Monday, June 11, 2007

Shepherdessing the frocks err... flocks

Recently I read this amazing post by a guy blogger describing the various methods he and his friends employed to ‘cheat’ during exams. I was awestruck at the intricate art of copying that this gentleman had perfected and if I meet this guy I am definitely gonna ask him his autograph. Anyone who succeeds in ‘copying’ in exams has my full respect! I have always looked upon ‘cheaters’ (pardon the term) as the ULTIMATE risk takers. Hats off to all you ‘cheaters’ out there, past and present.

The post forced me to think of my rather shameful record in ‘cheating’. I am afraid if cheating were a subject in school I would still fail! :( Now peoples, this was not because I was too honest and all that. Absolutely not!!! I was as crooked as the next girl or boy. It’s just that I studied in a convent school…and convent schools are no place to mess around with venial, mortal or other kinda sins. I mean you can sin, but if you are caught… then even God almighty cannot help you!

Sister Principal (spotting a student wearing nail polish): Come here young lady!!!!
Girl: OH MY GOD! I am in big trouble! *sob*
God (appearing from nowhere): You called me dear?
Sister Principal to God: And who gave you the permission to walk into my office without permission????
*God disappears in a trice*!

Believe me folks; girls who have studied in convents will laugh at the situation I have presented here. They would sneer and say that God got off too easily. In real life, things would be very unpleasant indeed.

Sister Principal to God: You come right back here Gentleman!
*God appears back in a trice trembling*
Sister Principal: And who gave you the permission to leave my office?
God: *gulp*
Sister Principal: And for that act of disobedience write “I shall knock before I enter the Principals office” a thousand times. And…. NO CHEATING!!!!
God (hurriedly cancelling the spell that writes the imposition magically): *gulp* Yes sister.


Now a word about convent schools before we proceed any further. Convent schools for girls are hallowed Institutions where girls are trained in the rather difficult subject of being “good girls”. In fact each convent school thinks that they are tops in churning out the best girls in town.

Sister Principal of St Mary’s Convent School: My girls are the best. By the time they pass out, they don’t even look at a guy, let alone acknowledge them.
Sister Principal of St Agnes School: My girls are better! By the time they pass out they don’t even know what a guy is!!!
Sister Principal of St Teresa’s: *sneer* Big deal!!! By the time my girls pass out they don’t even know they are girls! Hah!!! I win!!

( There are exceptions too, like me but that was because I was too busy bunking classes!)

Anyways to get back to our narration about cheating, the first time I cheated was in primary school. It was art exam day and the teacher told us to do a “landscape”. Not having a clue as to what a ‘landscape’ was, I peeped into my neighbor’s drawing board for some ‘inspiration’, a little bit of ‘internalization’ and a dash of ‘plagiarization’ and was promptly caught and hauled to Sister Principals’ office for ‘cheating’.

Sister Principal looked at me with a pained expression and asked. “Do you know how ashamed Jesus is of your misdemeanors?” I had no clue! “Look!!!” she said pointing a quivering hand at the Cross that hung on the wall behind her desk. “Look how ashamed Jesus looks!” I looked up with great interest. Jesus did look very ashamed of me. He was hanging his head in shame (something I had not noticed before). I could almost imagine the trouble he got into because of me!

God: hmmmph!!!! Look at your ward, silverine! She was caught cheating!!
Jesus: *sigh* Please forgive her dear God for she knew not her portions!
God: I am giving you one more chance. If she makes one more trespass I will have to remove her file from you and give it to St Michael the demon slayer.
Jesus: Thank you God you are so kind. I promise you she will never sin again.
God: *grumble* This is giving me a headache!

I gulped as I thought of the horrific painting of St Michael or some saint that hung in my ancestral house in Kerala. It showed a fearsome man atop a horse slaying what looked like an endangered animal. I could almost imagine my plight in St Michael’s charge.

St Michael (flexing his muscles and doing sit ups): Now look here young lady I am a very busy saint.
Me: Yes Sir!
St Michael: I rid the world of all the demons.
Me: Yes Sir!
St Michael: Don’t create unnecessary work for me understood?
Me: Yes Sir!!
St Michael: You make one mistake and I will eliminate you in a fake demon encounter understood?
Me: Yes Sir!!!
St Michael: “fake demon encounter!!”, Hah! That was a good one heh heh

I was a good girl after that for some time, till tragedy in the name of secondary school struck! It was History exam day.

Me (looking at the question paper): Wotszis Battle of Panipat!!!
Long suffering history teacher: If you remember dear, it was taught in September!
Me: Really? I don’t remember!
Teacher (gently): It was the day you and Nina and Natasha were talking about Shah Rukh Khan’s biceps.
Me: Yes!!! I remember now!
Teacher: *sigh*

Another ‘inspirational’ peep and I was hauled up, yet again in front of Princi. Now Secondary School had another Princi. This lady would have been the person Hitler could have consulted for all his ‘disciplinary needs” had he been alive today.


