13 Staff Club in Nursery School

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There was a staff club for the recreation and entertainment of the staff after the regular working hours. Initially, this was located in a class room on the ground floor of departmental building. As the club was easily accessible some junior staff members started playing chess and other games during the working hours. There was an occasion in which we were given a warning by our Head of the Department.  Very soon the staff club was moved to an old but renovated building near the staff quarters. The Nursery School had  started functioning in this building with just lower and upper  kindergarten only, but later primary classes  were added and it was named REC Nursery & Primary School.  The management of the school was  by the Parent Teachers Association and gradually with   liberal help from the college administration this school has grown as  a full fledged  school   with CBSE  syllabus and have  been renamed Spring Valley School  with its own building. The present discussion pertains to the  time when it was just a REC Nursery & Primary School. The Staff Club was functioning in the school premises in the evenings.

There was also a Staff Association mainly to represent the grievances of the teaching and nonteaching staff  to the  Board of Governors. It seems the first Principal Dr.M.V.Kesav Rao   once  remarked : “Why do you want to have an association, what you need is only a club to play cards and other games. What can you do with an association as you people cannot reach on any agreement on common issues collectively as most of you want benefits for yourselves without others  getting it”. This statement was slowly being proved at least occasionally. Anyway, the staff club was used for a get together in the evening to pass time only.

The games played indoors were mostly card games, carrom board and chess. Magazines were available for reading, mostly English magazines such as Illustrated weekly, Time, Newsweek, Frontline, Science Today etc. Even though Chess is played between two persons, others who watch the game also used to participate actively in the game by directing the players. The interference by the onlookers sometimes went even to the extent of taking over the game from the players occasionally. Card games were 56  and rummy. 56 can accommodate maximum 6 players whereas rummy can accommodate as many  as possible that can be accommodated in the rummy room with two or three  packs of cards. Rummy was played with nominal stakes , one rupee  for 100 points, but later this went up to  Rs.10/ for 100 points. I never used to play any game with stakes and rarely did I remain in the club after 7PM. Those playing rummy used disperse only by 9PM or later.

Certain days I used to carry my little daughter also to the club. She was a cute little girl with a pleasant smile and many started playing with her. One regular person who used to caress her was Sri.K.V.Krishnswamy , the only  staff member in Geology. He used to scratch our  child’s back side  of the head and she used enjoy this by pressing hard  backwards. This made K V K Sir happy and whenever she meets her, he used to do this. I do not participate in any game when I take my daughter to the club as I cannot predict when she will start crying to go to her mum. My wife was sure that I will get back to the house early if I take the child to the club. So, this became a regular affair and I thought the ladies it will be  good  for the ladies to get some time for themselves in the evening  hours.   My wife will   make the  baby ready with a good dress and make up her face making her  cute and every one in the club used to pat her on the  head  or  face.

As I was not good in card games and never played rummy with stakes, I used to play only chess sometimes. I have a peculiar way of playing chess, I will try to cancel   chess pieces equal to equal as often as possible. I thought lesser the number of variables, easier will be the solution. However  many of my seniors  did not like  this game as they wanted  to play with as many  pieces as possible.. They wanted to reach checkmate with almost all pieces on the board which I did not like at all. With all pieces intact, often it will be a ‘fluke mate’ as checkmate can happen on some silly mistakes from one player. I did not believe in winning a game this way as a fluke. There was a very senior among my opponents who must have played me not more than 5 or 6 times.  Whenever we played, as a matter of habit, I used to cancel Bishop with Knights, but whenever I did this, he used to look at me with angry eyes. If there is a likely possibility of his losing the game, he will find some excuse to stop the game. He did not want to be defeated by an upstart boy like me. Some people want to win always and have zero tolerance to defeat at the hands of a juniors. Therefore rarely I tried to defeat him, but later I had serious doubts about such dislikes about my game resulting in a few problems in my department and career.  

Among the card games, bridge was the queen of card games. As some of us youngsters were eager to learn this game, K V K Sir started teaching this game which is more scientific and is basically a partnership game. There were quite a few high class bridge players like  Dr.K B M Namboodiripad, T N Ramaswamy, K Chandrasekharan , P Ramakrishnan etc. Once in a while bridge tournaments were held in the college and occasionally in Kozhikode. Once   our team of four won a second price  in a tournament. Bridge is played as either contract bridge with four players or as duplicate bridge with eight players forming two teams. In duplicate bridge, a minimum of 16 deals were to be played to decide the winner. Every deal is played both teams as declarer and defender vice versa in the open room and closed room and the winner was  based on the  net score comparing the performance in each deal. Only the better team used to win. But playing all the 16 deals, it will be at least 9 o’clock before we complete the game. So duplicate bridge was played only the week ends.

When the weather is good, we used to play volley ball and shuttle badminton near the club. Many groups had their own shuttle courts near their quarters and during annual meet, shuttle and volley ball were major events that attracted many participants. Once in a while, we used to play the college cricket team in the  playground in  12^th mile. All these used to be fun with nearly every one participating in several events.