I was a tall, blonde eighteen year old. Raised in America by my Norwegian father, I had just finished high school there, when my father said that he would be going to India to represent the Norwegian government. 'There's a top-notch English public school in Bangalore,' said his father. 'The English public schools are so superior to the American high schools, that if you'll do the last year of school there, you'll get university credit for it in the U. S. And you'll find out what a good school education is really like.'
I was excited by the idea of a year in exotic India, and a chance to learn first hand about British public school life, about which I had read much.
Indeed, being in the school in Bangalore was more like being in England than in India. While many of the boys in the school were Indian, the studies, the playing fields, and the discipline, were more English than even the English schools in England are today. India has kept to the old traditions.
Proof of this came the first Saturday evening, after a long and difficult week of study and hard playing on the playing fields. Bangalore is in a mountainous area of India, and has a relatively temperate climate -- so that the similarity to England was more than superficial.
I had been surprised that during the week corporal punishment had not been meted out. But I had noted that when a boy misbehaved, his master would say to him, 'You'll have to report that.'
'Yes, sir,' the boy would reply, and both the boy and the master would make a note of it in their notebooks. Similarly, the Prefects in the House would remark to a boy who misbehaved: 'You'll have to report that.'
Discipline was very strict, too, and even the smallest things, such as using one's fingers to pick up a bit of food, instead of the fork and knife, were reportable offenses.
When he asked his roommate Phillip about this, Phillip simply replied, 'Wait til Saturday evening. Don't worry, you're a new boy. You'll just watch this time.'
When Saturday evening came, the whole school (there were only about seventy boys, plus the masters and the Head) gathered in a large hall, sitting on simple wooden chairs. In the front row he noticed a few guests, one an Indian man wearing a dhoti. This was unusual, since even the Indian people who cleaned up the rooms wore European dress.
All of the boys were told to come in their physical training clothes. 'No shoes and socks, and no underpants.'
This was getting to be very mysterious, and I waited with great interest. As one of the top form boys, I sat near the front, so I had a good view of everything. The Masters, and the guests sat in the front row.
'Good evening, boys,' said the Head. He was a big, ruddy faced man about forty years old, very powerfully built and with a stern visage. 'For those of you who are new to us, this will be an opportunity for you to observe what happens to a boy who misbehaves in our school. I hope you will do your best to avoid such misbehavior in the future. Dasgupta!'
'Yes, sir.' A slight dark Indian boy sitting just behind me stood up, and began walking forward. His bare feet squeaked on the polished wooden floor. He came up to the front, and stood next to the Head. To the left of the Head was a low desk, about three feet high. To the right there was a lecturn, and I noticed now that in addition to the list of pupil's names there was a fancily carved wooden box about a foot square and six inches high.
'Well, Dasgupta, this is your second year in our school, and you surely know all of the rules. What have you done wrong this week?' 'I'm sorry, sir, but I did not succeed in preparing all of my maths homework on Thurday.' 'Three for that. What else?' 'Nothing, sir.'
'Any comments?' said the Head, turning to the hall. There was silence. The Head picked up the carved wooden box and held it out toward Dasgupta. Dasgupta quickly stripped off his P. T. shorts and placed them in the box. Naked from the waist down, he turned to the desk, stepped back away from it a bit, and spread his legs apart. He then placed his hands facing away from him, on the edge of near side of the desk, so that he was only slightly bent over. This looked like a very fair way to take his punishment, for he didn't have to put his head down, and it seemed to me that he preserved his dignity more this way. The Head walked over to a box next to the wall, and pulled out a three foot long cane. I was shocked. At home my father had often hit me with a stick about a foot and a half long. Each stroke had left a bruise, and three strokes would leave a painful area that would be felt for two or three days. For the very minor offense of not completing his homework, Dasgupta would receive three strokes with a cane twice as long as the stick my father had used. The punishment for a more serious offense must be murderous, I thought. But within a moment, I understood. For when the Head swung, the cane flexed, almost bending ninety degrees! The cane was thin and flexible, and the end swished through the air and struck the boy's dark brown buttocks. He jerked a little. A thin red line appeared on upper part of Dasgupta's buttocks. The Head swung again, and the cane swished and made a line about across the exact center of the buttocks. Dasgupta's back jerked up a bit. The third stroke left a darkened red line near the joint of the leg and the buttocks. This time Dasgupta did not jerk, but I saw how he squeezed his buttocks in pain. Superficial marks, I said to myself, nothing like what my father would do to me. It would sting like hell, but that's about it. Ten strokes with the public school cane wouldn't hurt afterwards as much as three of my father's stick! 