Hitler: *grumble* Reverend Sister, these prisoners of mine are such a disobedient lot!!! They won’t stand in line in front of the firing squad.
Reverend Sister: *beatific smile* Don’t worry dear, I have tamed worse. After all I am the Principal of a Convent School!
Hitler: So what!
Reverend Sister to prisoners: Now all those people who don’t stand in line will have to say 25 ‘Hail Mary’s’ and 30 ‘Our Fathers’ and 45 ‘I Believes’!
*Stamped as people run to get in line*
Hitler: Wow!!!!

(Situation above mentioned for descriptive purpose only. No offense meant to anyone please.)

I shall not get into the nitty gritty of my meeting with this Princi folks, but I never ‘cheated’ again after that.

But hey you know what? I know the entire Bible by heart and it took me “only” 2 years to finish writing it down as imposition for 'cheating'.

35 comments:

The Common Man | പ്രാരബ്ധം said...

Just wonder how you write in such huge proportions!

I love spending sometime in ur page :-)

Anonymous said...

"It showed a fearsome man atop a horse slaying what looked like an endangered animal".
Endangered animal?... Ha ha, cracked me up.
Er..Wasn't it St. George who did the dragon slaying?

N A R I YA L C H U T N E Y said...

:D . Shahrukhan and biceps ? You had some guy called Shahrukh in your neigbourhood :P :).

Anonymous said...

Yes, it was St. George not St. Micheal. I guess Silvy couldn't cheat on this :-)

silverine said...

the common man: Welcome to my blog :)

jobypk:You dont expect me to remember names of saints in Primary school do you?! :)

nariyal chutney: Yes he does have biceps.

browser: Or it might have been Archangel Gabriel himself :p

Abhi said...

Kool post as usual! But on a diff line of thot, why are the convent schools always portrayed as pinnacle's of strictness and discipline?? Is it coz the nuns are very boorish and like to enjoy the suffering of cute little gals??

I loved the chat between the three principals! Simply awesome!

Regarding SRk, i'll say he HAD biceps and since the post is a trip down memory lane, its OK to equate SRK to a muscle man.

Jiby said...

lol...hilarious...i was laughing like hell. my sis would come back from school and tell stories of the nuns and then my mom would join in and tell stories of the nuns she had to face in school, college and hostel...and i would thank my heavens for putting me amongst the jolly good jesuits!!!

i had a philosphy for copying...i would only copy just enough to pass my exam...that way i believed i could look up at jesus with a straight face.

and its funny when your wrote of how jesus and st.george looks at you...when i was small and i did something wrong...whichever angle i stood in a room i had this wierd feeling the image or idol in the rooms had their gaze fixed on me accusingly...it used to freak me out.

Sreejith said...

omg! totally totally relate to whatever u write! you sure you are not living my life in another dimension?

Unknown said...

rofl...

Anonymous said...

my inspiration was a friend of mine called GP. we used to go to a tyrant called JK for tuition classes. JK used to be the patriarch of all convent school principals. he didnt take lightly the inability of his wards to score high on his class tests.

since we used to have a lot of portions to stuff, it was hard to keep track of which 'thund'(piece of paper with answers written on it) was where. so....the solution that GP devised was to have a master thund kept inside his tie.

the master thund would contain info like - optics - front right pocket, electronics - left shirt sleeve etc.

the hiding places included rolled up shirtsleeves, the usual pockets and socks, apart from calculators which had info scribbled on them using pencils. those were the days.

Ajith Prasad Balakrishnan said...

"Sister Principal of St Mary’s Convent School,
Sister Principal of St Agnes School,Sister Principal of St Teresa’s " -- So they r the reason why most of the convent educated gals don't mind guys at all :( ..

Only exam, which I remember myself trying desperately to copy was one maths olympiad test.. Only to realize that everyone around me was trying to do the same :)

Neihal said...

ROFLMAO !!

and convent schools are no place to mess around with venal, mortal or other kinda sins

I know!!

and if I was reading ur blog for the first time, I would have mistaken you for someone from my school. :P

Anonymous said...

on any bad day, when things are all going wrong, and you feel the world has stopped joking, all you need to do is type this url and pres enter http://poomanam.blogspot.com/

nice time i had reading this

quills said...

LOL I can sooo relate to what you write here. Nuns and convent schools. But still, I had some of my best years studying in a convent school. Nothing to beat that. :)

Btwn, you should really think seriously about publishing your stuff. It is unbelievably funny. :)

silverine said...

