by Nag Mani
He didn’t notice the chair. It stood in the centre of the make-up room, facing the mirror.
Rohan ran upstairs. He had done it. The darkness of the stage didn’t bother him. He searched for the opening in the curtains and jumped down the stage. He made for the exit but the piano caught his attention again. There was something strange about it. Sadness emanated from its wood. He thought he heard it play a sad tune… coming from far away, as if from a different time. Suppressing a strong urge to linger a little more, he switched off the lights and shut the door gently behind him.
He waited for his eyes to adjust in the darkness, and then…
What was that!
…a piano key had struck!
Rohan jumped around. He felt as if he had fallen through a frozen lake. He stared blankly at the door. Then came the tingling warmth, all the way up his spine to his face. Did he imagine it? No! It had been so real! His face was burning, his heart ready to explode. Yet, he now felt as if it had never happened. He let out a sigh. Yes, he had imagined it and it had scared him to death; or maybe, some silly little rodent scurrying across the strings.
He put on the pullover under his gown and went to the porch. The mist had lightened. The Junior School quadrant was deserted. He ran to the Infirmary and knocked at the door. A light flickered on inside. He grabbed his stomach and stooped the moment the door opened. A short man appeared at the door, rubbing his grey hair. “What?” he asked, clearly irritated.
“Stomach-ache!” Rohan winced in pain.
“Where is the warden’s slip?”
“He is out of town.”
The attendant stared at him for a moment, deciding. Every student had to produce a slip from the warden for night visits to the Infirmary and Sister was strict about it. However, she was asleep and the attendant concluded it was better to quickly hand over a medicine and resume his sleep than make a fuss over the slip. Rohan thanked him and pretended to swallow the medicine. He had done it. He was no longer a mischievous student, a criminal if one was comfortable switching to the warden’s perspective, who had almost scared two guards to death. He was a sick boy now, so miserable with pain that he had to come all the way down to the Infirmary on such a cold night as this. Nevertheless, he kept a watch on the shaded path for some time. Why to have any argument with the guards when it could be avoided? The yellow spheres went up and up and died in the mist. With his eyes and ears open, he carefully walked back to the front quadrangle. He heard voices in the guard-room. They were awake. There was no point hiding. Even if he was seen, he had an excuse. The door was shut. He leapt up the steps on his toes. The lights inside the warden’s house were on. He was back. With a surge of desperation and panic, Rohan darted across the wooden corridor and within seconds he was climbing another set of stairs to his dormitory.
*
The two guards had run all the way up to the Senior School and had informed others about the light. It took almost half an hour for the bravest among them to lead them down to investigate. The Auditorium came into view. They huddled under a lamp-post in terror and gaped at each other.
The Auditorium was dark and dark were its windows. And in that darkness was someone sitting at the piano?
They turned around and fled. One of them fell. “Wait!” he cried. But none looked back.
A sad melody was drifting across the Field towards them.
3. SOMEONE BY THE POOL
Rohan desperately needed some sleep. But the warden had this frustrating habit of waking the boys early during exams. He would storm into their dormitories at six in the morning and shout “Wake up!” so hard that boys fell out of their beds in fright. He would give two minutes to change into their uniform before driving them to their classes. They were allowed to brush and wash only half an hour before breakfast. But soon he found out that the boys spent all their preparation time catching up with their sleep. So he now made them wash first and then sent them downstairs, thus curing any symptoms of sleep that might have evaded his bellows. Rohan’s classmates didn’t help either. Each wanted first-hand information on what happened the previous night. Magically, by afternoon, many different versions of the incident had been created. And to add to the excitement, a rumour had spread that Rohan had even tried his hands on the piano which had scared the guards and, dubiously, injured one.
“What did you do that for?” Ayush had asked.
“I didn’t!” Rohan kept insisting, but it was of no use. More than half the class was discussing it in the Dining Hall during lunch, and girls threw random glances at him from their tables. He had surely impressed them. Playing piano in the dead of the night was something to be impressed about.
“So, where did you find the chair?” Nisha asked him in their class after lunch.
“Well,” Rohan put on a serious tone, “as you had said, it was in front of the mirror!”
