Throughout my time as a student, I’ve collected a wealth of memorable experiences that go far beyond just studying and having good grades. School has always been a vibrant journey where I've actively embraced every opportunity to learn, not just academically but through real life moments that have shaped me. Stay with me now as I narrate, in response to the prompt, the experience of how my instincts saved me from a deeply humiliating moment.
Some years back, I was in my final year in high school and irrespective of how much I tried to be a recalcitrant student, It just didn't work. I waited six years to get the opportunity to be a full-fledged tyrant and when that opportunity came, nothing. Be that as it may, I tried to find other ways to showcase my recalcitrance and this entailed skipping meals (if only I knew I was causing more harm than good) and going on evening strolls even after my curfew.
Of course all of these were minor tweaks that affected my institution in no way but one way to get on administrators’ nerves was by skipping chapel service. I vividly remember a friend screaming when I recently told her that we were made to be in the presence of God nothing less than ten times in a day but this was just the reality. A reality that got very tiring at some point.
On one of those days, a few of us came up with the idea to stay away from the early morning chapel service. The idea was conceived by a collective group of individuals, including myself. We agreed to hide when the boarding mistress came to do her routine morning check-in, then stay hidden till the rest of our colleagues returned. This plan seemed rock solid but there was one thing we did not consider.
On the day of execution, the boarding mistress came into our room as usual and caught some students who chose to hide under their sheets and they were immediately sent to the chapel. We were supposed to be about four students who stayed back from service and even when the boarding mistress had caught over four students, the people I planned with were still intact. This raised the question “how many of us actually stayed back?”
After the boarding mistress left, I quickly surveyed the room and found out that almost half of my colleagues conveniently chose to stay back on the first day I tried to stay back and this simply meant, sooner or later, we will all be discovered. I felt so unsettled.
Immediately, I carried my school beret, bible, hymn book and headed for the chapel alongside one other friend of mine. We tried convincing the others to join us but they already got comfortable and didn't want to risk getting caught on the way.
With my heart in my mouth, I slowly walked towards the chapel. On reaching the chapel, we realized that the chaplain had noticed some student’s absence and decided to do a head count of all the students from JSS1 to SSS3. Things got heated up when we weren't allowed to return to our hostels until every single student who stayed back was fished out.
After so much back and forth, we were set free and on our way back to the hostel, I met my colleagues who stayed back all kneeling on the school field, waiting for their judgement which was in no way merciful. My school was a highly religious one and any action that went against God or moral ethics was treated like a criminal case. So you can imagine.
Silently, I was grateful to my subconscious for nudging me to move out when I did because if I had carried out the punishment the defaulters were made to carry out, I probably would have had a serious case of physical and mental breakdown. This is one experience I will not forget in a haste.
