Hi All,
I have been reading blogs regarding life at Sherwood College, which I found interesting and most familiar.
I thought of sharing my experiences with everyone.
I attended Sherwood
College in class VII in 1989 for 1 year. Firstly I would like to state that I
take pride in regarding myself as NOT being a Sherwoodian. I was born and brought up in the UK. My parents felt it necessary to send me to India for sometime. Though I have been given many reasons, some okay
and some unsatisfactory, I have gathered that they wanted me to attend as they
had already sent my elder brother to Sherwood College (who spent 3 years in total), and
wanted to provide me with the same opportunities as they were providing him.
Sherwood College was an
obvious shock to me. In comparison life so far had been a pampered and
protected one. Here I had to adapt to a very unfamiliar life,
or rather a life that one would have normally detested!! In Sherwood College one
had to protect themselves. Very much like survival of the fittest. I have to
admit, as a child, I never had much of an academic interest.
I suppose I developed an awareness of its importance when I was a little older.
As a result I never did too well in most subjects. Looking back I found the
education system to be very theoretical and not practical at all. There was no
incentive or interest of education developed in a child/pupil. Just cram it and
deliver. The only incentive provided was fear of the back hand of a teacher or punishment passed down for one of the house prefects to carry out.
Teachers generally felt
free in slapping, kicking, punching, etc -using violence of any means they
deemed suitable to intimidate pupils. Being brought up in the UK, where it is
regarded as a criminal offence to even touch a child, I found this to be absurd. Many of these teachers had families of their own. Would they have found it acceptable
that their own child be mistreated in such a manner? I personally feel these
people are underpaid, frustrated servants of the college who took out their
frustrations on pupils. An example would be of the history teacher(Pandey). On
one occasion he walked into the class at the start of the lesson abruptly.
He unexpectedly started asking questions on the spot, regarding material he had
covered sometime back, to individual pupils. Obviously unprepared these pupils
were unable to answer adequately. He slapped every pupil he asked, for every
inadequate answer, and I mean this person could slap hard!! Getting nowhere,
he eventually asked everyone who didn’t know what he was talking about to
standup. The whole class stood up. He still didn’t feel awkward or strange. He
got the whole class to stand in a line and tirelessly slapped every pupil. I got
slapped twice because I fell over on the first. He then got pupils to face each
other and made them rub the bottom of each others ears. Normally the result is
that you end up peeling off skin causing pain and puss to build up the
following day. If the opposite pupil has big or sharp nails then your ears will
bleed a lot sooner. Well!!! He didn't care? This was normal practice for him.
Apparently the bastard was disciplining and educating pupils!!! Astonishingly this asshole got away scot free
with this type behaviour many times. What can I say?? He must have enjoyed it!! I wonder whether he had any training and what
type of background did he come from? There were many more- Bhisht, Chelvum,
Neale, Sharma, etc. Even Mrs Mountford (the principal’s wife) was horrible.
Once in an English lesson, a pupil used an English quote using her son’s name (the
college captain-surprise surprise!!) in it. Poor guy got slapped and slapped in
front of everyone. I suppose this bitch couldn’t stand her son being even remotely
insulted or joked about, but it was okay to abuse another child left right and
centre. Mr Neale (sports teacher though there was nothing sporty or even
remotely fit about him. I was told that he used to teach boxing at one time!) would
hit you on your head with a dumble if you got your PT exercises wrong.
Thankfully those dumbles were made out of wood!! I remember during a practice session
for founders day, I lost my place where I was meant to be standing during
a display. He called me to the main stage on the field in front of the college
and punched me with his fist on my head. How informative!!! The idiot thought
that I would remember my position better now!! For punishment/penalty Maths
teacher (Sharma) enjoyed crushing your ears and twisting them as if he were
operating a motorbike handle. What was his point? Either these people had a misconception
of what was the right thing or were disturbed, deranged people
themselves.
Anyway moving on…..
Let’s talk about the
standard of food. I somewhere read a student’s comments on a blog stating that
the food was of concentration camp standard. I can’t say anything different.
