Sunday, November 22, 2009

The Hippie Culture

When I was in school, I used to get these “hand me down” text books from Mr M. (Don’t confuse this M with the one in James Bond movies)

Probably this was a measure taken to cut corners at home but I used to envy the other students who used to have clean new books. The advantage of the hand me downs was that you get to read the next year’s books as soon as the school closed, while others had to wait till the school opened. I used to finish all the stories from the English text book.(Maths text book goes into hiding) The only problem was that there used to be a lot of markings in them. Underlined sentences, important questions, smiley faces !! most of them marked in ink or pencil. So my first task was to rub off everything that was in pencil. Aha so much cleaner.

Then one fine year the hand me downs stopped. Reason ? Mr M stopped going to school. Why? He turned into a Hippie!! “Wow long live the hippie culture”

Later on I met him one day. What a transformation ! Long hair, ragged clothes, bathroom slippers, and the worst part was he smelled and looked dirty. One day I asked him “don’t you have bath?” His explanation “see when you don’t take bath, there is a layer of dirt formed on your skin. This layer prevents germs and disease from entering your skin”

I didn’t know what to make out of it. I mean when you are a school going child you would like to skip a bath may be two or three in a row, but I reasoned that if this is going be the end result then I better have nothing to do with the hippies. I wonder what Mr M is doing now. I know his full name but don’t want to pen it down here, in case he is reading this. (school drop outs too read blogs – ask Peter Jackson)
These thoughts came back to me when I stumbled upon this cartoon by R K Laxman.

One of you is my son and I want him to come with me home

10 comments:

The Holy Lama said...

For the hippie, its all about soul. Om shanti Om

Denise | Chez Danisse said...

Funny story!

Lisa Best said...

I use to erase all the markings in my "hand-me-down" school books also... Its an obsessive compulsive trait I think :)

Jacob's ma said...

The only hippie I know is the guy from Boban & Molly , wouldn't want to be anywhere near him!!!

Did the same with my math text books:)Its amazing how a picture can trigger something lost in our minds.If you have made a habit of taking a bath ,don't you think Mr.M has something to do with it??!!!

Neha said...

dirt layer to prevent germs? wah, such an amazing excuse...

loved that cartoon :)

~G said...

Lol! What does Mr M do for a living btw? Just curious.

Gauri Gharpure said...

this is hilarious.. i have no real life exp with hippies, but have heard boys who stay in hostels of those elite B-schools and IITs stay just as filthy

Biswajit said...

hey i agree with Mr M, same reason why elephants wear a coat of mud and grime, and everyone knows elephants are smart.

black_coffee_blue_jeans

Insignia said...

I really wished for new textbooks which had that fresh paper smell and the crisp looks. But I most times got hand-me-downs.

And Mr Hippie gave a novel explanation I guess :-P

Harisankar said...

That excuse for not taking a bath is just hilarious.So is he cartoon!