X - The Daniel riot

Ddaniell Jjesudasannn! The name was being announced in a tone and decibel that was clearly not very pleasant, but Daniel was in no mood to accept any threats, he was very well positioned underneath his school bench and was more than happy watching Annie, who was also comfortably squatted underneath her bench, looking at him in a queer manner and smiling and then sobbing alternatively he found the whole sequence more amusing than responding to the imminence of his name being howled out, and he thought he was in fact obligated to Annie to ignore the sinister call from above and compliment Annie, smile to smile, so he smiled when she smiled and stopped when she stopped, smiled again when she smiled stopped again when she stopped and he wished that would go on for eternity. In fact to make sure this very pleasant game continued he even offered Annie , with a gesture, his pencil which he had clutched tight in his hand and this time it was Annie’s turn to accept his offer so she looked at him, neither smiling nor sobbing, raised a hand and gestured towards Daniel to come over to where she was Daniel did not hesitate even for a second, he just shifted his posture to all fours and started crawling just then he saw a hand from above once again shouting his name so ominously that it only spurred him to urgently escape the outstretched hand which was out to grab him from above and dart on all fours towards Annie by then all hell broke loose the children who were until then watching with horror the scene above suddenly shifted there attention to the scene under the bench and started a chorus of laughing loud and then many even simultaneously thought they too should join Daniel and Annie, under the benches, and that started a ruckus so pure it drove the blood pressure of Mrs. Anaconda - the headmistress - and Mrs. Sorelilly – the Class Teacher – of Std. 1A, Santiniketan completely , uncontrollably , irretrievably up and up beyond any machine’s standard readings.

Mrs. Anaconda and Mrs. Sorelily reacted in tandem, it was so natural, Mrs. Anaconda ran ( a child watching her run thought the earth shook ) horizontally to the other end of the class room Sorelily sped in a perpendicular direction to the back end of the classroom both aimed to corner Daniel from different sides of the square shaped class room, while Mrs. Anaconda aggressively threw her books on the class table, Mrs. Sorelily had her Saree pallu flying out of control, but the pure ruckus was so pure that they couldn't remain standing above to succeed in their mission and so they too went on all fours pushed and shoved themselves through the melee and cursing ( in a language that if the children would have understood they would have collectively complained to God how bad the two teachers were )  and as the two great pedagogicians very nearly succeeded on their mission of catching hold of Daniel but the children including Danny and Annie collectively decided with a shriek of joy ( for them it was turning out to be a great game of catch me if you can )  to get away from their crawling position under the bench to the more strategically advantageous position above the benches, and now the BP of Mrs. Anaconda and Mrs. Sorelily was beyond, beyond - and the shrieks and howls from the class room 1A had already attracted the attention of other class teachers who too decided to rush towards Class 1A and as they rushed a few children from their classes too joined them, in all the entire Santiniketan school was now more or less located in and around Class 1A.

As the teachers from outside watched, they were horrified to see Mrs. Anaconda and Mrs. Sorelily on all fours and crawling underneath the benches and snarling and howling and trying to catch someone or something, at first for those teachers who had just reached the scene and who could only view into the class room through the windows on their side, none could really make out what on earth was going on, it was unlike anything that they had ever seen, watching Mrs. Anaconda in such a , what some people  thought, compromising position was not something that they were ever used to ever. All they could see were children hopping around shouting and shrieking and the two much haloed teachers moving around on their knees. While some teachers were more than amused , even overjoyed, looking at the scene unfolding the more stern ones lifted one portion of their Saree sideways and shoved it tight into their belly and stepped in with determination to end the whole hara-kiri.

Just then Daniel decided it was time he ran out of the class room and seeing him moving in that direction Annie too pushed herself in that direction, Annie had forgotten all about her bitter sorrows and was completely exhilarated at the turn of events she used every bit of her lung power and darted towards the door and having watched Daniel and Annie making their moves to get out of the classroom many other children too turned around to join them. As Daniel ran he looked behind saw Annie too was headed his way he was blind with joy to he closed his eyes tight and with a huge war cry charged out and promptly crashed into the waiting arms of one of the teachers who were well set to stop them from escaping out. Slowly even Annie and all the others met with the same fate - the shrieking melee at the Classroom 1a of Santiniketan was finally brought under control and Mrs. Anaconda and Mrs. Sorelily finally managed to get back to normalcy and stand on their 2 legs like other adult humans. Even as they knew that their knees were sore and had developed blood colored rashes during the course of what they later called the Daniel riot. 

They were all ‘arrested’ by a swarm of teachers who had by now gathered outside Std. 1A. each one of them were dragged by their ears and with a command from Mrs. Anaconda made stand together in a horizontal line. By now it was clear to the children that what they thought was a hilarious ‘catch me if you can’ sport was after all not anything or anywhere close to it.