Days of the Raj Ch. 01

"Now turn around, Asoka," Sarah instructed. When he complied it was clear his embarrassment had subsided. The copper head could barely be glimpsed, again retreating into its brown cloak.

Asoka's behavior changed from that day. He could never look the female staff in the eyes - as if he were afraid of inviting their knowing smiles (such smiles would have been searing) - let alone challenge their authority. The trauma of his stripping and humiliation guaranteed the most cautious behavior in classroom and on playing field. Oh, how he sought to avoid those terrible moments ever being repeated...as when his white underpants made their slow descent while Miss Plimmer stared right at his privates, or the hour nude outside, with the sideways peeping of the secretary or the fascinated stares of maids and teachers, or the awful experience of his wayward member stretching, and lengthening, and rising and going completely stiff to stand slap bang, up against his belly.

Traumatized by punishment under conditions of Total Clothing Deprivation, Asoka was now subservient and submissive.

Sarah was seeing a theory emerge from hypothesis.

Under her direction the TCD regime quickly became school policy. The standard procedure for discipline was as follows. If a boy was found misbehaving the teacher was required to take him to the most convenient site - dormitory or refectory or library - and have him disrobe completely. Sarah left optional whether the youth was to remove all his clothes under the direction of his teacher; or whether the female in charge was to remove his clothes herself. It was up to the teacher and her mood at the time. Most shifted between the two approaches.

The errant boy was then escorted with the teacher holding him firmly by the ear through sometimes crowded corridors to the Principal and was told to stand waiting outside the door to her secretary's office. This rapidly became the crux of the new punishment regime. Totally nude, the boy could be here an hour or more until Sarah was ready. At this time his teacher was summoned to join her and the boy. Sometimes after a full recounting of his offenses she would give him a stern rebuke. Other times she would administer a caning or a spanking with a hair brush. Sometimes she would grant this duty to the teacher with the boy over a chair or her lap. At all times the boy's nakedness was emphasized - he would be told how naughty and silly he looked and asked whether he thought his mother or sisters would want to see him in this state - and his humiliation drawn out. Other teachers or passing maids would be given the chance to witness. A visiting mother or sister of another boy could be invited in.

But the key was the total nudity of the corridor. There was rarely a time when there was no naked boy there, sometimes there could be a dozen queued up. They were completely open to viewing by maids, teachers, female visitors to the school.

Some of the 18 year olds would stand against the wall, hands placed over genitals, head drooped. Others felt they did not have this option, either because the size of their organs or an involuntary "engorgement" meant their hands could not provide enough cover. They therefore pressed themselves face-first into the wall. This, Sarah learnt, was not a happy alternative. In Indian culture displaying a nude posterior was frightfully shameful and it guaranteed being cruelly mocked by the maids. Other boys tried combinations of the above. She once saw a boy standing side-on to the wall but with one leg raised and bent so his raised thigh, parallel to the floor, covered his middle. He really did look very funny - like a yogi - and Sarah and a colleague laughed heartily when they saw him and saw his shame deepen further.

Once or twice a week Sarah would be pitiless and decree that, standing in the corridor, punished students would have to present themselves back to the wall, hands clasped behind - like Asoka. No concession to modesty. Occasionally every boy would be sporting an engorgement, hard as armor.

On such days word would spread fast. Even the kitchen staff might drift into that section of the corridor eager to feast their eyes, to the almost-fainting embarrassment of the nude schoolboys. The maids could be counted on to discover pressing cleaning tasks near the door, lingering over polishing the floor as if painting the Sistine. And regularly glancing up, with wicked grins, to catch the eye of a denuded youth. And then they would slowly reinforce his shame with piercing looks moving all over his stripped-off body. Or a young teacher, just recruited from Manchester or Glasgow - and stimulated by the tropical nights - might keep remembering to return a book or check timetables or run other errands in this vicinity. And she could be counted on to dart inquisitive glances at the top-to-toe nudity on display. Dark-skinned or coffee-colored, the boys stood like sentries, part of their anatomy pointed stubbornly skyward.