The porridge for breakfast did make you feel sick for the remainder of the
morning. I don’t think they used milk. It was more like a few drops of milk
powder, but it tasted like a concentrated amount of calpol. The eggs smelled
from a distance and the bread at times would have mould which was covered in butter.
Nevertheless you had to eat something and some students would just gulp it
down. Dinner was gross but you still found a way to eat it. I suppose hunger
dictates. The principal(Mountford) would sometimes come into the dinner hall and shout out
that there’s nothing wrong with the food and he regularly has it himself. Funny
when my parents made a visit and paid a visit to the principals premises(which
was attached to the college) they walked in on him having his fruit, bacon,
salmon and boiled eggs, shouting at the servant for not having brought his juice. What a hypocrite!! A breakfast far different
from the food he claimed to be having. Though everyone would notice the
standard of food dramatically improve, for the day, when a visitor or group of
parents used to visit. You would even possibly get to see the principal dining
with the students for that day. I recently noticed an incomplete episode on youtube
of “Highway On My Plate” where Rocky and Mayur, visited Sherwood College to see
the “Yummy food” that is prepared. I never
got to see a full version of the episode but I would presume that they got
something appropriate, especially while the camera was on them.
The infirmary was
inadequate, but something I did notice was that every other student had chaps
and cuts around their mouths during the cold weather. Never seen that anywhere else!! I read somebody’s
comments that there was an extreme deficiency of iodine in everyone's diet!!.
Moving on to the level
of hygiene. I don’t think it existed!! The toilets must have been better in a
concentration camp. Absolutely disgusting!! Having a proper regular shower was
an issue (read on further), but the standard of toilets broke all records,
especially the toilets behind the classrooms. It was basically a hole in the
floor. The chain, even if it existed, wouldn’t have been working for many years.
Forget about disinfecting or using
bleach. I don’t think they would have known what those things were!! You could
only pray that the water tap on the toilet floor would be working or even dripping. In
some cases the water tap wouldn’t work (in which case you would be stuffed). People
got used to using the empty pages of their rough/scrap books. Often you would
walk into a toilet already filled with shit, which would have been there, sometimes
for many days!! Maybe they thought that it would clean itself!! The idea would be to
switch on the dripping tap near the floor and hope that water would travel to
the hole and slowly slip the shit down. Sometimes that worked sometimes it
didn’t. Students who were desperate would have to ignore the state of the
toilet and use it irrespective (shit upon shit). The toilets near the dorms
were known as premium toilets, as they had a seat to sit on. Despite being
locked in the day time, they were still filthy. I don’t think that the college
ever cared that when you have hundreds of pupils, it is quite normal that these
basic facilities need maintaining!!
At Sherwood College a
student was permitted pocket money of RS.50 per month. Students caught with
more money would have it confiscated. Pocket money was paid weekly or
fortnightly or never, depending on the mood of your house master. On many
occasions you would not get any pocket money in the whole month because your
house master felt like being an asshole!! Pocket money was to be spent in the
canteen, unless you went into town, which was only permitted on certain
Sundays. RS.50 per month was absolute pittance even just for the canteen,
forget about going to town with. Do bear in mind that it was RS. 50 per month
so the typical amount of money a student would have on them at one time would
be typically be between RS.10 - RS.20 (provided the asshole paid you). A bottle
of cola in the canteen was a luxury at RS.3.5 and something to eat would be
about RS.5. In town RS.20 wouldn’t get you very far. An ice cream for RS.7-8 or
anything of the sort was a world away. Why
were things this way? Students always broke, not being able to even buy a
bottle of cola or being able to treat themselves, led to unhappy students. In
some cases this unhappiness led some students to steal money. I used to hide
money in my locker and it was stolen on 2 separate occasions. Didn’t these
housemasters realize what their stupidity was causing!!
