Wednesday, June 04, 2008
by Gaurav Varma
Part 1 on Horsman Wing was written a while back and for some time now I've been meaning to talk about Dixie(Dixon Wing) .
Before I passed into Dixon Wing (Senior School Classes 6 to 12) I had had an ordinary year academically and otherwise in Horsie. Class 5 wasn't smooth. I sucked at numbers and remember that it was in a class 5 Geometry test that I scored my first zero. I wasn't studying that much. Time was spent elsewhere immersed in novels and children stories. Each class had its own small library back then: a small cupboard holding about 80-100 books. Most of the books were Hardy Boys or abridged works of Dickens, Bronte sisters, Mark Twain and the like. It was here that i spent most evenings by myself in class or along the small swimming pool at the back of Horsman Wing. Enid Blyton and Hardy Boys took up all my time and often late at night I'd read in bed covering myself and using torchlight as the rain come down heavily on the tin roofs.
I was keen to get to Dixon Wing but wary of the reputation the place had. We had heard stories about how people were beaten up and the dreaded 'fatigues' that were a regular feature of Dixie life. These stories were often exaggerated and I approached my entry into the senior wing with equal amounts of apprehension and thrill for the freedom that I assumed it would bring.
The dormitories in Dixon Wing were larger than the ones in Horsie and the first time i saw the inside of one I remember thinking it would make a fine setting for a game of fotta, soccer played with cosco tennis balls where the cupboard frames at the ends of the dorm would serve as the goalposts. On my first evening our House Captain, a soft spoken Sikh asked all Class 6 FT guys (my house) to report to him. We saw him outside our dorm and he told us about 'rules' and what was generally expected of us and that now we were not gonna be 'pampered' by Dorm matrons. Hardly promising.
I noticed how everyone quickly fell into place every time the bell rang for the school to assemble before a meal, an announcement or even a fatigue. It was unreal at first. In less than 45 seconds 400 guys and girls would fall into 5 lines perfectly aligned. Before a meal the CC (College Captain) or a Prefect would take 'parade' ..."College attention..left turn." Sometimes the attention 'thump' wasn't loud enough or synchronized and we would be made to do it again. Once I remember the CC evidently in a foul mood from before gave the whole college a fatigue for not doing the 'thump' right! We were made to thump repeatedly till we got it right and then sent away to change into games kit and report back for the drill. The entire 'fatigue' thing merits some description and I'll come to it soon. Suffice to add here that often by the time these 'drills' were done a sizable number of boys were left with badly aching limbs and muscles for days. Sometimes you were walloped with a hockey stick on your behind. I remember getting '2 hockey sticks' from a particularly pissed off Dorm Prefect in Class 8. I couldn't sit right for a week following that incident.
I wasn't too much into sports and cricket was the only game i played with some confidence. I captained my house team in class 7 and we won all our games. The highlight of the first half of the year was the Excursion in early April followed by the Easter Monday picnic at Golf Links. I went to Garjia a small town near Corbett in class 6 and my only memory from that trip is of the paan shop outside the PWD guesthouse. At the shop a meetha paan cost 25 paise and I must have had atleast 50 pans in the 4 days i spent at Garjia. An year we went to Hedakhan, an arduous trek on foot. It was a tiring trip and then the following year we went to Dudhwa and DMC Resort near Kashipur, which was the best time I had ever had in my life.
No mention of Dixie is complete without the description of the build up for Founders week. For 2 months the entire school spends afternoons and holidays rehearsing for the torchlight PT display put up each year under floodlights on the evening of 4th of June. May is a torrid month spent practising long hours in the dust and considerable heat(well heat by Nainital standards).
The night of 4th June when the school puts up the show for the chief guest, parents and vociferous OS is a moment of great significance. For us students it is a feeling thats hard to articulate. The crowd swells on the steps on the hillside overlooking the field. Amid loud cheer as the lights are turned on and the crowd blocked from your sights under the bright bulbs comes a thrill that only those who've been there can feel. Its a heady feeling standing in line under the dark shadow of the hill, the school song played by the band, rapt spectators in attendance and the late evening breeze in your hair.
More later......
