The campus of Sainik School Goalpara is a huge area consisting of thousands of acres of land, mostly unoccupied. Shrubs, animals, darkness and legends came to occupy those unused mass of lands. If gossips were to be considered true, the present campus was built upon an old burial site. Such gossips never mattered to me, until one day…
I had heard several stories about ‘ghost sightings’ in Udaygiri house, which happened to be our neighbours. Of the several such stories, the story about this particular cat was probably the most circulated one - A cat that appeared at a particular time of the night and went into a particular bathroom and then vanish. (I will wait to hear this story from someone from Udaygiri House).
I was in my IXth standard, and a day of hard labour put me off to sleep in the early hours of the night, at around 10pm. The sounds from my neighbours in the room finally subsided and the lights went out within sometime, probably half an hour. It was summer and most of us preferred to wear shorts over our sleeping night dresses, flouting the prescribed rules. With no exams in the next few weeks, the lights went out in quick succession across all the rooms, putting the entire house into a silent sleep.
It was strange how the dew drops used to fall even in the warmest of summers, finely putting dotted lines on the grass below the tin roofs. The night was filled with the lethargic moaning of the ceiling fans, in the room, amplified by the hollowness of the asbestos ceiling. The heat of the night gave way to slight chillness during the late night and early morning hours. I felt an urge to take a leak and woke up as I had to walk to the other side of the hostel, where the pungent smelling bathrooms were located.
Bathrooms in Sainik School Goalpara consisted of rows of Lavatories, a water tank, rows of bathing rooms, with doors at various stages of decay, some open and some closed and some missing, and then came the high walled urinals and then finally ending in an open bathroom. The open bathroom was a bare space, surrounded by high walls, with a steel pipe dangling from the top. It was meant to have wash basins, which probably existed for a few years, when the school was established. Nonetheless, it was a space meant exclusively for the seniors to bathe and shout sing.
So I slipped into my pair of slippers and opened the door. A gust of moist air rushed in, leaving me cold and numb. The stairs were moist and gleaming with the dew. It was dark all around as I walked towards the bathrooms and my footsteps echoed in the silence. I looked away from the doors of the lavatories, as I hurried towards the urinal. I hurriedly released myself and paced towards my room. I kept turning my eye balls to inspect if I was being followed. As I stepped on the corridor, I saw someone in shorts going to my room. My half sleepy eyes couldn’t recognize who it was. He was walking slowly, in fact very slowly. He entered the room, as I reached the door, and as I went inside, I saw him walking to the end of the room, to the window in the end and then pass through it. I walked up to the window and looked outside. There stood a cat staring at me! The curled body suggesting that it just landed.
A later enquiry revealed, no one else had woken up on that night, other than me.
Ghosts in Sainik School Goalpara 2
Ghosts in Sainik School Goalpara
Daytime and nighttime in Sainik School Goalpara are very different and contrasting. The activities of the students die down as lights go out and the grumbling of the generator dies down by 10 pm. The only audible sound that rings are the howling of the jackals and the foxes that inhabits in the shrubs and forest that surrounded the campus. Many stories made rounds about ghosts being sighted here and sometimes there. I haven’t seen any, but let me tell you, have felt many.
Unlike the senior houses, where seniors took the illegal liberty to keep awake for several reasons, junior houses didn’t enjoy such liberties and hence were always eerily silent after 10 pm. It was my first year in school and I was in my VIth standard.
A warm summer night, and the whistle from outside the reading room (room number 5) went off, marking the lights-out time. We quickly tied our respective mosquito nets and lay there in darkness, silent, according to the ‘rules’. I don’t remember for how long did I lay there like that on my bed, until the sound of the creaking door brought me back to my senses. Those days, I dint have a mobile phone to inspect the sound and neither an indiglo watch to check the time. My flash light lay dead for want of battery replacements, which I couldn’t get done as the CSD canteen was always occupied, every time I went there on Sundays.
My bed was at a slight distance from the door and three beds stood between mine and the door. The darkness was absolute and not even a faint shade of light existed. All I could hear was the distinct sound of an unhurried dragging walk. It paused momentarily somewhere between the door and my bed. Scared I was and could never know if there was anyone else in the room, awake and listening to what I was. A sound of a match stick striking came from where it stood…and then a long drag…of what seemed like someone smoking a cigarette. But no lights emerged from it. The dragging of the feet resumed.
I could not gather the courage to scream, lest I attracted this invisible visitor’s attention without being able to wake my roommates. The sound crossed towards the other half of the room, away from the door. A sound of fluttering pages came out. I perspired and still I wished I had a blanket to cover myself and hide. The sound became indistinct and the next thing I saw was the morning light and the familiar sound of our matron…”Utha Utha” (get up, get up).
Many of my fellow friends experienced the same. Some say, it was a prank. Might be prank it was. But a lot many things happened during those seven years, to me and to many others. All of them couldn’t be prank.
SSG Ticklionary: A short list of ticklish definitions
EPD: Exempted from PT and drill. Ever had the fortune to watch others do the job of running around? Well, there are certain basic criteria to obtain an EPD. You need to be actually unwell enough to not be able to run around or be a good actor. And secondly, after obtaining an EPD make sure that you watch the activities around you with a ‘sick’ face, or else you never know, anyone might drag you to run, from seniors to whimsical Army Ofiicers.
SDA: I still do not know the formal meaning of SDA. However, what I know is that it’s a group started in the year 2000 that took pride in stealing fruits from the backyard gardens of teachers and exploding the black boots by placing explosives inside them, apart from many others. Group members can be identified by their black scarves and determined eyes. They were our Robin Hoods, who would feed the hungry students for free. The full form of SDA happens to be School Destruction Activists.
