ON CORPORAL PUNISHMENT

The April issue of  Reader's Digest published an open photo-editorial “Outrageous” on Corporal punishment in schools.It took me back to my schooldays in St Columba’s in New Delhi some 53 years ago.

I joined St Columba’s in mid session in 1959 in Mrs. Clark's Class IV B. Post lunch break we used to have a daily Math’s tables rapid fire test. Each mistake warranted a cane stroke on the palm. After receiving five or six cane shots each day, I knew my tables by heart by the third day.

My class teacher in the 9th, a Mr. Edward Seqeuira, was an expert grammarian and taught us English. The use of the cane ensured we knew our Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, verbatim. Once he was punishing a class mate who happened to be the son of a senior foreign diplomat. As he brought down the cane on the palm, the boy caught the cane and wouldn’t let go. All of us couldn’t help giggling. The matter reached the Principals office and the boy’s father was summoned and summarily told that either the boy apologizes AND takes the punishment, or he will be asked to leave school. Sure enough Mr.Sequeira gave him his caning before he sat back in the class.

One of our teachers was a gentleman nick named Mr. Shaggy. He was a veteran of the 2nd world war and had a bullet injury in his thigh, with a consequent limp and hobble. He was known for harsh punishments. He would lift his disabled leg and, standing on his good leg, deliver hard shots with the cane on the students bum. So hard were the hits that when my classmate Sampat Rangaswamy inserted a school diary and the Shakespeare under his pants to soften the blow, the cover of both the books was torn. When I was to get my punishment, I tried to ditto him with the diary on one bum and the log table’s book on the other. As the cane blows landed, there were loud sounds as if someone had smacked a hard mattress with the cane. The class burst out laughing as I walked back to my seat .As the next boy stepped up, Shaggy first stroked and felt the bums with the tip of the cane, then let go.One day Sampat came to class bearing a box of candies.When we asked him the occassion, he replied that he had just completed his century, of 'benders'.

The corporal punishment was not confined to the classroom, but also on the playfield. Our physical instructor Mr. Hukel (I think I have the spelling right) believed  in absolute discipline in sports. Since he could not carry a cane on the field, mistakes were rewarded with tight slaps, or, his favourite, catching the ear and squeezing it between his fingers and thumb like a lemon.

In our 9th class, we even had a debate once on the justification of corporal punishment with select students pitted against Mr. Edward Sequeira. I remember quoting some lengths from James Hilton’s Goodbye Mr. Chips. As anticipated, no one won.

Times have changed now, for the students,the teachers, the parents and the schools as well.



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