The Headmaster

by Barnali Saha

Our headmaster, Rama Rao, was known across the world for his grouchiness. He was a cantankerous old man with a shiny bald head and a lined forehead smeared with sandalwood. He was also the Volpone of our village—a miser beyond comparison. Whenever he talked, the rictus of his cavernous mouth pounded a hammer in our chest. We all loathed him, no, we abhorred him and his inculcating sessions. We hated everything about him—his dirty loin cloth revealing the chunk of his bony thighs, his betel leaf-stained teeth, his hollow face impressed with a patina of wrinkles, and his thunderous voice.

Every day at his designated hour he would enter our classroom, raise his eyebrows, scan our faces, and then, suddenly, throw a random mathematical question to us: “What is the square root of 1024?” or “20 percent of 2 is equal to what?”

We could not answer his brain-cracking questions and stared blankly at him. Seeing us, Rama Rao would laugh and then take out his wooden ruler from the drawer of his desk. He would pick one of us—it did not matter which one of us— and slam the ruler against his back. The child would inevitably begin crying like a newborn within seconds, and Master-ji would throw him out of the class and punish him still more by making him stand the whole day under the blazing sun.

Our school room was built from mud and sundried cow manure. It was a small room with a straw hut and was five miles away from the village where we lived. Inside the school room there was an old table and chair for Master-ji; the students had to bring their own floor mats.

Our sessions of inculcation would begin everyday at nine in the morning and continue till three in the afternoon. Master Rama Rao was the only literate man in our village, and thus, the only teacher we ever had in our childhood. He taught us history, geography, Sanskrit, Telegu and mathematics.

Education was not free for us; Rama Rao charged five rupees per head for every drilling period of thirty days, a sum many of us failed to pay, and on such occasions of non-payment, Rama Rao would visit the respective households and scathe their inmates with such verbal vituperations that they would be forced to pay him the sum. 

And dare you play truant, Master Rama Rao would head straight to the zamindar, Raghavendra Velama, and complain about the absentee. The zamindar respected Master-ji for his unique reading, writing ability (and also because he helped the Nayeb, Munim-ji, to write the official state letters) and would punish the absent scholar’s family by charging him a certain sum as “absent tax”.

So there was no escape for us.

On certain good days, Rama Rao would talk to us about the meaning of education as a process of bringing out the latent creative qualities in a person and the direction of one’s unfavorable behavior towards socially accepted channels. And for that channelizing to take place, he believed solely in the adage, “spare the rod and spoil the child.” We would complain to our parents about Master-ji’s diktat at school, but our parents, most of whom were poor farmers, would not entertain any of our complaints against the master. They too dreaded him and his crotchety, miserly self. So Rama Rao was happy and gay, spanking and draining the childhood out of us.

There were many stories in the village about Master-ji. Some said that he turned loony after the death of his daughter, Leela, many years back,. Some said, no, no, education spelled the doom for him, not the death of his wife by cholera or the suicide of his daughter, Leela. But some others said that Master-ji was a Yaksha worshipper (demigod attendant on Kuvera, the god of wealth), didn’t you know he has a minting machine down in his basement where he would make gold coins and hoard them in his brass water-pot?

My friends and I believed in the minting machine story, and once, on a new moon night, (people said that he worshipped the Yaksha and sacrificed one mortal being on his altar on every new moon night) Srinivas, Murli and I decided to visit Master-ji’s home to see him worship the devil.

After dinner that night, we tiptoed out of our house and headed to the old banyan tree which stood in the middle of our village and was believed to be around five hundred years old. From there, the unholy trinity walked through a muddle of hedges, crossed the rice field and took the gravel road that meandered around a small hill, leading them to Master-ji’s home.

It was a sinister night. We groped our way in the darkness. An unseen bird screeched at a distance, and we cautiously navigated our way. After some time, we saw a streak of yellow light coming through a small, mesh window. We hushed each other and walked closer to the house. An inclined shadow was swaying to and fro; we knew it was him. We stepped on the grass as quietly as possible and walked even closer to have a better view of the master’s late night activities.