Extra Drill: If you ever see Khaki Uniform clad students standing or more possibly running in the afternoon sun, immediately after lunch, make no mistake. They are not practicing to join the army or rehearsing for the upcoming inter house drill. They were probably caught while running to Goalpara or the nearby, but out-of-bound areas like the Western or the PWD canteens. Stories often came up, about sympathetic army subedars, and how they said… “start jumping when the principal or the headmaster arrives”. Though a serious form of punishment, it was lesser in degree when compared to punishments by genuinely angry seniors! And we know of many such friends, who spent more afternoons jumping around than anything else.
Dingi: A subject of awe, that took to legendary proportions. ‘Dingi’ in Assamese translates into ‘neck’. Mr. R.M.Verma was known to thrash students on the back of their neck. The pain is inexplicable in words, even by those who had the misfortune of undergoing it. Do read Kingshuk’s story to know more.
Regimental Dinner: A fancy imitation of an actual formal lavish dinner, to mark an important occasion in the school calendar. It often succeeded in imitating the atmosphere, while failing miserably in the food aspect. A pair of Bagpipers walks around the mess, followed by a grace, and then the food. Hint: If the mess has been serving extraordinarily bad food for a while, its an indication that its doing ‘cost cutting’ to be able to offer a regimental dinner. If you are particularly addicted to bread crumbs with watery chicken soup, check the school calendar!
Time Bomb: It doesn’t tick away to an explosion. It’s a crude time bomb, that seems to go off everywhere around Diwali time. An agarbatti (incense stick) is lighted and is attached to the coil of the bomb. Hidden under the bushes, the louder ones even place under the chairs of Hit List teachers in the mess. BANG!
Old Nine: He walks like a don and acts as if he is one. What sets him apart is that he is packed off to senior houses in VIIIth standard unlike others who reach senior houses in their IXth standard. So by the time their fellow classmates reach senior houses, they are old and hence the term, ‘Old Nine’. Understandably he often considers himself pseudo senior to his own classmates!
A Brain Teaser
So these are few questions which I want SSGians to answer.
- What are the names of the assistants of Amiya (except foni)?
- What was the name of the official photographer of our school (not S.Narayan)?
- What was the name of our Tailor?
- What was the name of our cobbler?
- What was the name of our movie projector operator?
- What was the name of our mess manager and his assistant?
- What was the name of the K.G school inside our campus?
- What were the names of our school bus drivers?
- What is the name of our stationary store in charge?
- What is the name of our accountant?
The Story of a Painter
A week before the event, the smell of the burning candle and the ‘shoe polish’ pervades every House, and every room and spills over into the corridors. And a day before the event the smell of Brasso adds to the spice as we start polishing the metal parts of our uniform – the belt locks, the shoulder badges, the cap badge and the innumerable badges, some earned and mostly for the glitter.
And a month before the event, we hear the familiar noise of the commander, ‘Left right…Left right…Heel Dig, Shoulder tight, Left Right..Left Right…’ The digging of the hard heel of our boots would soften the dry earth beneath and bring out the water to the surface. Every house cherished for the ‘Drill Trophy’ and it was pretty natural to hear the familiar commands erupting from each house, and at times, even at odd hours of the night.
The point system in the Drill competition ensured that everything was looked into, starting from the turnout to the marching and from our haircut to the crispness of our uniforms. Udaygiri House had won it for several years in succession, until it was snatched away the previous year. Legend has it that ‘ghosts’ or ‘spirits’ used to come and guide the Udaygiri house team during the practice sessions. It seems funny to realize that we actually were ready to buy such ideas.
The previous year, Lachit House shocked us all by coming up with this unique surprise. On the day of the event, as we faced each other, their shining boots made our boots look pale, in spite of going through all the strict traditional process of smearing them with candle, and then with shoe polish, and then the adequate strokes from the hard brush and the soft brush. After the drill was over, news came that, Lachitians had painted their shoes with wood paints. I envied their boots, as the shine remained even days after the event. And then a time came, when the paint started to crack, and no shoe polish could fill those cracks and they started to look ridiculously old. The black paint nonetheless did its job, as Lachitians at least gave a stiff competition (I don’t remember if they won the trophy that year).
It so happens that we always practice for the drill in a different pair of shoe and keep a fresh one for the D-Day. Alongside the drill practice, I was also occupied with some paper works as I was the office bearer during that particular year. So, I finally took out my fresh pair on the night before the D-Day and tried them on and a sense of horror struck me! It was too small for my feet.
I summoned a junior and asked him to find a ‘fresh pair’ of boots for me. After a tense hour or so, he came back with an unused pair. Now anyone who knows leather understands how difficult it is polish an unused and never polished piece of leather and more so, if one had to wear it in the drill. I raced my mind and was struck with an idea. I managed to find a half filled container of black paint and splashed it generously on the boots and left it to dry over night. I kept checking its dryness, sometimes merely looking at it, or at times pressing my finger on it. So by the dawn of the morning, there were several finger prints on the shoes to my horror! And it was yet to dry. As I left for classes, the bright sun suddenly turned gloomy and ominous dark clouds came up from nowhere. After a tensed day of classes, I had a quick lunch and came running to check my boots only to put yet another impression of my finger on it. The mess bell went off marking the time to leave for the Drill competition. I slipped my feet carefully without bothering the half dried paint and joined my team outside the house, as some of us chanted house Slogans, and get countered by slogans from other houses. We started to move towards the ground.
Half way through towards the ground, I felt a sense of sponginess on my feet and I looked down and Oh my God, the half dried paint had befriended some dried twigs, loose grasses and pounds of dust clung around it.
I felt like screaming, ‘Lachitians you dint warn me about this!!!’