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The Principal’s Principle

The tragedy had struck by the time we came to school. A boy lay sprawled on the crossing, the mini-bus that hit him stopped having run over him. The body lay on a side and the head wound was an ugly gash. It couldn’t have been more than five or ten minutes ago. The boy had died on the spot.

Kingswood had its own Cross-Safe road safety unit. But it was still only ten minutes to seven and the boys who man the traffic hadn’t come on duty yet. It was a small-made boy no more than 12 that had died. He had with him a crude, wooden cricket bat. Later, an angry crowd gathered, toppled and set the mini-bus aflame. We watched from the safety of the college fence.

A senior boy who had been out came walking through the side gate. He was a towering six-footer with a name as a ruggerite. The Vice Principal madam stood there watching. She called him up to her and motioned him to bend. Slapping sounds cut through the morning air like pistol shots.

That day, the Principal Sir was not at school. As I learnt later, he had been to Colombo for official work. Someone had phoned the ministry and relayed the tragic news. It was there the Principal Sir had first heard. He had heard of disruptive elements setting the bus aflame and, in front of the school he was in charge, of making a bonfire. Soon, the Principal Sir resigned from the post he had held for eight years.

Growing up I was told that the resignation was on a matter of principle — That the Principal Sir felt that whether he was on the premises or not, the school had to remain in the best discipline. A collapse of discipline – no matter how fleeting, no matter how hard the terms were – reflected on his administration.

When the small boy died I was also only a small boy. It was only many years later I saw Principal Sir again. He was by then an older man, his mustache that gave us all the involuntary urge to pee whenever we saw it now a drooping grey. In the less busy corner of Gunasena Bookshop, Yatinuwara Street, Principal Sir was going through some hardcover editions one by one.

In life I had grown up by then. I had seen men who held on to power and position like thick leeches did in virgin jungles and in tea estates. I had seen men who hid behind powerful politicians and used conniving methods to hold on to little footholds in life they had gained. From the country’s highest chair downwards I would be destined to see over and over how men lost glory simply not knowing when to leave.

At such time, I often thought of Principal Sir. He was a man of principle. His adroitness made the school suffer because he probably had a few more years ahead of him to serve Kingswood. But, his spine remained straight and unwavering. And when History is written one day that, perhaps, may matter.

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