An Open Secret

The report in The Telegraph and The Guardian has it that the longest-held US prisoner was granted a clearance after finding him wrongly imprisoned. A man who was wrongfully convicted for slaying a businessman had almost served a sentence for circa four decades. He is now entitled to a compensation of about $1m. 

 

Such an incident which was painfully secret for almost 39 years when suddenly opened to social media ignited a tsunami of criticisms beyond measure. 

 

But for me, I didn't have the nerve to criticise nor intentions to do either. However, after scrutiny about this wrongful conviction, I remembered one of the most hostile moments of my school life.

 

This secret of mine is opened here in my blog with no intentions of damage or impairment or whatsoever in any case. So, the reader’s discretion is necessary. 

 

It was back then in 2000, more than a decade ago when I was in grade nine that the head of my school almost dismissed me from the school on a similar incident: a wrongful conviction. One of the student representatives (commonly known as captain) had already drafted a memo against the head to be dispatched to the higher authorities. 

 

During those days, I used to maintain clean and legible print handwriting in my notebooks. Seeing this uniqueness, I was asked by the captain to copy from the draft letter which he has already written. Captains during those times were so powerful like that of Charlemagne of Western Europe or Genji's Khan of the Mongol Empire. In the hope to escape from uninvited bullying and victimization, I had to, thus, submit to his feet and do as he ordered: copying into the final draft to be sent to the higher authorities. 

 

Unfortunately, before the letter was sent to the higher authorities, it has already reached the principal office - which later I knew that it was taken by our roommates. Knowing that the letter has been taken from his box and is already in the hands of the principal, the captain who ordered me to copy it from the draft has fled the school that fateful midnight.

 

But nobody knew why he went missing in the school.  Neither has the principal doubted him for writing that complaint letter. 

 

But the search in the school has already begun. Students of all the grades who maintained print handwriting in their notebooks were called to the office. 

 

After a month-long search, I was called to the office, and I was interrogated for almost two days. Having done nothing other than just copy it from the draft, I justified that it was not my plan but to no avail. I was dismissed from school.

 

But that evening, as I was about to leave the school, I met my class teacher who was an Indian national. He took me to the office and after an hour-long justification by him, I was allowed to continue my stay in the school. 

 

The days thereafter was a living hell for me. Since my classroom was located on the ground floor of the office, every time the principal would be turning the pivot of her eagle’s eye to detect me. Fearing such humiliations for no reason, I would not even visit the toilet during recess time. But that cruel hour ended after a few months when the principal left abroad for the studies. That brought a lot of joy to my mind since I thought it would allow me to erect and hold my head high. 

However, that was just an assumption. The newly arrived vice principal was already infused with those stories and his prejudice was so strong and even distasteful and suffocating. Even by scoring 83 marks out of 100 in Economics, the subject he taught us and that happened to be the highest amongst all was not adequate to win his heart. My living at that point was utterly doomed.

 

A few years later, I escaped from the clutch of their cruel humiliating treatment. I even met that school representative 5 years later while I was participating in the local sports tournament. These people are never to be forgotten for they gave me lifelong lessons that I shall never forget. 

 

Getting wrongly convicted for doing nothing is not only painful but we start to humiliate our own life. Suicide was one solution where I even tried to seek solace and escape that living hell.

 

“The killing of innocent people are always wrong”- Unknown