I was 10 and doing my 5th class in a remote village school in Salem district in Tamilnadu. It was a primary school and I was the SPL (school pupil leader). One of the responsibilities of the SPL was to ring a bell manually (those days there were no electronic bells), whenever the school peon was absent. Every time I did this job of ringing the bell, I would do it with a lot of pride and happiness as if I took a hat trick in a cricket test match.
The bell was a circular iron disc tied to a pillar and an iron rod. One needs to strike the disc with the rod with a lot of force so that the sound could be heard by the entire school. There was a peculiar system for ringing the bell. Once the 1st period is over, we would strike the bell once. Once the 2nd period is over, we would have to strike it twice. We had 4 periods in the morning and 4 in the afternoon post lunch.
On that eventful day, the peon was absent and I was honoured to do the job of ringing the bell. I was a very puny and short lad. I had to jump and strike the rod on the iron disc with all my power. In the afternoon, when the 3rd period was over, I was supposed to strike the bell 3 times. When I did it the 3rd time, I didn’t strike it properly and I thought the sound wouldn’t have reached the class rooms. So I gave it another go. The next minute, there was utter chaos. All the students came out from their class rooms and started running out, thinking that the day was over as they had heard 4 bell strikes and within minutes the entire school was empty.
The Headmistress rushed out and ran towards me. I was standing there helplessly. Even before I started explaining, she pulled the iron rod from me and hit me on my hand as punishment for the mistake I committed which I didn’t intend to do. That day when I narrated this incident in my home, I was crying. But as I grew up, I learnt an important lesson – People are not bothered about your intentions, they see only your actions.
This #littlemeinspiringme incident, though it puts a smile on my face today, taught me this important lesson.
