PROSHONNO FROM THE village had had ‘Gurumoshai’ appended to his name for as long as people could remember, for he had been the only teacher in Contentment for years. His school was run from behind the tills of his little grocery shop at one end of the village. In the absence of any real ability to teach, Proshonno Gurumoshai relied chiefly on his bamboo switch. He had great faith in the power of pain, and so did the parents who deposited their children in his care.

‘Just make sure that they’re not blinded or lamed, and we’re fine,’ they assured him. With this licence, Proshonno Gurumoshai used his switch with such abandon that all too often, his students escaped blindness and lameness purely by chance—and that by a hair’s breadth.

It was a cold morning in the month of Poush when Shorbojoya woke her son up with a bright cheerfulness.

‘Wake up, darling! You’re going to start school today. Isn’t it exciting? You’ll have so many new books. And a new slate! Baba will drop you off himself!’

Opu thought at first that his mother was playing a trick on him. Why would he have to go to school? Only really bad children—the ones who broke things, didn’t listen to their parents, and fought with their siblings—were sent to school. It was a way of locking them up for the day. So he turned over in the bed and went back to sleep.

After a few minutes, Shorbojoya popped her head back into the room. ‘Get up and wash your face, Opu. Baba’s waiting. I’ll tie you a big bag of puffed rice, all right? You can eat it at school. Wake up, my sweet golden boy. It’s getting late.’

Opu peeped from under the blanket and stuck his tongue out at his mother. She was being extra persistent in tricking him today, but he wasn’t going to fall for it.

It was only when Horihor came indoors and asked what was keeping his son that Opu realized it wasn’t a prank. He was actually being sent to school! Disbelief and betrayal battled for room inside his head. What had he done to deserve this?

When his mother came to give him his packet of food, he could barely hold back his tears. He was never going to trust his mother again! She was letting him go to school!

‘I’m never coming back to you,’ he choked.

Shorbojoya was busy making sure that her little boy had everything he needed. ‘Aww, don’t say such things, sweetheart. You’ll be home before you know it,’ she said. Then she raised his chin with her thumb and forefinger, and kissed him on the forehead. ‘May you learn a lot. May you grow up to get a great job, and make lots of money. There’s nothing to be afraid of . . . My dear, it’s his first day—please tell Gurumoshai to go easy on him.’

And with that, father and son were off. After a short walk, they reached Proshonno Gurumoshai’s school and shop. His father deposited him near the open end of the room and leaned in to impart his words of wisdom.

‘I’ll come here to pick you up when school is over, all right? In the meantime, you sit quietly and work hard. Listen to Gurumoshai. Don’t be naughty.’

His fatherly duties thus fulfilled, Horihor then straightened up and walked away, as if he hadn’t just abandoned his only son—his only son!—in the vast and terrifying unknown of a school. When Opu finally gathered enough courage to look up a little from his lap, his father had already disappeared around the bend in the lane.

For the first few minutes, Opu was so scared that he couldn’t even make himself move. He sat on his mat, staring fixedly at the little school bundle in his lap. After a while, he took a deep breath and unpacked his slate. After a few seconds, he lifted his head a little further and stole a wary glance at his new teacher.

Said teacher was at the front of the shop, weighing out sea salt for a customer. None of his attention was on his students.

Opu relaxed a little. The boys closest to his new gurumoshai were sitting cross-legged on their carpets. They were reciting the numerical tables completely off-key, moving violently back and forth in time to their broken rhythm. Another group, sitting further away, was trying to drown them out by chanting the rules of grammar. An older boy, with a large mole on one cheek, was intently watching the dark space below Gurumoshai’s raised platform seat. In one corner of the room, a boy leaned against one of the bamboo poles that was holding up the roof of the school, and stared at the empty lane leading back to the village. He was also chewing a palmyra leaf—the one, in fact, that he had been given to write on. Two of the few remaining boys were sitting quite close to Opu. They were holding a single slate between themselves, watching Gurumoshai warily and whispering to each other. Curious, Opu tried to peek at their slate.

Goodness! They were playing tic-tac-toe! Alarmed, Opu quickly looked down to his own slate and began practising his spellings.

A few moments passed in silence. The sea-salt customer took his order and left. Suddenly, just when Opu was becoming absorbed in his list of words, Gurumoshai called out, ‘Fonay! What are you doing on that slate?’

The two boys playing tic-tac-toe swiftly hid the slate under their bundles. But Gurumoshai’s eagle eyes were impossible to deceive. ‘Shotey! Get those slates here!’ he barked.

The boy with the mole swept down from the front of the shop and snatched up the incriminating slate. He practically flew down to the teacher’s platform and placed it in front of Gurumoshai. Gurumoshai examined the chalk crosses and circles with obvious satisfaction.

‘So this is what your slate is for,