Moving onto the
prefects, who were a large part of your college life. Prefects, quite frankly,
would destroy whatever happiness you could have as they played a big part in the
biggest form of power abuse. On the one side you can say that they were keeping
the college together and running as the principal (Mountford) wasn’t. The
principal was rarely to be seen, so forget about the idea of him seeing what
was wrong with his college and bringing about some improvements. Anyone in this
institution with any sort of authority was free to abuse their position and the
prefects were one of the biggest power abusers. To start with, the idea of a 17
year old student (prefect) being in charge or having authority over groups of students
just some years younger than himself was ridiculous. A 17 year old is
practically still a kid! Prefects and other class XII students would order and
bully other younger students. Typically it would be to do things like make
their bed or polish their shoes while they went for a wash. Or to take their
dirty laundry, collect their clean clothes and tidy their cubicle for them. Some
would kick you on your ass as you walked by and be quite intimidating. All to
prove their superiority, and it would all be accepted by teachers, housemasters
and the rest of the institution. All you had to do was to get your timing wrong when passing by.
If a prefect or class XII student spotted you, they would summon you and load
you with their errands. Totally ridiculous!! Was that their approach of
installing discipline and gaining respect? What would be next? They may have as
well asked students to clean their asses!! If they liked something of yours
they would keep it. That could be any possession of yours, from your umbrella, clothes,
shoes, biscuits to even your bloody tooth paste or shower cubicle. I remember a
student in the same dorm as myself used to receive food and other things from
his home every second Sunday (must have been relatively local). The prefect
knew that he would have something most Sundays and would take it from him.
That student got used to this and got into the habit of eating everything as
soon as he received it, as he knew he would lose it by the end of the day. I
had my watch and radio taken from me and never returned. I wouldn’t have dared
to ask for it back. The bastard must have lost it.
Prefects were responsible for the order and
time we had a shower. After standing in a queue for half hour, we would go into the shower room. We would be told to put the water
on and the prefect would count to 3. We would then be told to switch the water off
and told to apply soap. The prefect would count till 3 again. We would then
switch the water on for another count of 3. The prefect would then scream
"EVERYBODY OUT". Anybody failing or slower to do so would be seeing him after
evening inspection, thus punishment time(more details to be provided later). We
would thus leave irrespective of whether we had a proper wash or not. If you
have been playing a sport or whatever your situation, I’m sure it takes longer
than the count of 3 to have a proper clean up. Thus you could say that most
students found it difficult to keep as clean they would like to. I clearly
remember on some occasions being told by a class XII student to vacate my shower
as the water in mine was hotter than his. What do you call that??- Discipline?
Respect? - or simply being a complete power abusing asshole!!
Every dorm had 2
prefects who resided in a cubicle within the dorm itself. Punishment time was
known as a fatigue. On some occasions there were college fatigues, which meant
that every dorm would be punished at the same time. Usually a college fatigue
would be brought on by the college captain. Either he was pissed about the PT
exercises not being up to standard, or the bad college football performance, or
a particular incident, etc. On one occasion he was pissed about a few students
who didn’t contribute enough to the college fate. I think one student
contributed a used soap. Most would bring things like soaps, shampoo, jam, sauce, pens, biscuits, juices
and a contribution. So basically the fate consisted of everything the students had contributed. How generous of the college!! ANYWAY a college or an individual dorm fatigue would
involve all students changing into their games kit in 2 mins, then uniform in 2 mins and
then stripping the bed and making it in 2 mins or empty your locker and put it back together in 2 mins. Now when I say stripping the bed,
for all the smart guys out there, they would make sure that you took every
layer off individually and made no short cuts. In the case of your locker they would empty all its contents on the floor, including ironed clothes,etc and expect you to fold them and put everything back where it would belong. Any longer than 2 mins which was
obvious, would mean that you would bend down with your fingers touching your
toes while he would swing the hockey stick he’d be carrying on his shoulder,
and wack your backside. After getting bored with that exercise he would get
everyone to do 20 haunches (bunny hoping), sometimes along the corridor or in
the same spot. The result would be that the following day you would find it
quite hard to walk as your thighs would swell and be in agony. My first
experience of a “fatigue” was on the first week I joined. Looking back, I personally
feel that most prefects, on this occasion, were doing this just to exercise
their newly gained power. Their bullshit excuse of doing this was to see whether
any students had any money or food hidden. The student next to me had his bed
and locker stripped and his trunk emptied upside down. All of his belongings
were on the floor, from ironed shirts, clothes, toothbrush, etc. The prefect
(Bedi), with his hockey stick in his hand, kept saying that he was going to hit
him if he didn’t tell him what he had. Even all the pockets of his clothes on
the floor were emptied. After everything the guy had was trashed, he started
crying and the prefect (Bedi) told him to stop it. He made him bend and wacked
him twice. WHAT FOR? WHAT WAS HIS POINT? DID HE FEEL MORE IN CONTROL OR WAS HE
JUST A THICK HEADED IDIOT!! Maybe he felt that he had achieved something. MORE LIKE A POWER
CRAZY BASTARD!! On another occasion, during
a morning inspection, the dorm prefect noticed a few students standing by their bed
a few moments later than everybody else. He felt that everyone’s attitude was
slacking and called for a fatigue on Sunday morning. On Sunday, while stripping
our beds and remaking them within 2 mins, 2 guys in the opposite row decided to
act on the smart idea we all had, but never dared doing. They carefully stripped
their beds keeping all layers(bed sheet, blanket, etc) intact. Making their beds
back they picked up the layers and made them within 30 seconds, but were caught
by the prefect while doing so. Poor guys got abused with foul language, kicked,
punched and beaten with a hockey stick at least 7 times. To make things worse
this bastard kicked well, as he was a player in the college football team.
