exams. No excuses worked for them this time. They could not explain how I 'Garib' (As Vinod IAS would refer to me who had been deprived of his blessings so far) who had not got Vinod IAS's guidance at all had still scored a 95 even as they all had had his full guidance throughout. The reason we all soon found out though. My score never crossed an 80 in Maths after his valuable guidance bore its fruits on me for the next two terms.

"Tu bhi!" was all he said.

But I had taken off for my seat in that brief moment while the nail was going into the coffin and the soldier was gazing at his empty rifle.

"Whoa...mumma...I saved a whole 30 rupees today."

And this exercise had barely finished when Mr. Gera, that lucky man with two sisters-in-law in his home and with a personal wife, and with a threatening face with a funny mustache on it, and whose home all my class mates visited, strode into the class room. Fat man he was. Built for comfort than for speed. A sly smile on his face. As that I had on my face when I pulled the stool off from below my mumma when she was washing dishes on the kitchen floor. I was 11 years old and very narrowly escaped that slipper thrashing afterwards, thanks to my Nani's intervention. I got only a sweet homily. So Mr. Gera, with two sisters-in-law at home and a personal wife, a saturnine face and a sly smile below his funny mustache, asked loudly

"Which girl has lost her undergarment in the assembly ground this morning?"

Eeeeeerie silence. You could hear the sound as a pin traveled through the air during its fall from your hand to the ground. The noise it made after it fell on the floor would be deafening. Yeah my vocab was pathetic. But still. How could a girl have lost her undergarment in the assembly ground in the morning! I understood the meaning of all the words in this sentence and was not confusing a blazer with a brassier this time. And I was correct, for the entire class looked as if a news of another post of Siachen having been occupied by Pakistan had broken despite all our 50 rupee notes and a 20 rupee note of mine having been sent to the border so that our troops could get all our posts back.

Pakistan fired one more grenade. Mr. Gera repeated his question with that confident and sly smile. I still wonder if all the girls did check their undergarments if they had not been lost in the assembly ground that morning, Mr. Gera's visage was so calm and composed that I would definitely have checked mine had the question been for boys rather than Girls. But they must have checked, for no girl came up even after a few seconds of funereal silence..the pin travel silence. Or else how would they all have been so confident! Vinod IAS had long forgotten the 5 rupee and 20 rupee shock by now.

Finally the fog cleared over the Siachen border. The Pakistani general showed up from behind the newly occupied post of Siachen. Mr. Gera now with his sly smile slightly annoyed beneth his funny mustache, flashed a gold chain dangling tentatively from the end of his middle finger.

"This chain has been found in the assembly ground a few minutes back"

wurr woo.. uhoo uhoo.. uhhhhooo...!! Mayank, who had been eating his tiffin from last few minutes with his head bowed down on the back seat of mine, spat in shock the food in his mouth on the floor.

...a chain for an undergarment !

'...isey laga daala.. to life jhingalaala' !! The TATA sky campaign had not been conceived by then and I am sure as hell, the ad company would have sold this punch line to this undergarment manufacturing company had there been a contract between the two.

But my knowledge of human anatomy must be real weak man! Some one tell me now which girl wears a gold chain for an undergarment!

But before I could pose my question to the have-answers-for-everything-bad Gautam whose face had now become white from an earlier flushed blood red, an exasperated Vinod IAS with a wry face told Mr. Gera

"Gera Sir...isse Ornament kehte hain...Undergarment nahin!"