'You may get up,' said the Head. Dasgupta stood, turned and faced the Head, and said in a loud voice, 'Thank you, sir!' Everyone looked at Dasgupta, who was quite well-developed for such a thin boy. The Head held out the carved box to Dasgupta, and he took out his shorts, slipped them on, and returned to his seat. 'Why the "thank you",' I whispered to Phillip. 'When the Head gives a boy a lesson, he expects to be thanked for it!' In the meantime, the Head had called out to another boy. Again I turned to Phillip. 'How long will this go on?' I whispered. 'Until every boy has stood before us,' he answered me. I watched as boy after boy was called up. Each boy would explain what he had done wrong, and then the Head would say, 'any comments?' and there were never any comments. Some boys were punished, always thanking the Head before receiving their shorts back. I noticed that some of the boys said 'thank you, sir' with clenched teeth. Then my name was called. I was the first new boy to be called up. 'Thor!' I got up with great embarrassment. I knew I wasn't going to be caned, but to stand before everyone and report my misbehavior was very humiliating. 'What have you done wrong this week?' I looked down at the floor. I could feel eighty pairs of eyes looking at me. 'I picked up a chicken leg with my fingers on the first day. I didn't realize this was prohibited.' Such a 'crime' seemed so ridiculous in my eyes that I wanted to laugh out of embarrassment. I was hardly able to get the words out of my mouth. 'Three for that. What else?' said the Head. I straightened up and looked at him. Was he going to hit me? I looked quickly over at Phillip. 'It's all right,' he mouthed to me. I realized that the Head was only telling me what I would have received if I had not been a new boy. 'Nothing else, sir.' 'Any comments?' asked the Head. 'I beg your pardon, sir.' It was one of the Prefects in my House. 'I caught him masturbating in the loo on Wednesday afternoon.' I heard tittering from the boys. My face turned red. I suddenly knew what the question 'any comments?' meant. If a boy had failed to report some offense, the person who had ordered him to report it would now announce it. Obviously the failure to report an offense would be viewed very unfavorably. I was in serious trouble indeed. The Head looked at me in astonishment. 'This is a very serious matter,' he said. 'Very serious indeed.' My mouth opened but I could not speak. If picking up a chicken leg with my hands was a ridiculous crime, masturbation was even more ridiculous. I had been masturbating daily since I was eleven years old. My face turned a deep red. 'I ... he ...' What to say? It was true. The toilet cubicles in the bathroom had no doors on them, and the Prefect had come in so quickly I had had no chance to hide myself. But he had said nothing to me at the time. Could I deny it? Maybe somebody else knew? Where there other witnesses? 'He didn't tell me to report it, sir.' I said at last. 'But you knew he had seen you?' 'Yes, sir.' 'I think,' said the Head, turning to the Prefect, 'that you should have told him that he must report it. Your action is reprehensible.' He turned back to me. 'As for you, Thor, masturbation is strictly forbidden here, and any boy caught masturbating, whether alone or with another boy, will be severely punished. Masturbation carries a ten stroke penalty when done alone. Fifteen if done in the presence of another boy. 'But you narrowly escaped a much more severe offense. Had you been warned to report this, and failed to do so, you would have been given fifteen strokes for failure to report, and gated. I hope my meaning is clear.' 'Gated, sir?' 'You will soon find out what that is,' answered the Head. 'You may return to your seat.' I watched as one boy after another was called up, some caned, or, if a new boy, given a warning. I soon learned why the dhoti clad man was there. He had been invited to see a boy punished for being rude to him in his shop at the end of the previous year. That's right, the previous year! There had been no time to punish him before the man then. The head explained that the school would brook no rudeness on the part of its boys to anyone. How humiliating to stand naked from the waist down before an Indian shop keeper, and receive five strokes. The shop man sat quite tall, glowing with satisfaction as he watched the eighteen year old top form boy receive his punishment. After watching that, I was sure I would go out of my way to be polite to shop owners at least!
'What happens now?' I asked Phillip, as the boys were dismissed by the Head. 'Well,' he said, 'ALMOST everyone will get dressed and go out to town. Movies, dinner, what have you. And tomorrow we have all day off, after chapel. Sports, hiking, whatever we like.' The weekend was our only chance to get away from the strict discipline of our school, and we made the most of it. But it was spoiled by the thought that next week I would no longer be considered a new boy!