The end result was that both were admitted into the infirmary and one of the
students eventually had his parents withdraw him from the college. Despite this the
prefect didn’t feel guilty or regret any of his actions. Nothing further was said about the matter either. No enquiry or anything. I don’t think the
principal(Mountford) even knew or maybe couldn’t be bothered to look into the situation. I
remember this same prefect made me dress into my uniform at
4am in the morning and report to him. Apparently he was pissed off with me because
I didn’t make my bed before I went for exercises at 6.30am and instead made my
bed at 7.15am when I came back, before getting dressed. He said on a few occasions during the day, that he
was going to “really thrash me” if I didn’t report to him at that time. Maybe he was eager to do so, that’s why he gave that idiotic time. WHAT WAS THE BIG DEAL?
My bed had been made and I was ready, reporting for inspection at the usual 8am!! His problem was in how I did it?? Anyway,
this 4am reporting carried on for 3 days until he got fed up himself and told
me to forget it. I think that I was interrupting his beauty sleep every day at
4am. The dumb bastard didn’t think of that when coming up with this bullshit!!
There are many more
examples I can provide and believe me I can carry on, but I hope I have
provided an insight as to what I experienced and what I think of Sherwood
College. Whenever I have been asked by friends about Sherwood College I
have referred to it as SHAWSHANK college. I tell them to watch the film Shawshank Redemption to get a comparable idea!! Something
that wasn’t there when I attended was the Latin motto on the entrance “Mereat
Quisque Palmam”, meaning "Let each one merit his prize”. Well I don’t
think that really means or reflects much about Sherwood College. I mean Auschwitz Concentration Camp also has
a sign on its entrance saying “Arbeit Macht Frei” which means “Work will set
you free.”
It’s sad that when you
mention Sherwood College, the first thing that comes to a person’s mind is
Amitabh Bachchan and other famous people who studied in Nainital. Some people
are wealthy and some less, who still somehow manage to fund their
child’s education, with the belief that they are doing their best
by them. Only if they knew what actually happens, I'm sure many would think twice!! I have heard from people that
things must have changed and what I’m describing is illegal. Well these things
were illegal even then, but they still happened!! Confidence was extremely high
among individuals who believed that nothing would happen and they could freely
practice what they wanted. One must also remember that I'm talking about experiences that happened when I was a child, not during the dark ages!!
I sincerely hope that
Sherwood College has changed in its methods and has adopted a more constructive,
civilized and flexible approach in educating and disciplining its pupils. In many places, it is a known method, especially for teaching younger children, to
develop an interest of a subject in a child and to be more flexible in their approaches of teaching. This has involved using theoretical as well as
practical approaches. We must accept that all children are different and the
same teaching approach does not work with all. Similarly some students are more mischievous than others, but violence and has never been the solution
in installing discipline. As much as I don’t believe that things can change
that much, especially when I read other peoples experiences, I hope that things have
changed for the better. I hope class XII students and prefects have not been
bestowed with the same level of power and authority that they can abuse and
teachers are more considerate and regulated in their practices.