“I should hope so,” she said evenly, not falling for it. “Manav had put it there to freak you out.”
“But there is more,” he lowered his voice dramatically, “you won’t believe, It’s true! I saw that girl in the Green Room.”
“Really!” Nisha scowled.
“Ya! I even went ahead and asked her out, and guess what,” he paused as a few boys chuckled, “she agreed!”
“Why so desperate!” Nisha snatched her pullover back. “At least leave dead girls alone!” And she stormed away.
Rohan went down to the Auditorium after classes. The audition continued today. He was desperate to see Chandni again. She would have surely found out about his successful venture. Rohan sat down next to Mrs. Sharma who seemed to be in a foul mood. Ten minutes into the audition, and he knew why. She had been dedicatedly directing plays for the past four years and now when it was time for the ‘big’ event, she was simply replaced by a woman of her daughter’s age. Anjali had almost barged into her place, grabbed attention of every student, and was soon getting popular among staffs too. Mrs. Sharma was sure that every boy who went on stage had his eyes locked on her wicked neck-line.
“Nisha, you are next!” Mrs. Sharma called out.
Nisha nervously went on the stage. She settled her dress and shifted her weight on one leg. After a thumbs-up from Manav, she began to read out from her script.
“Some place where there isn’t any trouble.
Do you suppose there is such a place, Toto? There must be.
Not a place you can get to by a boat or a train.
It’s far, far away – behind the moon – beyond the rain…”
Rohan looked around. Manav had a faint smile on his face. Varun was casually turning the pages of his script. He never participated in any sports, but the stage was his home. He was calm and relaxed, probably saving his energy for his booming voice. Ayush was nowhere to be seen. A few juniors were waiting for their turn behind him, while others were practicing on the balcony. Anjali was looking absent-mindedly at the stage, fiddling with the pages of a diary. She wore a pink floral dress with matching nail polish. She turned towards him. He smiled and looked away. The seniors had still not come.
Anjali began to clap when Nisha finished, but Mrs. Sharma didn’t look satisfied. “Aradhana?” she called out. “On stage!”
A pretty girl of Class IX walked onto the stage. She began reading out the same lines. Anjali seemed quite impressed with her, but Mrs. Sharma found her performance inadequate. Another girl was called on the stage. Rohan turned around. Chandni still didn’t show up. It was not the first time Rohan had thought about it, but now it had grown to an extent that could not be overlooked. All the major responsibilities of any play were given to the senior-most members. Even the roles were assigned after their approval. Juniors only ran errands.
Rohan looked at the script Mrs. Sharma was holding and found the dialogue. Dorothy Gale! His heart throbbed. Hadn’t this role been given to Chandni? “Ma’am,” he had to ask. “Where are the seniors?”
“Seniors? There will be no seniors in this play. It’s all your show this time!” Mrs
. Sharma beamed at him.
Rohan felt a lump in his throat. He felt his heart melt. All his excitement came crashing down. “But they were present yesterday?”
Mrs. Sharma went on to explain, “The principal wants a good performance in Boards this time, and that is why students of Class X and XII will not be involved in this play. They wanted to help with casting, but Sir didn’t allow that either.”
Rohan turned back again, expecting Chandni to walk in through the door any moment. And for no reason whatsoever, he felt foolish, and hurt.
“And that is why I recommended that you take charge of the play.”
Rohan wasn’t listening anymore. He felt miserable. He was about to spend most of his time trapped in this hall for the next few months, never getting a chance to be with her again. He had always known that he would feel lonely when she left but he had not realised that the loneliness would begin so soon, even though she was still there, just not in the play.
And to make things worse, the warden had conducted a raid in their dormitory that evening when the boys were downstairs. All the lockers lay stripped, their belongings had been thrown out on the corridor. They had no choice but to walk on each other’s clothes to reach the dormitory, where their beds had met a similar fate. Soon, their dormitory prefect, Siddharth Grover, announced that as a punishment for keeping their dormitory untidy, they had to wake up at four the next morning and stand in the front quadrangle till breakfast. Rohan was exhausted. He summoned all his strength to look for his belongings and put them back in his locker. The tyranny of the warden was increasing with every passing day. There were frequent raids for any illegal items like cigarettes, alcohol, electronic gadgets or cash. New rules were imposed every now and then. He contemplated over the years he had spent in the school. They were so wonderful. It was a place better than home. There was so much to do, so much to learn and explore. But now, every small schoolboy mischief was treated as a heinous crime. The new warden had joined only last year and so much had changed since then.