Abhi: This was an affectionate jibe at convent schools :)

jiby: For all the grumblings I would still opt for a convent school if I had a chance :) My brothers studied with Jesuits and they too have fond rememberances of their school days like you :)

sreejith: :)

iceman: :p

poison:m LOL!! He sounds too cool!!

annie: Thanks girl :)

ajith: lol!! Thats the problem with cheating, it is chinese whispers in writing :p

neihal: I knew you will relate to this!! :)

lash: Thanks buddy :)

quills: Me too, I loved my convent stint and the grumbling against the nuns, but in the end I am thankful to them for a lot of things. And the book might happen :)

Alexis said...

ROFL, that was one hell of a post. Still laughing uncontrollably... Copying is an art not a sin :-)

mathew said...

was laughing out in the middle of the night reading this..superb!!
:-)

Oh I wish i studied in a convent school..It would have been more fun and exciting to cheat in harsher conditions..things were quite easy for me and less adventerous..cant resist the adrenalin rush of cheating in such tough conditions!! ;-P

Btw jeez..cant believe that you actually made out from a convent...uh..sorry..
the convent school came out unscathed after you were there!!!!!!!!!!

Amey said...

If you cheated after watching how Jesus was ashamed of you, but you didn't cheat the next time... I wonder what exactly happened there.

Anonymous said...

superb piece of writing!!!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the 'endangered' link. I'm going to order a caricature for myself(not mine, my boss's), and hopefully help a conservationist in the process.

Suji said...

Lol...only girls from convent schools can fully understand this situation. But it was fun too and as you said given a chance I wudn't mind going back thr.

Anonymous said...

Hello....
awesome post...and i ended up readin sooo many of them...amazing style...i loved sooo many of them....gr8 goin! add another name to ur regular readers :)
Pooja

flaashgordon said...

Too good !!reminds me of my own time at the convent school (boys were allowed till std 7) ....Were moved out by the time they got aware of girls ;-))

Curiously enuff, the first time i copied something was for the Catechism exam in std 3! it was a prayer which somehow i couldnt memorize and i had read a moralistic story about a kid who carries a paper with the answer to his exam hall.he confesses to his deed later on etc etc. I found the first part of the story very "inspiring" and hence carried a li'l paper to the hall with the prayer carefully copied into it. To my surprise i rembrd the prayer myself and ddnt have to use the paper at all !!!

Somehow lookin back, i never felt carrying a "reminder" was wrong or anything..it was more like i felt it was a smart thing to do !!!

btw never knew St Micheal kills endangered animals too...thot that was St . George's patented area :-))

Unknown said...

hehe...trip down the memory lane for me...used to feel like a cowboy armed with loaded guns in his socks and belt while going to exams at one point of time! :-D Never really indicted even after incriminating evidence was found, thanks to my super acting skills... :-P

@poison: A guy cheated in JK's class? Man...he is God!

Unknown said...

hmm..Even 2 years of imposition didnt help u!!!!!

Princess Stefania said...

I had a friend who got a friend to write down math equations (mirror wise)under her collar. She would then proceed to the examination hall with a mirror stuck under her pencil box.

She failed.

It was a hot day, and the ink smudged...
;)

Somya said...

Awesome post silverine n so damn close to reality..even I am a poor victim of convent schools but if one applies theory of comparative advantage thankfully I had my education in St Mary's Convent.

silverine said...

Alexis: You are right, it is a fine art :p

mathew: Thanks :) And yes if you wanna live dangerously join a convent school :p

flieger: I was completely cured of cheating after that :)

matthew: Thanks :)

Joby p k: LOL that was a good one :))

suji: Agree with you girl :)

Pooja: Thank you :)

flaash: Ah I could never make out the saints till I was in high school :P

rockus: lol the cowboy analogy was good :))

ap: I know :(

princess stefania: lol poor gal :))

somya: Welcome to the sisterhood sistah!! :p

Anonymous said...

A girl whos this funny??!! Amazing post!
Btw, SRK's biceps...??!!really??

Anonymous said...

Wonderful post ...and after such a long time..Brought back all the wonderful days I spent at the convent school. No matter how much we may have cribbed then, but the stint at a convent school does make a difference.
Guess after so many people reminding you over and over again you will never ever get your saints and their duties mixed up..ha!ha!

Nasia said...

I 2 studied in a convent school though for a very short time. Wasnt this scary though.. :-)

wanderlust said...

too funny.reminded me of good old convent school and college days. we had a set of slightly progressive nuns (or so they claimed) belonging to an italian sect. but when it came what mattered, nuns are nuns and i do miss them.

silverine said...

arshat chaudhary: Thank you :) And dont be J of SRK ok? :p

archie: Thank you and I guess I will never get the Saints duties right :P

nasia: I studied in a convent till 10th and it is not scary unless you are a Catholic :)

wanderlust: I miss them too so much :(

Anonymous said...

thank god i didnt study in a convent! i guess i can use 'nuns' and 'sisters' in place of the bogeyman and ummakki to scare my kids later on. sister princi being the queen of the horror folk.

Sachin R K said...

Ha ha ha :)))