by Suresh Subrahmanyan
Those of you who regularly read my columns know, only too well, that P.G. Wodehouse has been a lasting influence on the way I approach any subject that I wish to devote my undivided attention to. By and large this statement holds true to the extent that I am partial to writing in a style that attempts, not always successfully, to bring a smile to the reader’s lips. During my callow youth, I would slavishly imitate the Master’s turns of phrase, snappy dialogues and amazing similes. Rather like a musician who is so enamored of some maestro from years gone by, that he virtually tends to mimic his hero. However, it rarely happens that something you read from one of your boyhood hero’s novels plays back in real life, many decades later. But that is exactly what transpired, as will become plain as this narrative chugs along. Serendipity? Perhaps. Uncanny? Definitely.
Take what happened to me recently. A good friend of mine, whose family runs a successful co-educational school in Bangalore, decided to invite me to be the Chief Guest at their annual day function. A day on which students from every class who distinguished themselves in academics and extra-curricular activities would be honoured with certificates of merit. As to why I was chosen for this signal honour, I was at a complete loss to fathom. I was never a particularly bright student at school, barely scraping through my exams. Neither was college any great shakes. As for receiving certificates of merit, in my dreams maybe. Perhaps it was my silver grey hair coupled with an ability to string a few amusing sentences together that brought home the bacon. In the words of Professor Henry Higgins, ‘An average man am I, of no eccentric whim / Who likes to live his life, free of strife / Doing whatever he thinks is best for him / Just an ordinary man.’
Notwithstanding all that lyrical stuff, my goose was cooked. The invitation to give away the prizes was more in the nature of a royal command. To demur would have been a betrayal. Family friends and all that, the people who ran this estimable school. My role as the Chief Guest, going by the brief given to me, was not only to hand over certificates to the spotty-faced students while shaking their hands or giving them an avuncular pat on the back or head, but also to address the large gathering with a few well-chosen words of wisdom. The school management was also explicit that time will not be a limitation, so I should be free to generally let myself go – high, wide and handsome. Rather on the generous lines of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, or Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’. If I had any intention of mumbling something on the lines of ‘Hi kids, I do not wish to detain you interminably, my address is Oakwood Apartments, Bangalore, thank you and goodnight’, that was clearly not going to sit very well with the school administration. They might even have considered administering a public caning! I ran the awful risk of inviting catcalls, boos and bits of samosas and hamburgers being thrown at me. Wolf whistles were also a clear and present danger. You know how kids are.
The evening started with a long introduction by the principal, who launched into a speech praising somebody (I knew not who) as ‘the ideal person’ to have been chosen to give away the prizes. It took me awhile to realise, with a start, they were referring to me. I had been called names before but never anything remotely like this. I have requested the school to provide me with a recording of this introduction. If I ever slumped to one of those low self-esteem, depressive phases all of us are prone to now and then, listening to this speech about this fictional ‘yours truly’ would buck me up no end. The principal then went on to list all the accomplishments of the school over the previous year. An annual report, as it were. At the end of it all, the students applauded warmly, as much for the content as for the relief that the speech had come to an end.
At this point, while I was saying something conspiratorial into the right ear of an important gentleman who was sitting next to me, he suddenly decided to prod me in the ribs to indicate it was my turn to take the podium. Fortunately, I had taken no chances and had buckled down the previous evening and prepared for this. I managed to scribble some notes, primarily exhorting the children to read as much as they could, not just their text books, but pretty much anything they could lay their hands on. The point being that with the advent of mobile telephony, reading had become all but extinct and so had the power to imagine and visualize. So READ, I screamed. Pretty hot stuff, I thought. The teachers and staff gave me a generous applause, the children were rather muted, but yelled with delight when I nearly tripped over the sound system wires. Children!
Prior to the speech, I must have shaken the hands of at least 150 boys and girls. Dry hands, clammy hands, hands with tomato ketchup smears, warm hands, cold hands and, I kid you not, one gloved hand (which unnerved me a bit, an infectious rash?) – you name it and I had clasped every texture of hand you can possibly imagine. This had to be accompanied by a brief word of encouragement from my side (‘Well done, Sandhya’ or ‘Jolly good show, Nikhil’), and a pose for a photograph by parents, friends and the official photographer. One child even had the temerity to take a selfie with me! To say nothing of the television crew with their blinding flash lights. Quite nerve wracking. At around the 93rd handshake, or it could have been the 102nd, I had lost count, I felt a bit woozy in the head. Nothing serious, just the endless, reverberating announcements, child approaching stage, self proferring hand, giving out the certificate; it started feeling a bit like going round and round on a ferris wheel. I turned to one of the authority figures and motioned for a glass of water. A couple of gulps and I was back to mid-season form.
Finally, it was time for the last student. I could not believe my good fortune. ‘Great work, Nandita,’ I said to her, or it might have been Sangita. ‘Last in the line, but not last in class eh?’ I told her, not sure if she got the joke. She tried to touch my feet, but I was too quick and side stepped adroitly. I mean, enough’s enough. I was dashed if I was going to let this stripling of a lass, who topped her class, pay obeisance to a Chief Guest who never managed to go better than 11th.
One last thing about being honoured. They give you this bouquet of flowers, after which you slyly try and leave it under your chair or on the table and just walk away without it in a casually absent-minded fashion. But you know what, you can bet your last paisa that some officious staff member or the other will come running after you, all the way up to your car with a ‘Sir, you forgot this.’ Which leaves you with no option but to take it with a silly grin and plonk it into the back seat, while thanking the gentleman with a ‘You shouldn’t have, you know.’ This reluctance, however, did not apply to the expensive Cross pen that was presented to me. I clasped it to my bosom with hoops of steel.
I conclude with Wodehouse and his novel, ‘Right ho, Jeeves’, which has a chapter titled ‘Gussie presents the prizes’, containing some of the most hilarious passages ever written. Read it, and you’ll know what inspired me to write this piece.