The year went on in my English public school in Bangalore. At the Saturday evening punishments I was caned quite regularly. I was a normal, healthy eighteen year old boy, but with school discipline being so strict, it was hard to avoid doing something wrong. One fundamental rule I learned quickly: 'Don't get caught.' It was a matter of pride among the boys to not knuckle under to the sillier rules. But -- don't get caught. There was no morality to it, it was very simple. If you get caught, you get caned. If you don't, you don't. Once I was even "gated" along with some friends -- confined to our House for the whole weekend -- as well as caned -- for bringing a bottle of liquor into the school on Sunday. Caught on Sunday, we had had to wait the whole week to see what would be done to us, for only on Saturday night would we have to report our offense and take our punishment. Gating was worse than being caned, in many ways. Everybody else goes out on Saturday night and Sunday having a good time, and you have to sit in your room. Drinking.
But then came the disaster. For I had met a girl -- Diane -- from the English Girl's School. For several weeks I met her in secret on Sundays. My roommate Phillip and I had chatted her up one day in a little shop in town, and had arranged to meet then at the home of an Indian friend of Diane's family. One day, when I was talking to Diane alone in her friends' house, I suggested we play a little trick on Phillip. She loved to play tricks on people. She was really a lot of fun. 'Tell him that you can't meet me next Sunday, and I'll set him up to have a game of chess in my room in the House on Sunday at two. But when he comes, YOU'll be there!' 'Won't he get a surprise!' she laughed at that. 'But isn't that dangerous? If you're caught you'll really get caned!' I had told her about our weekly punishments. 'Well, I know just how to get you in without being seen. At two o'clock they're having a big rugby match and there'll be no one in the House. You can come in through the back way, from the fields. I'll fix up a place where you can get over the wall easily.' She was very sport-loving, and was good at climbing. 'How will you get Phillip to not go to the match?' 'I was raised in America, and hate rugby, and Phillip's not all that keen about it either. I'll tell him that I'm so disappointed about your not being in town that I just want to have a quiet game of chess.' 'And what if he doesn't come?' she asked me. 'Well, I'll bring a bottle of Scotch whiskey, and I'm sure the two of us will be able to occupy our time.' She laughed at that. 'Just remember to keep your hands to yourself. I may come to your room, but it's just to play a joke on Phillip. And you'd better keep that in mind!' At Sunday at two, Diane and I sat in my room. We sat on the floor. I had set up a little table between us, and put the bottle of Scotch and three small glasses on it. We had each had a couple of drinks when we heard footsteps. 'Phillip!' she whispered. 'Who else?' I whispered back. The door opened. My Prefect stood there looking at us in astonishment. 'I wondered who was missing out on the rugby match, but this is unbelievable.' I leaped to my feet, blushing terribly. Diane had also risen to her feet. Her face was deeply red. 'We've done nothing wrong,' she said quietly. 'You've had a bit of Scotch,' he said. 'Madam, I'm afraid I must escort you home.' He held out his arm, for her to take, but she refused. He turned to me. 'You'll have to report this.' I stood looking down at the bottle of Scotch as their footsteps echoed down the hall. I don't know how much time passed, when suddenly Phillip came in. 'Hello, old boy, ready for our game?' Then he saw my face and the whiskey. 'Oh, oh, what happened?' That week was hell. I knew I was in serious trouble, and it made me reckless and angry. I shouted at the dining room supervisor on Sunday night, and he ordered me to report it. I didn't do my maths homework on Tuesday and was ordered to report it. I masturbated in the shower room in front of all the boys on Thursday afternoon, and one of the boys reported me to the Prefect who ordered me to report it. I gave that snitch a real licking for that, lot of good it did me. As Saturday evening approached I tried to put up a brave front, but I knew that this was going to be one of the most difficult days of my life. When we gathered in the hall for the week's punishments, I could see a lot of the boys looking at me. They were looking forward to seeing me beaten. In the front row, sitting with the masters, were two long-haired Indian men. No doubt, some boy had insulted each man and they were going to enjoy watching him punished. And all the rest of us too. It wasn't fair that visitors were invited to watch us being beaten! 'What have you done wrong this week?' asked the Head when my turn came. I reported everything. The Head called out the punishment for each one: the girl (fifteen strokes and gating), the liquor (fifteen strokes and gating), the dining room argument (four strokes), the homework (three strokes), masturbation in the presence of other boys (fifteen strokes). In all the year the most any boy had been given was thirty-three strokes. He had been uncomfortable sitting down for more than a week afterwards. Was I really going to get fifty-two strokes? When the report was done, the Head asked if I had any explanation for my behavior during this entire week. 