The initial play practices did not go well either. Final casting was still not done and Mrs. Sharma had begun to lose patience with junior girls. No one seemed suitable for the lead role. The fact that Chandni was not a part of the play had shattered his heart. It saddened him every time he entered the hall. Ayush did not show up even once, and Rohan spent all the sessions in solitary stance. Manav and Nisha were like love birds fluttering around a beautiful garden. The Head-Boy paid regular visits along with other seniors and always had something for Rohan to do, from running to the Canteen to fetch grub to arranging the chairs in the hall. Rohan might have been the manager of the play, but they were still the boss no matter what the principal said. Mrs. Sharma wanted to show them a movie on the Wizard of Oz, but the librarian, Mr. Bedi, was out of town and the show could not be arranged. Rohan was happy that at least he had the question papers. Unit tests were one less thing to worry about.
The week passed in a blink of the eye. Now that the exams were over, Mrs. Sharma sped up the process of casting. Varun and Manav had already been selected for the Tin Woodman and the Cowardly Lion. A girl of class IX, Surbhi Mallik, would be playing Glinda, the Good Witch. Aradhana and Nisha were competing for the role of Dorothy Gale while another class IX junior, Mohit Sharma, was working hard for the role of the Scarecrow.
Rohan sat at the back of the hall and watched the actors practice their dialogues. Mrs. Sharma had called him twice to join her in the front but he liked being alone. With Chandni not around, the play had lost its charm.
“Hey! What’s going on?” It was Ayush. He was sipping an apple juice. His track-suit was stained with ketchup and his lowers were on the verge of slipping off. Finally, he had decided to attend the audition and he brought news. The librarian was back. Rohan stood up, glad to have something to do. Leaving Ayush cracking jokes to impress Anjali, while Mrs. Sharma’s nostrils flared, he went to the Library. It was a two storey building which additionally had an A.V. Room on the ground floor and a Computer Lab. on first. This part of the school was ruled by a six and a half feet giant, Mr. Bedi, the confused librarian, who at this particular instant when Rohan arrived, was a swirling cyclone of confusion, for someone had locked him inside his own Library!
“Girish! Girish!” The librarian was madly calling out to the attendant and wildly kicking at the door. Students were laughing inside. “I’ll murder you… YOU HOOLIGANS... Girish? Where is Girish?”
Rohan’s instincts told him to better be off. Which ruler liked to be locked inside his own palace? Mr. Bedi was a one-man-circus and Rohan was not in a mood for his show. But he had work to do. So he went ahead and opened the door and out leapt the cyclonic figure of Mr. Bedi – hands flailing, eyes maddening, calamity dancing on his head – and grabbed his collar. “Where are they?” he growled, towering over Rohan, his face as pink as the blazer he wore.
There was more laughter inside. Someone fell off his chair.
“I don’t know!” Rohan tried to back away. Did he imagine it or was the air actually swirling above the librarian’s head?
“You… you…” Mr. Bedi let go of him. He was trembling with rage, his fingers twitching to break somebody’s neck; Rohan retreated, his was the nearest. And suddenly, the librarian pushed him away and ran prancing down the steep steps to the Canteen below, thundering “Rascals!” with one hand raised in the air, ready to strike lightning at the very sight of his offenders.
Rohan searched for Girish, the library-attendant. He was calmly reading a newspaper behind a photocopy machine on the first floor. He was old, probably in his late fifties, but as fit as a fiddle. He looked up as Rohan asked him about the movie. “It’s for the play, right?”
Rohan nodded.
“I will have to see. Wait here…” With that, he went downstairs.
Rohan found a seat in the ‘Archive Section’ and waited for Girish. The racks were filled with old school magazines. Rohan was tempted to search them for the girl he had seen in the Vice-Principal’s Office.
Which year was it? 1989…?
