Immoral Signs

It was when I saw a dugong – a sea cow – in Singapore zoo that I thought of Father Dennis Coelho, who taught me in high school. 

Dennis was a rather sleepy looking fellow, with a generous waist and three chins, a genial air and a loopy smile, all of which seemed genetically linked to Suspect Number 1, the aforementioned mammal.  We called all the priests ‘Fa’ (ridiculous, as it sounds), but amongst us he was known as Babyface.  For much of his life, he taught English, in which subject his competence was commendable and hence of no interest to a biographer.  Of much greater interest to us was the School’s decision to ask him to teach Moral Science.  

He must have committed some unforgivable sin to be given this task.  When anyone takes Moral Science classes for fifty ninth standard boys, their only real knowledge from the class is a clear identification of which moral they had carefully abandoned yesterday.   

The Moral Science class, I remember well, succeeded the noon break, after we had played cricket, sweated it out in the sun and then had lunch.  We returned to the class for a well needed rest under a fan that had been last serviced around the Sepoy Mutiny.  This meant, of course, sleeping or lounging around, both of which apparently are not Moral Science.  Alternately, we’d use our compass to inscribe names on the desk in front, a task that was incredibly creative, for over the last few decades, every available space on it had been taken and one had to have a careful strategy.  Playing Battleship or Book Cricket – both games requiring compulsory brain-deadness - were options too. 

But Dennis did not get the idea of win-win at all.  He could done his thing, allowed us to do our thing, and a peaceful, shared, mutually respectful co-existence would have ensued.   

Instead, he would trundle langourously in, with heavy steps, heavier eyelids and the heaviest foreboding and take his chair.  Then would begin the most boring - lemme emphasise that for effect - THE most boring, incredibly dull, profoundly inane, utterly pointless, predictably tedious, uncompromisingly dreary, scathingly lifeless, monotonous litany.  You get the picture.  He would attempt, with some pompousness and mild assiduity, to get us to see morals in stories in a book that was written for the limited readership of Certified Angels, when the kind of stories all the Ninth Standard boys wanted to hear cannot (unfortunately) be revealed in public.   

So I slept.  There were times when I made a valiant effort to stay awake, but lost the battle, only to wake up when I was shaken and stirred by my neighbour, who had just been woken up when his neighbour poured the leftover water in the waterbottle down his back.  Once, I tried to sleep by holding my book up, but the afternoon peace was broken by the dull thud of my head banging against the desk after I had nodded off, causing much merriment for the citizenry.  It was hopeless.  And, without fail, Dennis would pick me out as one who was the principal sleep-catalyst of the class, a villian and a wastrel and a blot on the Moral Science landscape.  

I was once sent to the Vice Principal’s room – whom we called Small Cop, but was a gentle, smiling soul, unlike The Cop who was a gorilla in disguise.  Well, Small Cop asked me gently why I was sleeping.  Is this a question?  I mean, he should have asked Dennis why he wasn’t allowing all to sleep?   

As the year ended, Dennis – a normally mild-mannered fellow who, when awake, wouldn’t harm an anopheles mosquito – cursed me to hell. I had slept again and, dreaming that I was playing for India and facing Andy Roberts, had woken up with a sweat and a start, apparently exclaiming ‘Shit’ aloud (in justification, anyone facing Roberts would say much worse things).  “You will never succeed in life,” he said with feeling, his face turning a shade pink and the third chin swaying in the breeze in excited anger. 

About twenty years later, while having lunch with our team in CDC, I remembered Dennis and spoke about him to an attentive group.  I imitated his walk and his langourous style and recited a story or two to much local approval.  A little later, Annette, my boss’ secretary gently informed me that he was her uncle.  

I should have paid attention in that class, me thinks.