Through the window we saw his room—a small, almost vacant, living area with an ordinary rope cot with no sheets on it. A couple of threadbare kurtas hung from a hook in the corner. The bare walls desperately needed a coat of paint and looked shabby and gray from outside. At the bedside, on a wooden stool, sat a brass water pot, and in the middle of the room, next to a hurricane lamp, Master-ji sat writing something on a piece of paper. He looked sick and old.

We examined the room carefully but didn’t find the devil’s altar. It was getting darker, almost midnight, and we realized that we shouldn’t be out at such an ominous hour. While hastily trying to retreat, Murli made a loud noise. The master heard him and hollered at us from inside, “Who’s there? Wait or I will mow you down!”

I caught a glance of his bloodshot eyes through the window: they looked like burning charcoal. “He is the devil, run, run!” I cried out to my mates and we ran for our lives.

The next morning, the three of us arrived early at school so that we could share with the whole class the story of our previous night’s adventure. “We were lucky, you know, Master-ji could have made rotisseries out of us. He had this big, red charcoal like eyes. Glad we could escape,” I said to the group of open-mouthed boys.

            Murli took the story from there, exaggerated it a bit, added a little color, and held our classmates in breathless attention. Everybody shouted in unison to cheer our bravery. “Good God! Did you see the minting machine?” one of them asked.

 “We actually didn’t see him mint the coins, but we saw the brass pot where he keeps the money,” I said.

“Really,” the boy stared at me goggle-eyed.

I relished his expression and talked more about the night. That day Master-ji didn’t come to school. We all laughed and jumped and played the whole day, and were happy that for once Master Rama Rao was absent. Nobody missed him or his sessions and after the school hour, all of us returned home.

Rama Rao never came to school again. After three consecutive days of his absence, we let our parents know that Master-ji probably wouldn’t teach us anymore. We were relieved even to think that the painful drilling sessions could be finally over.

When the joys of life were on the verge of raining on our lives, we heard the news that Master-ji had died in his home of some unknown disease the very night we had visited him. I was petrified and so were the others, but we did not tell the village about our last soiree. 

On the day of his cremation ceremony, all the students of our class went to the burning ghat to pay Master Rama Rao our last respects. Even though I hated him, that day, as I stood before his corpse wrapped in a white sheet, my soul genuflected to him.  The zamindar of our village declared that our class would be held in abeyance until he found a new teacher for us.

A couple of days later, the zamindar asked the whole village to gather before the banyan tree at a specific hour for an important announcement. The whole village gathered at the spot, and the zamindar arrived in his horse-driven tanga, carrying a brass water-pot and a folded paper in his hand.  A young man with flowing hair and a sharp nose accompanied him. The crowd welcomed the landlord and he raised his hand in a calming gesture to hush the crowd.

“As you all know, our respected master, Rama Rao, died an unfortunate death a few days back. Today, I would like to express my heartfelt condolences on the untimely demise of our beloved Rama Rao ji. After his death, while cleaning his home at the tila, we found a brass water pot and a letter. The master had saved all the tuition money he received as his salary in this pot. In the letter, written a day or two before his passing, he urges us to build a good school with modern facilities with this money, and to hire qualified teachers to teach the illiterate crowd (both parents and children) of the village and thereby sweep away the darkness of illiteracy from our rural community. Master-ji’s noble act will be commemorated soon with the building of a new school at this very spot, beside the holy banyan tree,” said the zamindar.

He stopped to take a breath. There were whispers amongst the crowd and everybody was bobbing vigorously. “Srinath Reddy is our new school teacher,” continued the zamindar, gesturing at the young man who stood beside him. “He is from the neighboring village, and now he will read to you Master-ji’s letter.” He motioned to the man to read the letter.