He quickly scanned the shelves, but was out of luck. He found every magazine except of the year he was looking for. He was wondering whether his friends would agree to barge into the Vice-Principal’s Office again for that magazine when Girish returned. “We do have a movie on the Wizard of Oz. You can bring the students tomorrow after lunch.”
Rohan thanked him and was leaving when the Library Prefect, Anjesh Ratre, emerged from the staircase. “Do you know who locked Mr. Bedi?” he asked in a grave tone. The librarian had returned and was cursing students downstairs. “RASCALS! SCOUNDRELS!”
“I seriously don’t know,” Rohan replied sincerely. One could lock teachers in a boarding school and get away with it, but lying to seniors was to be avoided at all times. “The door was already latched, I only opened it.”
“I WILL COMPLAIN! I WILL COMPLAIN!”
“Then go and find out, and send them to me.” Ratre lowered his voice and glanced at the maddened librarian. “They have earned themselves a treat!”
“GIRISH! GIRISH! YOU RASCALS! YOU… PIGS! WHERE IS GIRISH?”
Girish raised his newspaper and went back to the state Rohan had found him in, but this time, there was a genuine smile on his face.
***
It was Sunday evening. Mrs. Sharma had called for the final audition, but Rohan sat in the Basketball Court waiting for his turn to bat. The Basketball Court was beside the Auditorium with about thirty feet high railings on two adjacent sides that separated it from the forest beyond. On the third side was a wall supporting the stadium-steps of the Swimming Pool.
He was thinking about night practices. Once casts were selected, they would be spending almost their entire non-academic time in the Auditorium, which would make it essential to shift their rehearsals to night so that the Auditorium could be used for other school activities. And from all the years he had spent in the school, he knew what fun that would be! The sessions would run late into n
ight and sometimes even till morning. Consequently, they would be allowed to even skip classes. It was a world apart, reserved only for the senior students. He indeed had been given a golden opportunity. If only Chandni were there too! Rohan was still embarrassed about his encounter with her on the first day of audition. He kept thinking about it. She had laughed at him when he had slipped. Or had she mocked? But she was too modest to do that. But again, he was merely assuming this from what he imagined her to be. In fact, he actually never knew her.
BANG!
He leapt to his feet. A Cosco ball had just smashed into a rusty old iron door embedded into the Swimming Pool wall. Rohan had been sitting next to it and the sudden explosion left his ears ringing. “What’s this room for?” he asked, fingering his ears.
“It’s probably a store-room.” Manav, who was bowling, answered uncertainly. “I think all the pipe-lines are inside this room.”
Rohan looked at the door. The red paint was peeling off and a heavy old lock dangled from the latch. He sat down again. The match continued. Next ball and Manav had taken a wicket. Rohan went to bat. Constrained by the limited space, they always played low in the Basketball Court. Manav delivered a ball, and such a ball he delivered! Rohan watched it come, like a girl teasing, sucking on a candy, eyeing him, challenging him… his bat went out of control. The ball flew straight up and out of sight into the Swimming Pool. Then they heard a distinct splash. Rohan’s face fell in dismay while Manav hooted over his accomplishment. Rohan had just been declared out, scored a negative ten-run and assigned the task of fishing the ball out while the match continued.
The audition was probably over as the veranda in front of the Auditorium was empty. The Junior School was deserted. It was time for their ‘Baths’. Occasionally, a face could be seen through their dormitory window, a towel around its shoulders. The students of Class III to V had to line up wearing gowns in front of the bathrooms, which were actually small cubicles with a shower and no doors. These little boys had to take off their gowns, stand naked in a line, raise their hands and turn round and round, while their matron examined their bodies for any sign of infection. They would then be allotted showers in groups of two to three. An old nanny controlled the water pipes so that they had fixed amount of time to get wet, shampoo and soap themselves, rinse off and come out. Rohan smiled at the old memories. He had spent hours hiding under beds or behind lockers to skip these baths. The Senior School did have doors and there was no matron to look after their hygiene. Though, it was dominated by seniors who came and went with no regard for their juniors in queue. They would take their own time in the shower while juniors just waited outside till their bath time was over or the water ran cold.
