Whats In a Name

‘Whats in a name; even a rose with any other name, will smell as sweet’ – Shakespeare

It meant different things to different people in SSG to have the same first names and be in the same class. :)

I know a story, borne out of similar fate, which at best can be described as Tragicomic. The two were very different, be it in any aspect, physical appearance or others. The only two things that they seemed to share were their first names ‘Deben’ and their batch.

‘Rule breaking’ in Sainik School was inevitable. What was possible however was to break them without being detected (of course with your astrological stars in the right place). While day to day breaches happened like, going to out-of-bound canteens (PWD and WESTERN canteens) and everyone did it without a second thought, the hardcore ones could seldom be found in the campus during the weekend.

Both the ‘Debens’ were in their IXth standard – the most worrisome stage of one’s SSG existence (my personal opinion). It’s the stage when one enters the ‘Senior houses’ and get treated like ‘milk toothed’ juniors after having spent THREE LONG years! in the campus. Many run away during the first month of their stay in Senior Houses and others adapt to that life in their own respective ways. Having three batches, to look down upon (VI – VIII), its irresistible to not exercise one’s seniority, esp. when the ones above them (X – XII) used them so often.

Its been almost half a year now, both the Debens were counting their days that would mark the end of that year and the end of ‘duties’ towards the seniors, like all their classmates. While one Deben was in Lohit, the other was in Udaygiri.

It was a leisurely moment after lunch, which lasts for almost 20 mins before the gong goes off marking the start of the unexplainably sleepy prep classes. It was leisurely as the quadrangle wore a deserted look, without any seniors eager to entertain their visual senses by punishing the IXth batch for some frivolous reasons. Some seniors were chit chatting with their respective junior ‘Bhaitis’.

A friend of Deben came to his room, passed greetings and said, ‘Deben, Pritom from Chilarai is calling you’.

Deben asked dismissively, 'Who Pritom?'

The friend said, ‘Pritom from Class XII. Did you do anything illegal today?’

Deben smiled in response, knowing not for which one, was he being called for.

Chilarai House: Pritom hit Deben across his face and asked him, ‘What did you do in the morning?’
Deben cried, ‘I haven’t done anything’.
The cycle of ‘hit and interrogate’ continued, occasionally joined by more of Pritom’s batch mates. The gong marked the beginning of the prep class, and for Deben, the end of another ‘meeting’. He went back to Udaygiri house, changed his uniforms and washed his face and went for the prep class. The Headmaster, donning his dark shades lay in wait for the late comers. Deben was one of them. He frog jumped for a good 50 metres, before getting hit by a cane and then eventually entered his class, sweaty and tired.

Deben occupied an empty last bench and started to think about his day’s activities, trying to figure out, which of his mistakes was it, that actually got detected by Pritom. A fellow classmate from Chilarai, came over to him and said,

‘I had gone to Pritom’s room and overheard him speaking to someone. He was coming to the school building in the morning and saw a VIth student trying to reach the pigeon hole of the letter box, in order to drop a letter. Pritom dropped it for him and asked who the letter was for. The VIth student replied, he dint know as it wasn’t his letter. Deben from class IX had asked him to drop it.’

After a momentary pause, he asked Deben, ‘So did you ask someone to drop your letter?’.

It dint take Deben more than a second to realize what was going on. The junior must have said Deben, without adding a last name to it, or for that matter the House where he belonged. He went up to the other Deben and said, ‘You owe me one’.

Note: names have been changed to protect identities in the story.