SSB 404 error — Discipline not found

Oh dear Discipline,

The alter ego of my alma mater

The pride on our sleeves

Where have you disappeared to?

It's been long we last had a rendezvous

Do you still remember those days?

When you and us, had some problems

The bumps on heads and red cheeks

The battered and bruised butt cheeks

Trust me oh Discipline

We bear no grudge against you

You have made us and our school too

We hope you miss those days and us too

If yes, where are you hiding these days?

Your absence is manifest in every ways

We tried our best to find you this year again

But it seems we have been forsaken

Dormitories stank as the air lacked you

Songs played unabashed and loud too

As some cleaned themselves in full view

And the rooms and corridors lay unclean

Students went on with their usual chores

Oblivious to the ‘outsiders’ who had transgressed

The so-called seniors and their families

I heard frustrated murmurs and ignored homilies

I looked for cleanliness and found it missing

I looked for order in things but found haphazardness

I asked if they had been intimated about this day

That only partly explained their unpreparedness

I longingly looked for respect for seniors

Beneath the veneer of improved infrastructure

To yearn for all these without you in vicinity

Am I a luddite or is it my vanity?

Heartbroken and with a lump in my throat

I had almost given up my search

When I found you buried

On the walls of the school building

May you rest in peace!

My heart aches with the realization

I will have to say the same for SSB someday

Without ‘you’ can it survive for long?

PS: This is not a write-up in favour of ragging, but someone has to draw a line somewhere. Especially, for a military school.