'It was just a prank I was playing on Phillip, sir. When I was caught by the Prefect I just lost my head, that's all.' 'I see. I'm going to have mercy on you, because fifty two strokes is more than I care to give. You'll get only thirty three strokes and gating.' 'Thank you, sir.' He held out the carved wooden box, and I stripped off my shorts, placed them in the box, and placed my hands on the edge of the table. I was determined that I was not going to cry out. The most I had been given to date was fifteen, and I had taken that without a sound. I was sure that I could take thirty three. I was thin but strongly muscled, without any fat on me, and as I bent to the table, I waited with fear but confidence for what was to come. Swish! Swish! Swish! The first strokes are always hard, until the blood rushes to the buttocks and begins to defend itself. Swish! Swish! Swish! I tried to relax the muscles, but with each stroke the muscles would tense up again. Swish! Swish! Swish! It wasn't too bad. I wondered if he was really hitting me as hard as he could? Swish! Swish! Swish! He was working his way down my hard buttocks, covering every inch with successive strokes. Now he was approaching the legs. Where would he go from here? Swish! Right at the joint of the leg and the buttocks! My legs straightened, and my back arched. Swish! Again at the same spot! That hurt! Now my legs and buttocks had become completely tense. Swish! On the same spot! I almost gasped out loud. If he kept hitting me on the same spot, I don't know if I could have kept quiet much longer. Swish! This time he hit me on the upper part of the buttocks, near the back! This is the most painful part of the buttocks. My head jerked up. Swish! Again on the same spot on the upper part of the buttocks! This was excruciating. Again my head jerked up, and I had to lower it by force. My whole buttocks were terribly tensed now, waiting for the next stroke. Swish! Again on the same spot. I knew this would hurt for a week. That spot was terribly sensitive, the muscles there were thin and hard and stretched tight. I was terrified that he would hit me again on the same spot. I was afraid that I would cry out. It hurt! That was where my father had hit me, when I was at home, and he was really angry, but he'd rarely hit me more than three times. I tried to remember how many times I'd been hit, but I'd lost track. Swish! Swish! Swish! Three strokes on the same spot! But thank god! He'd gone down to a softer part of the buttocks! I hoped he was working his way down my buttocks again, from top to bottom. Swish! Swish! Swish! Down an inch, again three strokes on the same spot. Then down an inch lower, and three more: Swish! Swish! Swish! Then down another inch and three more: Swish! Swish! Swish! There was a long silence. Had he finished? I heard him walking and sneaked a peak backward. He had returned the flexible cane to its place and taken out a half inch thick punishment cane, same length but really heavy. Oh, no! That was brutal. If my buttocks felt like every cell was ready to release its blood, this cane would bring it out. I would get up bleeding. I gripped the table hard with both hands. I clenched my teeth. I heard him taking three steps and then Whomp! Right on the upper part of my buttocks, where he had hit me three times before. I gasped out loud. I couldn't help myself. It just came out. I had lost the battle not to cry out. When the next stroke came, this time at the joint between the legs and the buttocks, I was no longer in control of myself. 'Ow!' I cried out. I had not been counting and had no idea how many more strokes I would have to take. I heard him step back and take three quick steps. That stroke landed exactly in the middle of my buttocks. A whoosh! came out of my mouth, and I jerked my head up. It really hurt much less than the previous two, but I was no longer in command of my muscles. I quickly lowered my head, and waited. 'You may get up.' I got up unsteadily. I felt tears of shame burning my eyes. I wasn't crying, but I was close to it. It wasn't the pain but the humiliation of having cried out, despite all my efforts not to. I turned slowly around, having difficulty moving my legs, until I was facing the hall of boys, masters and guests. I stood there looking at them, waiting for the Head to give me my shorts. I became aware that eighty pairs of eyes were looking at me, I heard tittering, and then suddenly giggling. The whole room was filled with giggling! 'Quiet!' said the Head. The giggling died down. 'We are waiting for you,' said the Head. Waiting? Waiting for what? Why doesn't he hold the carved wooden box out to me? Why doesn't he let me cover my nakedness? Then I remembered. 'Thank you, sir,' I whispered through clenched teeth. In my pain I had forgotten that the Head must be thanked for the lesson he had given me. 'Speak up, I can't hear you!' 'Thank you sir,' I gasped out. He handed me the box and I pulled my shorts on, but still couldn't move. 'Go back to your place, Thor.' I stumbled back to my place.
I finished the rest of the year with outstanding grades. Only rarely was I caned. I never left the school grounds on the weekends, dedicating myself totally to my studies and sports activities. It was years before I was able to look at a glass of Scotch with equanimity. I had learned a lesson which stayed with me for the rest of my life.