The Front Row

--Pradeep Jeganathan

The seats in the front were better than those in the back. First, because you could see and hear the teacher better, and also, because the benches weren’t wobbly like those at the back of the classroom. But mostly, the tops of the long desks at the back weren’t smooth; they had little trenches in them where children had cut their names and shallower but broader cuts made as they etched away at their frustration. This unevenness made your letters go wiggly if you wrote in a thin exercise book.

“If you want to get a good seat in front for the rest of the year, go early to school tomorrow,” Krishna’s mother had said the night before, and he’d known she was right. He got to school at 6:45 in the morning, 45 minutes before school began. Krishna could walk to King’s College in five minutes from Mountbatten Crescent where he lived; lots of the boys lived far away, and spent a lot of time commuting in buses and trains that were crowded and unreliable. Still, by the time class began all the seats were full.

Krishna was in the front row, trying to get used to the new room that was the seventh grade classroom. The walls were coated with hunu, which gave them a rough texture and a bright white color. Pasted all over the walls, all around, were brightly colored posters and maps from last year’s class. There were several of the human body -- cross sections of hearts and lungs, livers and intestines; and various maps of Lanka, in blue, green and yellow. Between the windows of the right hand wall was a large calendar, the days crossed off until the 17^th of December, the last school day of the pervious year: 1974.

On the wall above the blackboard was the national flag: a fierce gold Lion glowing on a blood red cloth. In the Lion’s paw was a naked sword. On the back wall was a mural of the medieval battle between the two Kings Duttu-Gamunu and Elara. Duttu-Gamunu’s army was lighter skinned than Elara’s. The two Kings were atop elephants, and the darker skinned warrior, Elara, was bleeding badly. On his shield was a Tiger. At the side of the victor was a Buddhist monk, holding aloft another gold and crimson Lion flag.

Krishna breathed deeply, trying to calm himself, looking away from the mural. Recently, he had been getting attacks of asthma more and more frequently, and his father had delved deep into one of his medical textbooks, and given him breathing exercises, to strengthen his lungs. Krishna exhaled, thinking of the ana-pana- sati breathing meditation, he had learnt last year in school. It wasn’t that different, he thought. Anyway, breathing deeply calmed him when he did it each morning on his bed at home, watching the soft colors of the refracted sun that shone through the windows of the bedroom.

The teacher came in. Dressed in a white cloth, and a long white shirt, what they called ‘national’ -- he stood out brightly in front of the freshly cleaned blackboard. His thin black mustache almost blended with his dark upper lip. He kept his bag on the on the large, solid wooden table in front of the class.

The class greeted him together, “Ayubowan, sir.”

“Ayubowan,” he said, in Sinhala, holding his hands together.

“Now we will recall our religions for a moment,” he continued, and led them in the chant most knew so well “May all beings free of sorrow, free of illness, may they be healed… “ The Christian boys were quiet, hands crossed behind their backs, eyes lowered, but Krishna joined in the chanting, feeling calm and collected. He liked being a Buddhist. His Hindu parents hadn’t been upset when he had said he wanted to change his religion, even though his relatives had been outraged, when they heard of it.

Next to Krishna in the front row was Lal. Lal lived a few miles away, but Krishna knew Lal’s father had driven him to school; it had been easy for him to come in early. His clothes looked freshly washed and ironed, unlike the shirts and trousers of the other boys that were already sweaty and grimy from long bus rides. He was chanting the stanzas too; his parents were active Buddhists, who always financed the annual Maha Prith festival at the school, the grandness of which was noticed and appreciated by lots of the teachers.

The religious observations over, the teacher, Mr. Dharmadasa, sat behind his table on his high backed chair, his left hand circling the spiral at the end of the arm rest. He began reading out the names in the register. Each boy stood up when his name was called so that he could be marked present and the teacher could learn his name. He droned on, going down the list, lifting his eyes as each boy rose and sat again. “Nikamal Balasuriya, Lal Edirishinha, Anura Gajanayake,… H.D. Rohana.”

Rohana got up from his seat at the back of the class. Lal giggled from his seat in the front row, loud and confident. He turned and whispered to Krishna in English, “He has a servant’s name.” Krishna heard him, but didn’t reply, thinking that wasn’t right to say. The other boys turned back, almost in unison, to look at Rohana.