The young man cleared his throat and began in an effeminate tone, “Namaskaram ladies and gentlemen, it is an honor for me to be a part of your village and teach you and your children. Master Rama Rao was my teacher too, and it is from him that I learned all the alphabets dwelling in my vocabulary today. He was a true mentor and a beloved soul; I hope his spirit rests in peace. In my hand, I hold the letter that Master-ji wrote to all of you. In this letter you will get a glimpse of the virtuous side of Master-ji. Now I shall read the letter to you.” Srinath opened the letter and began, “‘Dear Villagers, I have been a tormented soul all my life. I have tortured your children at school—punished them, berated them and made their lives miserable. But you endured my idiosyncrasies all these years without uttering a single word of protest. In public gatherings, you have given me the position and respect of a chieftain and have always been fascinated by my ability to read, write and teach. But I never reciprocated your feelings, partly because I was a weak soul, and I did not wish to show you my inner fragility, and partly, because it was mostly out of fear that you sent your children to school or paid me the monthly salary. Fear was my weapon and I had used that whip to grind you throughout my life. I am sorry for my behavior and I beg your forgiveness. There was no other way for me to fructify the dream of universal education that I bore in my heart.

            “The village of Mayukhpur is filled with uneducated folks who do not even know how to sign their names. Illiteracy is a gangrene of the soul; it is a handicap that doesn’t allow complete development of the mind. It is a dark room devoid of even a single ray of light, and every person has the right to sweep away that darkness of his mind with the radiance of education. I have always wanted to bring this light of education to you and your children, but the mission was not easy—the children hated me. I lacked the qualifications of a professional teacher and the knowledge to teach children effectively. My lack of knowledge crippled my teaching ability, and I failed to be a true teacher. I realized my failure early in my life and cursed myself for it. Then I chalked another plan—to save the money I earn as my salary, and with that to build a good school in the village with modern amenities, and to hire professional teachers to teach you and your children. For years, I have lived on pennies. It has been difficult, and I had often lost my resolve. But then, in such dark moments, I thought of that happy dawn when the darkness of un-education would be gone forever. What a happy day it would be, when all the villagers would be able to read and write and express the complex thoughts of their minds in beautiful language! I have always wanted to live to see that day, but I knew I would not survive that long. I feel weak and tired; I know death is near. 

“It is my earnest wish that after my death, the money I have saved in my brass water pot be used to build a proper school.. Education would be free and universal. I have leeched out a great deal of money from the poor farmers; they have already paid their tuition fees.

           “Finally, I hope education will free the minds of my villagers from undue prejudices, fears, and superstitions. I wish that one day that you become a village of gifted human minds shimmering with the aura of true education. That is my final wish.

~ Headmaster, Rama Rao.’

Srinath closed the letter and put it in his pocket. “This is what Master-ji had written in his letter. Let us all close our eyes now and as a mark of respect to the memory of Master Rama Rao maintain a minute of silence and pray for his soul.”

Twenty-five years have passed by since our headmaster died. A two-story school has been built since his demise. A life-sized statue of the old master was placed in the middle of the school playground, and new teachers were hired from various cities and towns.

I finished my undergraduate degree and joined the Mayukhpur Public School as a teacher. In these twenty-five years since, our village has attained 100 percent literacy. Sometimes I wonder if this would have been possible if there were no headmaster Rama Rao who dared to dream of an almost unattainable goal of universal education in an unknown Indian village. I feel sad at times that when he was alive we never wished to understand the greatness of the man who showed us the beautiful path of knowledge and dismissed him as a social pariah.

