It should not happen to a boy

How we went about the schooling business was like this. Parents, or it should be said, mothers, had the task to determine when their sons or daughters should start their schooling. Fathers had more important things to take care of, like herding the flock or cultivating the family farm, so they let the mothers handle the less important things like bringing up children and enrolling then for school and such stuff. Teachers might think that the boy was too young, too old being unknown, but it lay squarely in the boy's hands whether he was to be admitted or not, literally. In the enrollment process, there would be a long queue of squabbling and sad-looking children of all shapes and sizes headed to the desk where the admitting teacher sat. Many of the children had been dragged kicking, biting and making as much fuss as they could in an attempt to demonstrate that they knew the right age when they should go to school and they were most certainly not at that age. Upon coming to the dreaded desk, the trembling child, once he had the attention of the teacher, would instinctively lift his right hand, reach over his head and touch his left ear. He knew that should his hand make it to the target, the test had been passed, and he was ready to be enrolled at the school for the first class. The child who knows all too well what awaits him and is not too pleased at the school prospect contorts his face, giving an impression that he is the most honest one of them all, and even screws up an expression of pure effort and disappointment after his hand failed to make it the ear. Regretfully, this will not be his year, and he will just have to wait one more year, after which his hand will have achieved the required length to enable him to start school. As if on cue, the teacher would leave his desk and, taking hold of the one hand, pull it over the boy's head, making the desired move for the child. The boy usually screamed to let the whole world know that the teacher, should he not stop his present activity, will tear his poor arm off. The teacher will give him a knowing smile and proceed with all calm. The boy does not know that he is dealing with an expert who, year after year, sees the same trick repeated over and over again. Eventually, and for the most part, the hand or a tip of the boy's finger makes it to the top most part of the ear lobe and the test is passed. The fate of the child has been sealed, at least for the next eight or more years, should he complete primary school. Not many could say at the end of the eight or more years that they had fought the good fight, finished the race and kept the faith. As a matter of fact, I can say that three quarter of those who started in the first class did make it to the eighth class where a dreaded examination awaited which would determine whether the boy would make it for the next phase of overhauling: secondary school education. Every boy knew about this admission procedure. It was a common knowledge that many prayers, made by boys who knew that they would be presented at the admitting desk for the coming year, had to do with their wanting their hands to remain short so to escape the dreaded fate. Many of these prayers seemed to go either unheard or when heard, unanswered. But like every boy will tell you, God helps those who help themselves. So, in addition to the prayers and to be on a safer side, further strategies were implemented to achieve the same goal. And so every year, there were a different set of recipes and measures, which when performed in the right sequence, would guarantee short hands. These included burying the arms deep in the earth for several hours, dipping the hands daily and every morning in ice cold water, smearing them with bitter herbs or fresh cow dung and so on. There was no end to such remedies, which had to reinvented and redefined almost every year after they had been tried by one group and found wanting. There was, however, one remedy that seemed constant and to which almost everybody stuck to: Not trying to see if one's hands were long enough by administering to test to oneself. The brains behind this claimed that the attempt to see if one qualified for the test would be exercising the arms and encouraging growth. In consequence, this would produce results where none had been needed. Now that one thinks about it, there might have been some truth to this thinking. In due time, I started to have serious doubts about the shortness of my arms. Unlike others whose fear of school would not let them know for certain if they would make the test or not, I chose to ignore this advice. My take on the things then, a perspective which I have tried to maintain till now, is that if I can help it, I had better go into a situation I am confronted with my eyes open. I administered the test to myself and my fears were confirmed. I would be joining school in the coming year. It might have been in the same spirit of resignation and indifference that I approached the admittance desk and passed the test.