When they all cried

Bhaiji had twice sat for the entrance exam to Vidyapith. He failed to get through both the times. In the first attempt, we were told that he was too tall to get into the school. This, as I realised later was a very ridiculous theory, as some of my classmates were much taller than Bhaiji was at the time he sat for the exam. As it is, that he did not qualify made me very enthusiastic to try my hand there, lest I could prove a point or two. I was trained by Bhaiji then. These days, I hear, people have started coaching classes for admission in Vidyapith. Imagine 10-year old students taking coaching to get into a school!

At this point, I am tempted to share some of the stories of the entrance test to Vidyapith. Though this might not make a very good reading, I personally am very proud of them and I have always been the show-off kind of person.

There were around 3000-odd students who took that exam and the number of seats was 28. Naturally, the competition was really tough. There was first a written test where I solved all the questions, barring one. The question was something like what is the value of 2^224 /2^222. I did not get the idea and spent a hell lot of time trying to compute the values and then dividing them actually, yielding as is quite obvious, a very weird answer.

I did get a call for an interview next, which was really intriguing. We were made to sit all-day long, and we spent most of our time playing. However, some really tough questions were asked. I remember one of them. It went as: “There are 20 people in the room and all of them shake hands with every other person once. How many handshakes were made in total?” Most of the candidates answered 400. A few answered 380, thinking rightly that a person would obviously not shake hands with himself. I was among the two persons, who could get that if A shakes hands with B, it means that the same has been done even the other way round. So I summed up numbers from 1 to 19 and got the correct answer 190. Bingo! It was years later that I discovered that this was from a topic that one is supposed to learn in standard 11th, and even Bhaiya was in standard 8th then.

After the exams, we went to Baidyanath Dham, a very famous ancient Shiva temple in Deoghar. Devotees from all over Bihar come during the month of Savana to the temple to pray to the Lord. We went to our Panda in the temple of Annapurna Devi (the goddess of food), and he predicted that I shall be selected.

We had stayed in Baranwal Seva Sadan near the clock tower in the center of the town. Apparently, their was a baraat staying there at that time and no room was free, but Papa would usually come and stay there for his office works, so he found us a room out of nowhere. Later, I stayed here almost every time Papa would come to pick me from school during vacations. It was very cheap (I think they charged something like Rs 15 per day then) and the rooms were in very good condition.

We went trekking to the Tapovan, a small hill in the outskirts of Deoghar. It is said that Ravana had once done a death-defying penance at that place. I remember one small path in the hill, which was deemed to be very risky, and I was very happy to have crossed that without anybody's help. We also visited the Naulakha temple, the Nandan Pahaad among other places.

The town of Deoghar has a religious fragrance about it. The roads are small, and one can meet devotees at any time all over the place. There are flower stalls everywhere, and almost every road has a temple of mythological importance. Deoghar is renowned for pedas, and I must concede that they really are very tasty.

Much to the joy of everyone at home, I made it to Ramakrishna Mission Vidyapith, Deoghar. And thus began my journey as a 9 year-old hostelite. Dadi Maa, however, was very upset with this decision. She would lament, thereafter, till the moment she died, of how could one send such a small kid to a hostel. In her words “Kora k bachcha k hostel mei da delak”.

Unlike most kids, I was not very sad about having to leave my home. I think that the main reason behind this was that Papa was posted in Deoghar, and I hoped to see him every now and then.

The first day in Vidyapith was very eventful. It was 25th of March, 1995. As soon as we reached the office of the Chief Warden, Shakti Maharaj, carrying my trunk and bedding among other things, two seniors, Ritwik da and Rohit da, came running in. I was told that they are my guides and they would tell me everything about the place. The first thing they did was to touch Shakti Maharaj's feet, and prompted me and my parents to do the same. Then they carried all my luggage and told me that I have been allotted Premananda Dham. As I walked behind them, I could not help but notice the physical contrast between the two. Rohit da was very thin, just like me, and Ritwik da was really fat. They took me to the Store and bought me the essentials, including utensils, books, copies, chappals and everything. They next took me to the tailoring department, where I was given a set of Dham and school clothes and I was told to send the clothes that I was wearing back, as 'civil dress' was not allowed in the school. We were told that keeping money would lead to immediate punishment, as would having unauthorized food or 'stock'.

My parents were told that it was possible to meet your wards only once in a semester. And as was the case with breaking any other rule, it would also lead to severe punishment.

The most tricky part of the whole day was when we were supposed to wear 'Dhoti-Punjabi' for the evening Arati. It was a very humorous sight, with all the new boys, as newcomers were called, trying their hand at the white piece of cloth, their guides trying their best to teach them the tricks of the trade. Dhotis were falling here and there, and in some cases, it were the students who tripped. All the students from our dham made a queue in front of the hostel garden, waiting very eagerly for the first bell to ring.

When the bell rang, the sight was amazing. The entire school flooded inside the prayer hall in queues. The Garbha-griha had 3 framed photos of people I failed to recognize. Later, I was told that they are Ramakrishna Paramhansa, after whom my school was named, his wife Sarada Devi, and his disciple Swami Vivekananda, who had founded the Ramakrishna Math and Mission. We were supposed to recite bhajans from Sangeet-Mala.

What happened next was very amusing as there was such a huge contrast among many simultaneous events. A guy was busy doing arati in the Garbha-griha, using different things as oil-lamps, fans, flowers, etc. All the students were supposed to sing some moronic verse in Bengali, and the pace of the whole bhajan was so slow that it could've put even a snail to shame. An unknown language and an unknown tune made it very difficult to follow the whole bhajan, let alone sing or comprehend it. And then, seated among the various new-boys, I couldn't help noticing them weeping all the time. A separation with their parents at such a tender age could tense even the strongest, and so everyone near me was crying. Some were loud enough to be pulled up by Prayer-Hall Ministers, seniors responsible for maintaining discipline in the Prayer Hall, while others wept silently. I had the satisfaction of Papa being posted in Deoghar, and I chose to enjoy the scene. When the first bhajan was finally over, another one started, and to my utter amazement, this one was even slower than the first one! It carried on for another 15 minutes, as some of my classmates and seniors were inconsolable. After this second bhajan, another one followed. There were murmurs of this being the last one, and the anticipation led to a renewal of energy, which was evident by the suddenly raised decibel levels. When this final bhajan was done with in around 5 minutes, the lights went out. Confused, I started looking around, when someone told me that this is the meditation time. I shut my eyes, and could see my home, my parents smiling at me. Bhaiya and Bhaiji were trying to tell me that this was just a bad dream. Of course, I was shouting back at them, and was hitting Bhaiya with all the power I could muster. This was the first time in the entire day that I felt sad, and it dawned upon me that I would now see very less of the people I love.

I met my parents after prayer. To hide my sadness, I talked very enthusiastically with them about the lush-green grounds in the campus, about the new friends that I had made, and about the food in the Dining-Hall. Mummy was silent all this while. Intermittently, tears trickled down her cheeks. I chose to ignore them. Papa was also feeling bad, but like me, he too discussed so many things about the campus.

When we were to finally part ways that day, I was really sad. It was easily the worst moment of my life till then.