House Day: Dancing Goes Wrong

Disclaimer: Names have been changed to protect identities. And if the people involved in the story gets a mild to severe heart attack in seeing their little secret being revealed, they can pick their options of abusing me over SMS, phone, email or even in person.

The Basics: We were in IXth standard. We formed the ‘labour force’ in all the senior houses. There are many more basic facts about being a IXth standard cadet in Sainik School Goalpara and I’ll not be dealing with them in the current story. The other fact that I would want to talk about is about cultural activities presented by senior Houses. Such performances would be a mix bag of croaking seniors, who would croak and juniors would praise and then some juniors who were actual artists and then some more juniors who were forced to dance or sing, to act as fillers during the show. I know one such story…

Mr. NF was in IXth standard and he happened to join Sainik School Goalpara in IXth unlike most of us who joined in VIth. After initial ‘sweet to all’ attitude he quickly found himself a slot in the ‘gang of Lohit House’ that mostly comprised of ‘old nine guys’ (they are the hardcore ones, who reach senior houses in their VIIIth standard unlike the average ones who reach senior Houses in IXth). So this group would do things differently…well almost everything.

They would go to Goalpara, when the rest of us would work for the seniors and they would relax in the room as we run around to answer the dreaded shouts ‘Reading room’ ‘Common Room’….Yes Da. They would wake up when we would sleep at night. (Do read Rajib’s story in this context). So this is the group where Mr. NF found himself a berth. Although he wasn’t exempted from his basic duties of being a IXth student, like serving the seniors, he did enjoy the superstar status of being a ‘gangster’.

The date for the House day was slowly approaching and the preparation gained momentum, as I managed the list of programs (being the junior prefect). Like most other cultural events in Sainik School Goalpara, the list I managed had an endless list of ‘singers’ that can kill audience with boredom. So I was given the task of finding some potential dancers. I do not remember now, if Mr. Dutta (an old ninth gangster & my classmate) agreed to dance out of will or because some senior threatened him to do one. But he did agree to dance and his partner was to be Mr. NF. His new uniforms had gathered those stains by now that we had seen from our VIth standard and he was well versed with the said and unsaid rules of Sainik School Goalpara by now.

Common room (room number 6) was their place of practice for the next few days culminating with the final performance. They would practice at night, and collect stuff during the day. By stuff I mean, shoes from some, torn jeans from others, bandana from some etc. Oh the song! It was O o jaane jana, dhunde tujhe deewana. A good song, given our limited taste and seclusion from the rest of the human civilization.

The D day arrived and being the junior prefect, I cleverly placed the dance between equal number of songs, before and after the dance to bring about a sense of variety. And the dance was to be the ‘item’ of the day, that would provide visual treat as well, unlike the songs. The cassette player rolled and the song started with a squeak. Mr. Dutta, donning torn jeans, a red bandana and a body hugging T-shirt started shaking his legs as Mr. NF followed suit. Unlike the rehearsals, there was something missing, as NF kept staring at Mr. Dutta and followed him. After a few minutes of suppressed anger Mr. Dutta nodded his head towards NF asking ‘whats wrong?’
NF flapped his hands on his ear, meaning, ‘I can’t hear anything’.
Now Dutta knew the song by hard and it didn’t matter to him if it was audible to him or otherwise. But for NF, it was a different story altogether. Dutta finally couldn’t take it anymore and he stamped his feet on the stage and left, ‘To hell with dancing’. And with that, the ‘item’ of the evening drowned into nothing. Some eager singers quickly replaced the dancers, as the audience laughed, jeered and the principal wore a stern look, suppressing his internal laughter. The evening was criminally boring and NF and Dutta didn’t speak for a while after that incident. I would love to see both dancing once again & I promise I’d place a speaker facing the dancers as well. ‘O o Jaane Jana’