Rohana was looking down. Lal had laughed because Rohana didn’t have a first and last name like most other boys. The way his name was put together was different; it was fashioned in a sort of rural way with the name of his village preceding his own given name.

Rohana’s face, burned dark brown by the sun, grew darker. He had a forced smile on his face, but Krishna could see that his fingers were pressed to the top of table, and his nails were moving on the surface. He was short – face oily and pocked marked with patches of lighter colored skin on his neck and chin, patches of sweat showing on the sleeves of his shirt where it met his body. His shirt was creased and stretched, and one button was a safety pin.

“Ah! Rohana,” the teacher said, ignoring Lal. He continued down the list. “Yugg.. Yoganadham,” He called. There were giggles at the strange name. Krishna stood up. “Say your name,” the teacher said, in Sinhala.

“Yoganathan, Sir,” Krishna said.

“Ah!” The teacher opened his mouth to speak and then stopped himself. He put on his glasses and looked at the register again.

Then very quietly and gently he asked, “Oya ‘Tamil’ da?” Self-consciously he replaced the usual Sinhala word Demala with the English word Tamil.

“Yes Sir,” Krishna replied in Sinhala.

“Did you study in Sinhala right from the beginning?” the teacher asked.

“Yes Sir.”

“Is that allowed?” the teacher wondered softly.

“It was my parents’ choice.”

“Are both your parents Tamil?”

“Yes Sir.”

“You didn’t have any problems with the language?”

“No Sir.”

“You have siblings?”

“Yes Sir.”

“And they are in the Sinhala class also?”

“Yes Sir.”

“Good, very good.” Mr. Dharmadasa nodded, and closed the register, for Krishna’s had been the last name. Demala was the usual word in Sinhala for a Tamil but Krishna’s Sinhala speaking teachers would rarely use it when they talked to him. Krishna liked it when they used the English word. It made him feel accepted, a friend not an enemy.

After finishing with the register Mr. Dharmadasa said, “We must now appoint a monitor. Who was the monitor last year?” he asked.

“We weren’t together in the same class,” said Lal, “but in my class I was the monitor.” They had mixed-up the parallel classes at the end of the sixth grade, as they did every so often.

“I see,” the teacher said. “Anyone else?” He looked around thoughtfully, his eyes resting on the boys who were well dressed. “I, sir,” came the cry, from several places in the room.

Lal’s friend Anura was louder than the others.

“We were monitors together, sir,” Lal said, pointing at Anura. Anura was sitting in the fourth row of the class. He was dressed as well as Lal. But his father’s car had broken down on the way to school, so he had only come in at 7:25.

Lal and Anura were appointed head and assistant head monitor, respectively. Four other were appointed house monitors. Most of them had been monitors before.

Before starting the day’s lessons there was something else to be taken care of. “The class needs a cane,” The teacher said, smiling thinly. “Who will buy a cane?”

“I will bring a cane Sir,” answered Lal.

The next day, along with the cane, Lal brought a little mechanical game to school. It was a tiny white plastic maze, covered with a transparent plastic top. You had to maneuver the three, dainty shining silver balls, through the maze into the space at the center, by tilting it gently, to and fro. His father had got it for him in Singapore. No one in class had seen anything like it before. Every one wanted to play with it.

Since the Social Studies teacher was absent that day, the class had a free period. Soon Anura was sharing Lal’s seat in the front of the class so they could play with the toy together. This cramped Krishna who was sitting next to Lal on the bench. Krishna was angry with Lal because he hadn’t let him play the game. He took his bag, which he usually kept at his feet, and placed it as a barrier between Anura and himself. This further reduced the space on the bench, as the bag was full and thick.

“Don’t come any closer than this,” Krishna said to Anura, his hands on his bag.

“Take that ugly bag away,” Anura replied. “There isn’t room for it.”

“No, there is room for my bag, but there isn’t any room for you,” said Krishna.

Anura stopped playing the game, turned towards Krishna, put his hands on the bag and started pushing. Krishna pushed back. Just then the teacher from the next class walked in.

“You boys are making far to much noise,” he said.

Seeing Anura and Krishna he said, “What are you two trying to do?”

Anura stood up.

“Is this your seat?” he asked Anura. Anura was silent.

“Get back to your seat, right now,” the teacher said angrily and walked out of the class. Krishna could see a long cane in the teacher’s hands, which were clasped behind his back. He ran up to him, his shoes skidding in the fine sand scattered on the cement floor.

