‘ROYAL REMINISCENCE’- An Encounter with Terror

by Upatissa Attygalle

It was in the Second Form that I had one of the most terrifying experiences of my life. Our form master was the very amiable and exceedingly humorous late Lennie de Silva, popularly and affectionately known as ‘Lena’. Because we had him as our form master we were considered to be lucky devils by the chaps in the parallel second forms whose masters lacked a sense of humour and were rather dull compared to Lena.

The other masters who took subjects in our time table which were not taken by Lena were all manageable and some even quite ‘honkable’ with one terrible exception. Our arithmetic master was the late Mr.M.M. Kulasekeram, Vice-Principal of Royal College and fearfully known as JOWL.

Jowl was of medium height, about 5 ft 6 inches and was always immaculately dressed in a white shirt, plain or striped with a light grey tussore suit. When he arrived in the morning, he took off his coat and tie and carefully hung them on the hat stand in his office. He looked very much like the renowned Austrian film actor of Hollywood during its vintage years – the late Erich Von Stroheim.

Jowl like Erich had hair greying at the temples and out in a short Teutonic style. He also had the actor’s determined jaw. Unlike the actor who nearly always played stiff-necked Prussians or despotic villains and never smiled, Jowl could smile when he thought the occasion warranted. When Jowl did smile, he smiled, from ear to ear and then looked very much like the Lion King in Walt Disney’s award winning cartoon feature film. Still Jowl smiling or unsmiling was a person terribly feared by we 12-year old second formers:

Before Jowl came into our class to take arithmetic he expected the blackboard to be thoroughly cleaned without a single white chalk mark on it. He also wanted a new stick of white chalk to be on the board ledge. This ensured that work could start immediately without time having to be wasted in cleaning the blackboard or in having a chap going for a fresh piece of chalk all the way to the College Office in the main building.

Jowl in addition expected every boy to be at his respective desk with the textbook opened at the correct chapter. Long before Jowl made his appearance all his commands were carried out to T by us who then waited apprehensively in pin drop silence.

One such day Jowl walked into our class, picked up the text book from the master’s desk and walked down the centre aisle between the two rows of desks and stopped when he reached the end of the room. He then turned around deliberately and stood with his back to the wall. All the boys twisted round in their seats to see what Jowl was up to.

“Arle of you look only at the blackboard and not at me” said Jowl in his usual clear ominous tone, and after a quick survey with his eyes added, “Artyiagala go up to the board and do sum number thirteen.”

At the sound of my name I froze. I then knew exactly how the aristocrats would have felt when their names were called out for them to walk up to the guillotine during the French Revolution. As the rest of the command was delivered I found myself taking up my textbook and walking up to the blackboard. I then picked up the stick of chalk and began working out the sum on the blackboard. Fortunately I knew how to do the sum and before long I wrote the answer at the bottom of the working and turned around to look at Jowl.

I expected him to say, “Right, get back to your seat.” Instead he said, “Artiyagala you have made a mistake. I am going to begin slowly walking up to you and if you have not corrected the mistake by the time I reach you, I shall take one of your fingers and rub it on the board till blerd is bleeding.”

I quickly scanned my working once, twice and then a third time but I just could not detect a mistake. I turned around and saw that Jowl had already walked more than half way up the aisle. I desperately looked at my fellow classmates for a clue but they all had blank expressions. I felt like one of the good guys in a cliff–hanging end of a chapter from a thrilling serial movie of that era, where the good guy was tied to a moving belt taking him closer and closer to a revolving circular saw blade.

In the serials the good guy is always saved in the nick of time but in my case no one came to my rescue. The next moment I felt Jowl taking my forefinger and begin rubbing it against the surface of the blackboard and at the same time he said,, “I have arleways told arle of you that the equal signs must be parallel and one under the other.”

I am right handed and not very ambidextrous but I managed to pick up the duster with my left hand, rub off the equal signs and draw them as required by Jowl. Jowl then let go of my finger and said, “Neverr forget to draw the equal signs correctly.”

I must admit that though Jowl rubbed my finger on the blackboard he did not apply enough pressure for it to have ever “bled blerd”. Further after we became more mature and went on to higher forms we realized that Mr. Kulasekeram was a unique personality and a first class master completely dedicated to the task of imparting knowledge to students.

In spite of his menacing demeanour he was very fair in his dealings with students. He always gave a boy a hearing when sent to him by a master for six of the best. Many were the instances where a boy was sent back to class without a single whack but only a tongue lashing.