Getting Schooled into a Sikandar

There are always a few school songs or school movies that we grow up on. Some of them can make quite an impact on developing minds. I know some people who swear they used to walk like the T-birds in Grease, as teenagers. As I have already confessed, I have never been a great fan of school. I wasn’t a popular kid, neither was I an ace student. As a consequence I didn’t know which school movie to identify with.

Then I thought of my school, a KV (Kendriya Vidyalaya). Certainly not one of the best rated in sophistication. I remember kids from Public schools grimacing when I named my school, ticking me off instantly as a no-good loser. And I have met parents of Convent school kids who condemn all KVs because apparently the grading system is way too easy. Then I remembered, ‘Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar,’ one of the most successful Aamir Khan movies in Bollywood. The movie was a remake of the 1979 American movie, ‘Breaking Away,’ and mostly I don’t sympathize with remakes, but in this case, I haven’t seen the original and thus have no base to complain in terms of originality. ‘Sikandar’ is the name given to Alexander the Great in India. As such, the movie is quite a lesson in life.

The movie opens with Shekhar of Rajput College defeating Ratan of Model College in an inter-school marathon cycle race in Dehradun, which is the crux of the movie. The competition is between the affluent students of Rajput, Xaviers and Queens College and the local ‘have nots’ of Model College. Queens College is the girls’ college with all the boys mooning over them. We have Sanju (Aamir Khan), Ratan’s brother, an irresponsible, carefree teenager, his character most akin to Archie Andrews. He falls for the glamorous Devika (Pooja Bedi) of Queen’s College, the Veronica Lodge, who makes boys trip with her bubble gum bursts. But he has a friend, Anjali (Ayesha Jhulka), who silently loves him and always supports him, the Betty Cooper. Then we have the cocky Shekhar, the Reggie Mantle.

Sanju tricks Devika into believing that he is rich and woos her for some time, much to his brother and Anjali’s consternation. He does some pretty stupid stuff, which we found cute in our school days. Who can forget ‘Pehla nasha,’ an entire song in slow motion? I still remember the lyrics by heart. Pooja Bedi did a Marilyn Monroe too, in a short red skirt that flew around her looooong legs. After Devika finds out that Sanju runs a small canteen along with his brother, she dumps him and the story takes a turn for the worse. After a skirmish with Shekhar, Ratan ends up in a hospital. Sanju turns a new leaf and decides to take part in the race.

The reputation of my school was like Model College’s, in that we were all students of government employees. Nobody could brag of inheritance or fast cars. We all knew we had to somehow make it on our own if we wanted to make it big. Some of us thought of short cuts too. Some guys thought of manipulating the system. Some girls thought of marrying someone rich. But the song, “Jawan ho yaaro, ki tumko huwa kya,” was inspiring. We had a number of Sanjus as well as Ratans. I wasn’t like Anjali but I remember bunking classes (I once jumped off a first floor window to get rid of the rest of my classes).

The State Board in Guwahati is only up till matriculation and many parents want their children to move to CBSE after that. Consequently, in eleventh standard, a lot of new students joined our school. Most of them were from St. Mary’s and Don Bosco. As was inevitable, our boys went nuts. So many Devikas suddenly swarmed the school. They were very different from what our boys were used to. These girls had airs, they chattered away in English with a strange accent. Their Hindi was clipped which probably seemed cute to all our love lorn Sanjus.

Moreover, these Devikas were from a girls’ school. This sudden contact with boys must have been electrifying. Some of them went out of control, while others took advantage of our simple Sanjus. I remember a particular girl who captured the heart of none other than the head boy. Of course, they were famous. He was a bright boy and helped the girl with all his notes. After she got all of it, she didn’t want any of him. He was flabbergasted. I witnessed the scene of their breakup from our corridor. I couldn’t hear anything but it began with the head boy throwing down his lunch box, then tie, then belt, badge… Mercifully, the bell rang and we just guessed the rest.

The Bosconians weren’t lagging behind either. Some of them had been mooning the St. Mary’s girls since Nursery, climbing their school walls just to get a glimpse. Now that proximity wasn’t a problem at all, their hormones were hyperventilating too. As Bosconians, they also had an upper hand in being more polished and with more expendable income. So quite often we would come across an Assamese Shekhar Malhotra in the corridors. Some of our Anjalis were pretty heart broken, because they were never chosen by these spoilt peacocks.

All in all, the last two years in my school were quite a scene from ‘Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar.’ Some of us took part in that race against the affluent. I agree that KVites in my time had less exposure, were badly trained in English, didn’t listen to rock music etc. But we learnt how to fight a world thronged by hypocrites. We learnt to be cool, but with humility. We learnt to earn our first bike and pay for our high heels! Today so many of our Sanjus and Anjalis are engineers, doctors, pilots or are working in great places. Many of them own fast cars, or have built mansions, or dine in 5 stars daily. I know a KVite who won the Miss Universe title – Sushmita Sen. KVites win races too, it appears. And whoever wins is the ‘Sikandar.’