Chaitanyamoi Chetia
St. Joseph’s High School, Moranhat, Assam

The summers have started and it is the best time for the swimmers to swim in the pool. Parents are bringing their children to the swimming pool and there are many new admissions. Stout and strong boy, Probin also joined the swimming. However, his enrolment was rather late as most of the boys of his age were expert swimmers. He was asked by the trainer to learn swimming with the little kids who were studying in Kindergarten and First Grade in schools. The pool was within the walking distance from school.

Probin presence in the classroom was chaos for everybody. The school administration recently introduced CCTV cameras in an attempt to curtail brawl and scuffle amongst the students as it provided inconvertible evidence as to which student did. These were installed on the veranda of the school: one was mounted above the main door of the classroom: there were also CCTV cameras in parking spaces. Students were aware of it and all had fear of getting caught if done anything nasty.

Class teachers, with time, had started learning about the aggressive nature of Probin, which he has been concealing for many years. Only because he was good at advanced mathematics, his classmates revered him. In the last class test, he could manage to score full marks as he easily solved all the mathematical expression of Binary number problems of the question paper.

One bright sunny day Probin came near Samit of the same section and said, “Let us fight in the veranda.”

Samit was almost shocked. He had just completed taking his tiffin and came out of the classroom to play.

“Can’t you see, our teachers will watch us vividly from the teachers’ common room,” Samit said and went away.

“Wait! Let us brawl inside our classroom,” Probin continued.

“Look carefully! a CCTV camera is installed there,” Samit said with annoyance and irritation.

Samit is a lean and thin boy. Probin would defeat him easily if both happened to fight.

Samit questioned himself, “Will there be no one in our classroom of the stout body who can brawl with Probin and win?”

Then he decided that the shy boy, Ratan who always used to sit on the last bench would be a good choice as he had a sturdy body. He quickly came near Ratan and requested, “Only you will be able to brawl with Probin because his presence in the classroom has become chaos and mayhem for us.”

At the outset, Ratan declined to fight; afterwards, he complied and nodded his assent.

“Probin’s firepower and force will be futile today,” Samit imagined.

Only a few minutes left for the bell to ring and after that their remaining classes will start.

Samit said in a loud voice to everybody, “Let us go to the backyard of our school as there is no CCTV camera installed there to watch the brawl between Probin and Ratan.”

Probin was indomitable and invincible and he also thinks of himself in that way. Finally, the tussle started; very quickly Ratan’s shirt buttons tore away in fighting, punching and wrestling. Immediately, Ratan surrendered. He spoke in a tired and exhausted voice, “I will not fight with you anymore; I admit my defeat.”

All returned to their classroom after the tussle. Their teacher came but Samit could not give attention to his books. All the students opened up their copy and started writing what the teacher was dictating; Samit was sitting idle on his bench. A great many thoughts troubled him.

The teacher came near him and said, “What happened! All are busy writing and you are wandering somewhere in your mind.”

Having heard this, he immediately took out his pen and paper and started writing what the teacher was dictating.

The School bell rang and Samit started recollecting about the swimming pool. “Probin has the habit of holding the handrail as a safety measure to come to the swimming pool: he uses swimming kickboards as a floating device during swimming classes; besides, he is a fledgling swimmer. The only place I can defeat him in the swimming pool,” Samit said to himself in confidence.

Samit is adept in swimming; now he was learning about backstroke, sidestroke, and freestyle in a more perfect manner. He was also able to win gold medals in a 50-meter backstroke and a 50-meter butterfly stroke competition organised by the swimming pool committee. The trainer of the pool also started relying on him.

The guardians as well as the swimmers were coming one by one to the swimming pool. Samit as usual put on his swimming suit, goggles and cap. All the swimmers who were recently enrolled stood in a line with a kickboard in their hands. In delight, all jumped into the swimming pool. Probin was also seen in the same line; as usual, he had to hold the handrail as a safety measure for coming to the swimming pool along with the kickboard as the floating device to provide buoyancy and to keep him afloat.

The trainer  told Samit, “I have to go out for an hour for an important work: I am entrusting you the responsibility to teach the boys.”

“Sir,” Samit said in confidence and jubilation.

As soon as the trainer went away, Samit came to Probin and said angrily in a loud voice, “I shall teach you a lesson and you will never skirmish and scuffle at school.”

Saying thus, he gave a kick at Probin’s feet inside water. The sudden kick frightened Probin since he was boosting his confidence with the help of the kickboard by exercising, doing laps, treading water and isolating his leg movements.

“Promise me that you will never draw circle, triangle and rectangle with your gel pen in the back of my white shirt as you always sit behind me in the classroom,” shouted Samit and gave the second kick.

With great fear Probin was clutching the kickboard with his fists tightly in water; one another punch in his left arm made him cry in pain. Every punch was a delightful joy for Samit; every punch flattened Probin and his ears buzzed.

Probin said in despair, “Your every punch had the impact of a bag of bricks on my body: I am feeling great pain; I shall never create any chaos in the classroom.”

Samit fully twisted his wrist when he punched with his right hand: he again put all his strength in his fist and punched hard at Probin’s and said, “Promise me that you will never mar and impair the iron pressed uniform pants of our classmates with chalk pencil in the classroom again?”

He screamed, “No, no, no.”

Samit’s kicks of a sledgehammer made him scream with huge sounds as the burning pain paralyzed him. His painful scream was of no effect because all the kids in the swimming pool were shrieking and yelling and giggling in glee.

Samit trotted up the stairs and walked into the bathroom, eager for his shower. It was a massive bathroom with floor tiles accompanied by multiple showerheads. He leaned his head against the shower wall. After the shower, he snatched the towel down from the hook, rubbed his back, wrapped it around his body and came out shaking his wet head.

Probin also came out of the swimming pool with lazy legs, exhausted and tired and went directly to the bathroom to take a shower: for many minutes he was in the bathroom and started sobbing. Lately, he came out with a large bath towel draped across his shoulder.

He directly came home and said to himself, “I will have to refine myself; I will have to deviate myself from tussle, scuffle and squabble at school with my classmates. I will have to reform my manners so that I am loved by everybody.”

He changed his clothes, came to his reading table and started reading the school diary which has a pledge paper attached to it and guidelines about how a responsible individual should behave in a society. He also started thinking about his life journey. From that day onwards he worked towards becoming a better person.