Holi, the festival of spring, love and new life, fun and revelry, has again faded into the past. Wikipedia says Holi is also the time for people to get themselves rid of the accumulated emotional impurities from the past. The people of north India eagerly wait for the festival to have a carefree day with their friends and relatives. Though I am one of them now, there was a time when I used to have nightmares as the festival approached.
I was then a resident of the staff quarters of the Gujarat agriculture university, Navsari, where I taught English. The university followed the semester system, dividing the undergraduate course into eight semesters. ‘Continuous evaluation’ was one of the basic features of the system. The marks one got in the internal and the semester-end examinations were counted for awarding the final grade. The subject teacher was involved in both the examinations. Those who failed in one or two subjects were promoted under the ATKT (Allowed to Keep Term) rules with the condition that they clear them along with the current ones.
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Several students got ATKT in English. They thought I was too harsh with them and nursed a grudge against me. As no one wanted to be in my bad books, they would act as good guys in the class.
They reserved their resentment for Holi. They would come out in groups on that day, armed with plastic buckets. There were many water taps in front of the staff quarters. As they did not believe in spending money on harmless colours, they would smear teachers residing in the quarters with liquid mud. The latter usually surrendered to the students meekly, as resistance would only get more mud on them. At the end of the session they would lift the teacher concerned, place him under a water tap, and pour water on him to wash off the mud.
As I knew what was in store for me, I would leave the quarters early in the morning on my scooter. My younger son would stand in the front and my wife and the elder one would sit on the back seat. Our destination was a friend’s home, where we would spend the day. My sons would grumble because they wanted to play with their friends on the campus the entire day, but they knew I was adamant.
When we returned late in the evening, there would be mud all over the veranda of my quarters, and ‘ATKT’ would be written with mud in large letters at various places on the walls to let me know who the perpetrators were. They would even mix mud with water and throw the liquid inside the rooms through the gap below the doors. It would be hard labour of many hours for my wife to clean up the place, and my sons would not hide their joy at what happened. All three would blame me for being too strict with students, and take their side.
Though I would scan the faces of those appearing in ATKT tests when the college reopened, their expression would be innocent leaving no room for me to take any action against them.
