Then and Now- What a Change!

1. School Days

J. Chacko

I still vividly remember my school days in a small village in Kerala- 1953-64.  We had slate and pencil for our writing exercises during the days of primary schooling.  Fountain pen was a very rare commodity and instead there was something known as “Steel Pen” which had to be dipped into the ink pot for writing. After writing a few words, the ink would go dry and we have to keep on dipping it frequently for writing.  Note books had to be completed with this contraption.  Along with the pen, the ink pot also had to be carried around.  Spilling of ink from the pot and soiling one’s dress was quite common.

One day a boy came to the class with a fountain pen proudly clipped on to his pocket and the whole school was taken in by this off-white coloured marvel. The pen and its owner became the cynosure of all of us.  On opening the cap, we found that the pen leaked at the joint of the ink tank and the nib holder but we were still quite impressed by the gadget for he need not have to carry the ink pot to the school any more!. He proudly told us that it was a gift from his uncle, a jawan in the army, fetched at a price of Rs 1.50 at some far away place of his posting!  This amount, a pittance today, was a big sum those days.  A daily wager earned 75 paise per day and hence this leaking pen cost his uncle equivalent of two days wages for an agricultural worker!  The going rate for such a worker today in our place is around Rs 250/=.  Just imagine dishing out Rs 500/= for a pen today for a school boy!  Even today one can get a writing gadget for Rs 1.50 or a little more, thanks probably to the fact that Planning Commission never intervened in allocation of our scarce resources for the manufacture of writing instruments!  Steel Pens have long disappeared from the scene and even fountain pens are no more in use commonly.    In any case what writing takes place these days with email and word processors and such facilities?  Those days, friends and relations remained in touch through letters but now it is all gone with land phones, cell phones, emails, web chatting, internet telephony and all.

Coming back to the boy and his fountain pen, sadly, within 3 months the leaking became so unbearable that he had to discard it and had to be back with his steel pen!

Note books used to be made at home.  Sheets of paper would be bought and these would be folded to the size of note books and then made into book form with a paper board cover. Special big needles and thick thread had to be used for stitching these together. Since the sheets are formed by folding of double foolscap papers, the edges have to be cut to make the sheets separate and for this job we had to engage the services of a carpenter.  Carpenters had chisels of different sizes and the one known as “Veethuli” in Malayalam, meaning wide chisel had to be used for this for a proper cutting.  Students would line up at their places early in the morning for otherwise the carpenters would be off for their normal jobs. They would gladly oblige, purely on voluntary basis, with no charge for their services!  Soon readymade note books appeared on the scene and the “book-making” at homes came to an end. Those early ready made note books were very unglamorous, matter of fact ones.  The ones now available are very colourful, with pictures of film stars and what not.

There used to be no school uniforms.  Up to the age of 12-13, boys used to come in knickers and shirts and for the older ones, knickers would give way to dhotis.  Girls would graduate from frocks to half-saris.  Pants were not in use at all even among teachers.  One of our teachers was also the NCC Instructor and he would appear in his khaki uniform during NCC classes and hence he was the only person to appear in pants and that too only during NCC lessons which were held after the school hours.  He used to come from another village and his commutation was on his scooter, another rarity and a symbol of being well-to-do, those days.  For one Republic Day he started from his house in his full uniform early morning and the pedestrians on the way mistook him for a Police Officer. As a result he got salutes all the way, from the awe-struck public!

School anniversaries used to be a whole day affair with a cultural program by a professional troupe in the evening.  The function would go on till about 21 hours.  Parents, family members of teachers and staff, members of the public would all gather for the anniversary.  One year, may be in 1962 or 1963,  the NCC Instructor had the temerity to take his wife along as his pillion rider on way back home after the cultural program.  By then the audience was also walking back home, forming a long stream of pedestrians from the school down to the main road, may be about 2 km.  The moment the NCC Instructor was sighted with his wife on the pillion, the shocked public started howling disapprovingly and he had to face the jeering all the way, till he was out of the stream of people!  Such conservatism prevailed those days.

Happily (?) all these are changed now.  Students turn out smartly in schools in proper uniforms.  Sometimes reports appear of students trying to come to school in Dhotis, being turned away by the school authorities! Ladies as pillion riders or even as motorists make no sensation.

I had an interesting spectacle recently witnessing a police investigation into an assault case.  A Police Inspector and three Constables were at the site of the crime and they were questioning an old man who by appearance was clearly from the lowest strata of society.  The fellow was quite indifferent and he stood there defiantly, with his lungi tied half-folded- a sign of disrespect in this part of the country, and was answering the police force non-chalantly.  What a far cry from the days when our NCC Instructor got salutes all the way when the public  mistook him to be a police officer!