The Pink Uniform

“Dad, do you like pink?”

“No, I don’t.”

The little boy was very disappointed. He felt rather deceived that his father did not like pink. He was seated on the bottom stair in front of their handsome home, watching his dad repair his bicycle for him. His father continued to work, oblivious to the chagrin he had just caused his only son.

It was a fine Sunday evening. Their garden looked verdant. He had lost the first of his milk teeth earlier that day, and his mother had asked him to plant it in their garden. It’d grow into a tree and give more teeth, she’d said to her weeping son. And when she added, in a conspiratorial whisper, that dentists like her got the false teeth for dentures from such trees, he had wiped his tears, grinned widely and spent the rest of the afternoon digging a hole under the peach tree. He was so proud to have such clever parents.

“Dad, do you like long hair then?”

“No.”

The boy looked at his dad with puzzled eyes. His dad was a short man. But he was very dynamic and gregarious when he wanted to be. He was a teacher at the primary school his son attended, just down the street from their home. It was a rather old school, very ordinary and very unimpressive in every way. But the child loved it. He had a lot of friends there and he enjoyed studying in a school where his father taught.

He admired his father. His father had taught him to cycle last summer, and swimming a few months before that. On his last birthday, he had decided that he would grow up to be a man like his father and grow a moustache exactly like the one his dad had. He had told this decision of his to his father, hoping that would make his dad love him more. But his father had merely nodded and walked away.

“Then dad, you like... hmmm... skirt, maybe?”

His dad was silent for a while. Then, he slowly stood up, came to where the boy was seated, and slapped him on his face. The boy, thoroughly shocked, ran into the house, looking for refuge in his mom’s embrace, wailing at the top of his voice.

----

“Am I bad, mamma?”

“No, my darling! Not at all... What on Earth made you think so, my dear?”

Fat tears rolled down her chubby cheeks as she rolled over and slept on her cosy bed. Her mother was deeply concerned. Not only did her child have a high fever, it was the fifth time in the past two days that her dear little five year old had asked her this question. She had vainly tried to question her more, but the child was incoherent and drowsy. The little girl had mumbled some more and drifted into a restless nap.

“Mamma, is my uniform very beautiful?”

“The pink skirt and white top? Yes, baby, very much! You look absolutely fabulous in it. But why do you ask? Don’t you like it?”

The child was silent. She seemed thoughtful and lost. Tears of despair welled up in her eyes. Her mother gave her some medication that she defiantly refused to take. After some consolation, a couple of stories, and a toffee, she slowly drank the bitter syrup. The medicines were quite strong and had a sedative effect. The child slept again.

“Can I take an extra pair of uniform to school, mamma?”

“Sure sweetheart. But why do you need it?”

“My teacher loves our uniform mamma... He keeps asking us to lend it to him for a while. If you give me another pair that I could lend to him, I won’t have to remove the pair I’m wearing. Please mamma...”

----

It was a regular Monday morning. Sleepy kids had been pulled out of their tiny snug beds and readied to go to school. They yawned their way through their morning chores and continued doing so even at their desks in school. But then they met their friends, and they had important news to share about the games they had played over the weekend, the bird they had seen in the bush and the wonderful things their parents had got them, and their innocent chatter soon filled the school premises.

The little boy was putting forth his best behaviour in his dad’s class. He didn’t want to offend his father any more than he already had the previous day. He paid utmost attention to the math being taught that day. It seemed boring to focus on how two and three added up to five; but if that made his father happy, he decided it was worth the effort to find out how.

Just when he had succeeded in guiltily suppressing a yawn, his father was summoned by the headmaster. The little boy had always felt proud to be the son of a teacher. A teacher who taught in his school, someone who knew a lot of things and someone who was important enough that the headmaster himself wanted to speak to him.

As soon as his dad left the class to itself, all hell broke loose. The decibel levels grew steadily until it grew loud enough to be heard in the corridor, after which some other teacher had arrived to monitor them. Soon after, when he was bored of pelting his neighbour with paper balls, he looked out of the window to observe the butterflies in the garden. There were many that day. Just when the yellow butterfly had planted itself on the bush closest to his window sill, he heard it.

Sirens. And then it all happened too fast. The police cars. The cops in their nice, stiff uniforms. The headmaster with his father and a few others. The handcuffs on his dad’s wrists... and then profound perplexity.