Venom

“Sir, please come over right away... there’s a problem,” the assistant warden, Shanmugam, sounded agitated on the phone. The listener, however, remained impassive. He had just woken up and was deciding whether to get up for the bathroom or steal five more minutes of sleep. Wouldn’t that delay his usual morning walk? Perhaps he could cut it short by five minutes — just for today? Beside him, despite the persistent ringing of the phone, his wife slept on. As long as their children were in college, she had risen before dawn to manage the endless morning chores. With no such urgency now, he let her rest. A faint wistfulness touched him — when would he enjoy such untroubled sleep?

After Shanmugam’s call, he could no longer linger in bed. These urgent, “come at once” summons were not altogether unusual. More often than not, he would rush over only to find that it was nothing serious — perhaps a petty quarrel among the students over some trivial matter. At worst, someone would have a bleeding nose, while a circle of boys stood around with long faces and disheveled hair, looking far more tragic than the situation deserved.

Curiously, such fights…