“May I go to the bathroom, Sir?” he asked the teacher.

“Yes, you may.”

He sped off, pleased that he had avoided asking Lal, the monitor, for permission.

Anura went back to his seat, after borrowing the toy from Lal. Rohana, who was sitting behind him, peered over his shoulder. “Will you give it to me when you are done?” he asked.

“We’ll see,” said Anura. “Lal may want it back soon. That Demalaya is nothing but a pain,” he went on, still smarting from the teacher’s reprimand.

“What a dog,” agreed Rohana.

“Yes,” said Anura, “why should he catch a good seat in front?”

“If you give them a little bit they will ask for everything, that’s what my father always says,” said Rohana.

“They are always grabbing too much, that’s the problem,” Anura added, “we should teach him a lesson during the interval.”

“We want to sit in front too,” Rohana told Krishna during the interval.

“You should have come early yesterday, then,” replied Krishna.

Rohana’s jaw tightened.

“It’s the same thing every year,” he said. “‘Come early’, the rich boys say. It’s easy for you rich people with your cars. Do you know how long it takes me to get to school? Two hours, and sometimes the bus doesn’t even come.”

“But I didn’t come by car,” protested Krishna.

“What lies” Rohana retorted, “all you Demallu have plenty of money.”

In the back of his mind Krishna had known it was coming, the dreaded word. If he hadn’t known the Sinhala people so well it wouldn’t have hurt as much. But he knew what the word meant to them. He turned and faced Rohana, wishing the mural wasn’t on the wall.

“Shut up,” he told Rohana.

“You can’t tell me to shut up, you black-lowlife-alien Demalaya.”

“My family’s lived here for thousands of years, as long as the Sinhala have, and what’s more you are blacker then a crow,” replied Krishna who was light complexioned.

“No!” shouted Rohana, “This is our land, the Sinhala Land, and we have to clean out scum like you. Prince Duttu-Gamunu did it before,” he pointed at the wall, “He beat up your jathiya, and threw them out and cleaned-up the country. But that was a long time ago, and we will lose the little we have now if we don’t do it again.”

Krishna stared at the mural speechless, the sweat dripping from his neck, down his back.

They said the Demala invaders had destroyed the Buddhist temples, burnt holy books and killed monks. But that was long ago, Krishna thought, and anyhow he was a Buddhist, wasn’t he?

“Don’t come too much with us,” Rohana went on, his voice trembling. “We are Lion-cubs.”

Krishna clenched his fist and hit Rohana on the jaw.

And then they were fighting, the class cheering Rohana on, calling him Duttu-Gamunu, and Krishna, Elara.

They were so engrossed in the fight that they didn’t hear the bell ring at the end of the interval. Mr. Dharmadasa looked very stern when he walked in.

“Why are you two behaving like animals?” he snapped.

“It’s a Sinhala-Demala riot,” Lal said smiling. “Krishna hit Rohana.”

Mr. Dharmadasa turned towards Krishna.

“But … but he called me Elara,” said Krishna, softly, as if this were something private. He was too ashamed to say that Rohana had called him Demalaya. And he knew he couldn’t explain why it was such an insult.

“Sit down everybody. There is no need to be uncivilized and hit each other,” said Mr. Dharmadasa. “We should not lose our tempers like this. I will cane you both if I catch you fighting again, we can’t have little Duttu-Gamunu Elara fights like this.”

He paused to take a breath. “We must all live in peace and harmony in this country, like brothers. It is our tradition. We the Sinhala have always been hospitable to the foreign races. Why, some of my best friends are Tamil.” He stopped, looked around, and shook his head.

“The trouble with this class is that it is too undisciplined and noisy. The teacher next-door Mr. Ratnayake, was just complaining to me. I felt ashamed of you boys. The monitors should keep the class quiet when a teacher is absent. Where are those people I appointed as monitors? Why can’t you maintain discipline in the class?” Lal and Anura lowered their eyes.

“All these quarrels about sitting in front. I will assign seats to everyone, and that will be final.” he said. “The monitors will sit in the front row, so that they can keep the class quiet.”

Pradeep Jeganathan is a Senior Fellow at the International Centre for Ethnic Studies, where he edits the Centre's scholarly journal, Domains. A collections of his short fiction, At the Water's Edge, will be published this spring.