Mischief-Monger

I was hardly ten years old. Only that year my father had admitted me into sixth standard in a rural school. I had to go to my school all the way by walk from my village. I had to walk three kilometers barefooted to reach my school from my village traversing agricultural fields walking through many narrow strips and then in a state highway. My family being an agricultural family had irregular income. Hence, my family could not afford to provide a pair of chappal for me. I had no other go but to bear with my family condition and so walk barefooted to my school. It was about 0430 p.m. The school was over. I was returning back from my school to home. Along with my few school mates, I was walking on the left side of the road. Some time I had sharp pain in my feet when I had to walk through small gravel stones on the road. Hence some times I had to pick and throw some of them away from my path but by not using my hands but by using my toes. I had to throw such tones at regular intervals. When I just finished throwing a small stone on the road, a passenger bus suddenly overtook us on the road. ‘Bang’ I heard a huge sound. A stone that I threw using my toes ricocheted on the road and hit the glass panel on the backside of the bus making a hole in the process. Of course, the small stone that I threw must have fell on a passenger inside the bus. After a few minutes, the bus that overtook us stopped and it was slowly coming back on the reverse gear. The bus stopped, when it reached us. ‘The bus conductor yelled: ‘’What the hell you are doing? Why did you throw a stone on the bus? You see .a passenger was hit by the stone on his shoulder. Luckily it did not hit him on his head. Many traveling passengers also climbed down from the bus and came to his rescue. ‘Who threw a stone on the bus? Tell me. Who did it?’ the conductor asked. For a while we looked at each other. It took some time for us to realize what actually happened. For fear of getting any corporal punishment I kept mum. The conductor again shouted, ‘Tell me who did this? If you don’t tell, I will get all of you and produce in the police station. Tell me .Who did this?’ For fear of getting punished for not doing anything, my friend showed his accusing finger at me. Immediately the bus conductor lifted me and threw into the bus. Then the bus proceeded. I was terribly weeping and repeatedly telling the conductor, ‘Sir, I did not do it wantonly. I just threw a stone away that pricked my palms of my feet. Please leave me. I must go back home. Otherwise, my parents will come to my school searching for me.’ Meanwhile, the bus approached the railway level crossing nearby our village. The bus stopped. A passenger got down from the bus. The bus conductor allowed me to get down from the bus with a severe warning, “If you repeat such mistakes, I will see that you are remanded in a jail.” I went to home weeping all the way. The story of my capture in the bus spread like a wild fire in the village. I was nicknamed ‘the mischief-monger’. Very soon I got a pair of chappal to go to school. But my nickname ‘the mischief-monger’ lasted longer for many years. Even today I cannot understand what mischief I committed on that day.