Classrooms in our college in Chennai were equipped with a public address system on which morning prayers would be said and the day’s announcements would follow. Classes were rarely interrupted for the rest of the day.

We were then just a few weeks into our BA second year classes after six weeks of summer vacation.

What were we doing that mid-morning in class when the PA system crackled to life? Discussing Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass , or mulling the finer points of phonemes and morphemes? Or were we pondering over the seven ages of man as Shakespeare described them in As You Like It ? I really don’t recall.

A sober voice told us that a politician who had once held high office was no more, and that to mourn his passing, the college would close immediately for the day. The class next door erupted into claps and cheers at the thought of the unexpected holiday even before the message ended.

The principal’s office, where the news came from, was right below. Naturally, the joy did not go unnoticed and there was a stern announcement demanding that the guilty confess.

Which class was it, exactly, that had behaved in this most disgraceful way? As punishment, the incensed announcer said, the students of that class could not leave the college premises till 2 pm, when classes would have ended in normal circumstances. If I remember right, they were told to go to the library, their teacher making sure no one gave her the slip and stayed there.

Needless to say, there was a sullen and downcast class next door as we trooped out.

(Sravanthi was a student of literature in Stella Maris College, Chennai.)

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