On one famous occasion a month into the experiment there were eight boys in the corridor, all back to the wall and all in this condition. It had caused bawdy giggling from the maids. Chemistry teacher Cora Wrightworth, with the risqué humor of a divorced 55 year old, surveyed the line-up as she swept down the corridor. "Like a line of hat racks!" she quipped. "Mahogany hat racks!"

Sarah deprecated such humor. The involuntary erection was such a core part of the punishment regime, of this ritual she was devising, she could brook no lightheartedness. The erections embodied their own shame and humiliation. A disapproving or contemptuous glance was enough to heighten it. Nothing need be said.

Still the sari-clad maids found it lasciviously entertaining. They would laugh aloud at the ridiculous contortions of the males in the corridor, at those desperate attempts at modesty. On days when Sarah had ordered that all queuing boys stand back to the wall, fully and cruelly exposed, they would be seen exchanging discerning comments about boys and their characteristics, pointing at favorites or those they considered funny. If a boy was waiting alone he was likely to be surrounded by a party of maids taunting and teasing before a teacher sent them off on their duties giggling loudly. The maids soon became as familiar with senior boys' bottoms and genitals - their size, shapes, colors and tendency to inflate - as they were their faces.

Visitors to the school were often in for a treat. Once three rosy-cheeked English schoolgirls had been invited by Sarah to inspect the college's excellent stables and they arrived at the Principal's office wearing jodpurs and riding caps and clutching riding crops. They were frisky and mischievous and were thrilled to see one of the darkest skinned boys waiting nude. He had been ordered to stand back to the wall with the threat of the caning of his life - and hands behind his back. To heighten his shame, his black organ with its brown tip was already half roused.

Did he go naked all the time, one of the damsels asked. Was this how he was punished at home as well? Oh my goodness, do your sisters get to see you like this? Your sisters! What, with all your clothes removed? Don't you feel terribly ashamed?

Knowing they were guests of the Principal he was obliged to answer them politely, all the time back to the wall, hands behind. Yes, eyes downcast, he confirmed he was punished like this at home. Yes, on those occasions his younger sisters and the older one got to see him. Also female cousins. There were eight, no nine. Plus aunts. Yes, and friends of his sisters. Yes, girls your age. Yes, with all clothes removed. It did make him very ashamed. Yes, it made him feel like he wanted to die.

Emboldened, their questions continued, growing more cunning. What did he do with the dangly bits when he went riding? What were the Hindi terms for those things there? No, for the stick thing? For the little sack? Did he know the English slang? Had he hear the expression...( with a hush )..."cock and balls"... (much giggling.)

Then one girl, who had kissed her share of cavalry officers in the last year, started making lascivious movements with her tongue. The boy's member rose all the way, as if jerked back by an invisible string. They were close to teasing it with their riding crops when Sarah arrived. She was happy to linger as the young ladies continued their verbal fun at the unhappy lad's expense.This was her theory in practice. The boy would never be the same.

For nearly half an hour he had been teased and taunted and, it must be conceded, there was a large element of racial superiority in the girls' behavior.

On another occasion a committee of Englishwomen engaged in war projects visited the school to work in its library. With bonnets and parasols, in dresses of white crepe or embroided linen, with their colorful silk shawls, the memsahibs presented a stark contrast to the six stripped-to-the-buff youths they encountered in the corridor. It was a day when Sarah was not enforcing back-to-the-wall standing and the nude students were free to twist and contort themselves, desperate to shield their exposed privates. Indeed their anguished facial expressions and their pirouetting were a comic delight.

Certainly the ladies thought so, as they lingered in good humor for up to an hour. "Why! You boys are bare as boards!" one had exclaimed. "Naked as the day you were born!" Chimed another: "Yes, all of you without a stitch! You must be embarrassed in front of these maids! And I bet you didn't want to see us!" Followed by much laughter. Then the ladies wanted to know why they stood desperately pressing their fronts into the wall. "Goodness, what have you boys to hide? Don't tell us - you're just frightfully shy!"