Widow's Peak

by Jewel Beth Davis

I stroll by the plate glass window, slowly, trying not to stare, trying to look nonchalant but it’s tough. There he is behind the counter in his black chef’s outfit with the collar folded down and a red handkerchief in his front pocket. He has a red pen sticking out of his pocket. I’m beginning to sense a theme here. His shiny black pelt of hair is chopped very short and I can see the widow’s peak pointing like an arrow to his third eye. Now, I’ve walked past the restaurant, an Italian bistro. It’s the kind where you can see the kitchen staff preparing all the food. I turn around and start walking back, pulling my collar up. He doesn’t notice me as I take my second pass. He’s pointing out the window. He’s using his left hand because he’s a leftie. I know that but not many would. They wouldn’t know it was tough for him to find left-handed utensils. He’s speaking to a couple that are clearly tourists, maybe giving directions to the two, who are just finishing up his fantastic linguini carbinara.

        Are those red plastic breadbaskets? How déclassé. And those wooden ladder-back chairs are killer on the ass. No cushions. The lacy diaphanous half curtains cannot hide the severity of the wooden chairs and tables. This place must be fairly “get em in, get em out.” Was that a tip jar near the register? No, impossible. Must be for finished orders.

       It’s about 4:30 or 5. I’m not sure because my watch has stopped and I can’t afford a new battery. I can tell the approximate hour because I’m watching the last remnants of a reverse sunset in the plate glass window. I see the faintest oranges, golds, and pinks reflected in the window but the sky is deepening into twilight. I turn to see what he’s pointing at, but all I view are the downtown buildings of a small New England town. Whatever it is, it’s past this reality and into the future and beyond. The sous chef behind him near the grill has skin the color of chocolate. His eyes seem to be following the direction Jonathan is pointing but wait. No. Is he looking at me? Shit.

        The street lamps have just blinked on. I shift from foot to foot as the evening chill settles into my bones. I clench my hands under my jacket cuff because I hadn’t stopped to grab gloves. Jonathan looks the same as he did four years ago in culinary school. No, better. More manly. More in command.  I haven’t seen him since graduation and I can’t believe I’m here, right now. That I’ve come all this way to stare at him through a plate glass window. I’m afraid to walk in. I’m terrified he won’t be happy to see me. The way things were left. That he’ll yell at me, or worse, ignore me. I can see the small cleft in his chin, the solidity of his stance. I feel a yearning in me so deep to push my finger into that cleft once more. I walk out of sight again, my heart thumping, trying to steady my breath. How many times can I walk by before he spots me? Don’t I want him to?

        I haven’t thought about exactly what I will say if he sees me. I went all helter-skelter and ran to the train station without a plan. One minute I was in Pittsburgh chopping onions and the next, standing on a street two blocks from a pier overlooking the water. I hate that I can be so impetuous. It messes up my life. But I missed him and every night when my shift was over, I had too much time to think. Four years ago, I left without saying goodbye. He was too serious, too settled. He scared the shit out of me. His passions, his need for me boiled over. He was so authentic and raw. Always authentic. And I, I was faux. Faux happy, faux in love, faux confident, faux together. Finally, the faux split at the seams and I started seeping out. So I ran.  And now I stand here shivering and trying to form what I can say to him that isn’t faux.

I begin one more pass and notice there’s a help wanted sign in the window. No. Don’t think about it. It’s too crazy. He doesn’t see me and if he did, he wouldn’t want to.  I feel like we are stuck in time with him pointing, his widow’s peak pointing, his eyes pointing, everything pointing at me, accusing me, and me staring at this newer version of Jonathan that I don’t know anymore.  Then his sous chef leans forward and whispers something in his ear, never taking his eyes off me. Jonathan looks up. And I take off running, flying away, because I can’t stay here. I’m running as if someone is chasing me but no one is, of course, except for me. I hear the words, “Stop! Wait!” And I obey. Then I realize the words were in my head and not from someone else.  It doesn’t matter because I have to stop. I have to turn around. And there in the doorway of the Bistro is Jonathan, his body ready to fly, his left hand raised, his energy traveling down the street towards me, his dark widow’s peak pointing straight at me, like a neon sign for him to follow.

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