Life in Gov School is Hard

While many of us remember playing games, setting up of firecrackers in boys’ toilet and tuitions during School. Today I heard first hand account from my college friends who had attended RPVV and other gov schools in Delhi.   I was shocked by the stark difference between our experiences. I started bragging about how I got my Nokia through school security and played snakes through Maths period. That’s when I got to know about the difference in checking & security of Gov schools. Kitchen knives, Khanjar, Sickle or if anything has a pointy edge, you’ll find it in their bags.   **Weapons in school:** On a hot summer day, their principal announced random checking of bags. This was told to me as a tale of solidarity and brotherhood. Everyone in the class racked their brains on how to hide the weapons. They decided on switching off the fans and laying the weapons carefully above the blades of the fan. The bag-checker did not find a single weapon in that class until they got suspicious. On a hot sunny day, how the heck the fans are turned off. Unknowingly, he went to switch on the fans, and it started raining knives. Kids knew what was going to happen if he switches on the fan, they got out of way. No one was hurt. No one was caught. Snitches get stitches.   **Weapons against Student:** The biggest Gunda (“Naam chalta hai uska”) in the school took a Bat from his juniors. He started bragging that he will hit 6 ball 6 sixes and got clean bowled. A guy nearby, on first floor, laughed a little too loud. He became the instant target of the Gunda and got shot in the chest by an air pistol. He then  lost his balance and fell off the first floor. Luckily, the victim survived, and the gunda was held in juvenile prison for 3-4 months for Attempt to murder.   **Weapons against Teachers:** Four months later, the gunda returned to school, only to find that the principal had removed his name from the student list. He threatened the principal to add his name to the list again. Principal did not budge. Few days later, the principal was found dead, and the Gunda goes to juvenile prison again, this time for a bit longer, maybe 1 year (Not sure).   **Teacher’s Life:** The nice and kind teachers were taken advantage of bullied inside classrooms. The teachers who were tough on students were bullied outside of school premises. No one was safe there.   A tough PT teacher joined. He kept students in control. Students did not like him because they could not be as wild as they wanted to be. So, on a school trip Mussoorie, the students got friendly with the PT teacher at the hotel and invited the teacher to their room. They offered him alcohol and patiently waited and played along for him to get drunk. Then they offered drugs to the teacher, and he was out of it. This where the fun begins, they could abuse him or insult him or even jokingly slap because he was not going to remember anything the next morning. The students rented out a scooter and took him remote location. They held him over the edge of a cliff until he cried and then left him there and returned to the hotel. Next morning everyone was looking for the teacher and no one could find him. By late afternoon/evening he came back to the hotel with no recollection of how he got there. Only regret students had been that entire day was wasted looking for the missing teacher.   **Student’s Life:** The classes used to be just as chaotic. First Period (Class), the backbenchers would bring alcohol to school and start drinking. After that they will get bored and use other students or teacher to as their entertainment. But the victims were not limited to the school. They used to go to the bus stop and break down buses which passed by. That was their hobby/ Pass time.   No surprise only a fraction of them makes it to higher studies. They are the ones who were lucky enough. Lucky enough to have these destructive elements bunking classes instead of disrupting classes. The class monitor would give bullies free attendances so kids who wanted to study could actually study.   There are times where media reports absence of students/teachers in gov schools. Call out the low passing percentage of students (40% for the school I mentioned). But I never read an article that proposed a solution for the root causes. **What do you guys think?**   (This based on experiences on experiences shared by my friends. I understand not all gov funded schools will have same problems)