Frankly, with husbands off at war, they had every reason to relish some male nudity and did everything to catch a glimpse of the boys' fronts, pressing close to the wall themselves and peering sideways. They made many comments on the shapliness of the boys' bottoms, on their smallness and tightness, some muscular and some soft, how some were dusted with hair and some smooth as eggs. The boys wriggled into the wall in agonies of shame. Beyond the English ladies, dark-skinned, sari-clad maids giggled at the humiliation of the young Brahmins.

It was only one more step for one of the bolder women to move in close and gently stroke the bottom of one of the boys. "Oh my!" She teased, "How very tight! You must play a lot of sport!" And gave him more strokes, turning to surreptitious tickling. But all she got to see, for her cunning teasing, was the brown frame press even flatter into the wall. And the poor lad's features grimace in agony, looking at her pleadingly.

Her friends came forward and each chose a boy for the same treatment. One of the ladies wore white pig-skin gloves, the fingers of which had a raised seam. She ran three gloved fingers around the upper thigh of one golden-skinned boy, then over the crease of his posterior, then round the globes themselves, then brazenly, in small quick flickering patterns, up his side and about his ribs. All the time looking at his profile with a wistful faraway smile. "Oh please, Miss, no tickles, Miss!" he begged her to stop. "No, no, no! Don't want touching bottom, oh please, Miss! Oh no, please!"

Another bold lady stood behind a youth - so close her rose-flavored perfume filled his nostrils - and began kneading both his buttocks, massaging the muscular glutes firmly, round and round. In protest, he began thrusting his posterior back as if to repel her insinuating touches, then forward, then assumed a rhythm, rubbing his front into the wall. All the while, gurgling a low protest, "Oh no, Ma'm, no...don't tickle me on rear... please dear Miss..."

Inspired, another lady stood behind a dark-skinned student and, with both arms almost embracing him, lightly ran all 10 fingers up and down his thighs, the parts closest to the wall, playfully...delicately...running them up and down. "Oh, no...no...no...Miss, please, will give me engorgement...you must stop now, Miss...I don't want but I am getting..."

He was twisting and contorting, close to tears. But he and his six naked mates - even as they begged their tormentors to cease - were done for.

The Principal came out to see the fuss. Beaming, she ordered all the boys to stop being so foolish and turn and face her. They groaned - they were shy and she had to threaten the cane. Slowly the boys turned outward. The maids squealed and the English visitors gasped.

This was certainly an instance where the secret centre of the male being was exposed. Each of the six was sporting an iron-hard erection. Pointing and, yes, engorged, as if to honor the female audience. One penis very dainty, like a cocktail sausage. Then a large one that stuck out parallel to the floor - too heavy to stand but nonetheless completely stiff. One modest one that veered off apologetically to the right. One only about three inches but thick as a cucumber. One that was very slim but with an overlarge head and, under the crown, thick bunched folds of loose skin ("very ugly" - was the unspoken verdict of several of the women). And one that was average length, broad but small headed. A head like one of those garden snakes, one woman thought. Each was dribbling a clear fluid, indeed the smallest - belonging to the boy who had been driven to massage himself into the wall - was positively slimy.

Then there were the testicles: most had vanished into the projecting flesh but the big boy's sack still hung, with heavy folds that reminded one lady of ribbed arches on a Gothic ceiling. In it, lolled two arrogant stones. Heavy and threatening. Very manly, thought the lady with the pig-skin gloves.

Behind, the maids were craning and giggling cruely.

The ladies' chuckled. Each was making comparisons with her husband and - in some lucky cases - a son, whose privates had been glimpsed during spankings or inspected during bathings. The Principal beamed proudly, her strategy in action.

The Brahmin boys hung their heads. Even with eyes averted, they could FEEL the white womens' eyes ravishing them, roaming all over their skin. The maids' cunning, mocking brown eyes as well.

Then one lady proposed that Sarah should require punished boys to mount a cricket game - in this condition - that might become a war charity event. "My dear, let me assure you there would be no difficulty selling tickets. Every Englishwoman in north India would be there!" Another suggested, given the servant shortage, boys being allocated to serve like this for an evening in their homes. Lease out the errant boys, to be punished naked, serving in our dining rooms. "Oh, how exquisite, