A wet dollop of bliss

This time around I’m rewinding the clock all the way back to 1967/68 (if memory serves me right I believe it would have been either of these two years) which was my 9^th/10^th year in Bishop Cotton School and just a couple of years ahead of me completing my Senior Cambridge.  Each one of the 28 boys in the class of ’69 was, at that point of time, blissfully unaware that on completing our schooling each one of us would end up being literally plucked out from the protected cocoon which was BCS and that we would be thrown out to face a world we didn’t even know existed outside the safe confines of the boundaries of our school.

Having been established in 1859 and historically enjoying a very healthy and respectable reputation, Bishop Cotton always drew a fairly large number of students of all ages from various countries with an inordinately large chunk of the foreign students from the far East.  And so, our class of ’69 included three boys from Thailand, two or maybe three from Singapore, besides one from Ghana and another one from Kenya.  Amongst the guys from Thailand was Thanasak Tippakorn who was, for some inexplicable reason which one never understood, a very good boxer and a generally good sportsman.  I use the word inexplicable because it was not just Thanasak but also all the other Thai kids in BCS who were, each one of them, nimble on their feet and capable of landing a good punch on the opponent in the rink.

Every year at the end of the first term, which was the last week of May, the school would have its annual fete.  A much awaited and anticipated event for the boys with all of us smartly turned out in our respective school blazers.  While the juniors would generally be having a gala time doing whatever it is that little kids do, each one of us senior lot would be strutting around trying desperately to catch the eyes of the girls who were there for the fete.  Being an all boys residential school, the fete was one of the very few days during the school term when we could actually ogle at loads of GIRLS who, much like we boys would be doing, would be eyeing us while trying hard to be NOT looking.  Loads of girls since Simla, besides having Bishop Cotton as the only boys residential school, was also blessed with three very “propah” girls schools (Auckland House, Tara Hall and Chelsea).  The bottom line being that for the senior lot the school fete, besides there being the usual stuff to do, was awaited in great anticipation giving us an opportunity to feast our eyes, which had been starved of any such pleasure all those months since the start of the school term in March.

Having ambled off on this diversion from the main plot, I’ll now wind my way back to Thanasak Tippakorn.

Besides loads of food stalls, the fete also featured quite a number of stalls of what were back in the day de rigueur games of chance in any fair or jamboree.  These included games like coconut shy, darts, ring the bottle, tin can pyramid and Hoopla.  It was in the last of that list that our friend Thanasak landed one of the five rings he had been handed over after paying a princely sum of ₹1 for his go, over a large bottle of Kissan Tomato Ketchup (at that time probably the only brand of Ketchup in the market) which he proudly tucked under his arm and spent the whole day strutting around much like a sergeant major with his baton in a similar position.

The fete done and dusted, next morning the hoopla victor proudly marched down to the dining room with the Ketchup bottle still tucked under his arm.  Plonks himself down on the bench and then plonks the bottle on the table, gets through his porridge (corn flakes on Sundays) and then waits in anticipation for his egg (almost always an omelette or scrambled egg) and toast.  When that arrives in front of him he rather dramatically snaps open the seal of the ketchup bottle lid, dabs a dollop on to his egg, does not offer anyone the same pleasure and then looking around to verify that he’s made an impact, digs into his toast and omelette.  That done, he picks up his glass of water and VERY carefully pours in just sufficient water to bring the level of the ketchup back to the original, shakes the bottle vigorously and relaxes looking rather smug and pleased with himself.

We go through the same exercise the next day and the next and next ………. on and on for the full three month second term.  Doesn’t require much imagination to understand what Thanasak was pouring on to his egg & toast by the end of the term.

At the start of the third term, poor old Thanasak finally relented.  Having, during the interim 10 day break, discarded his so called ketchup bottle (water bottle actually) he was back to having his egg & toast without first drowning it into an inedible sodden mess!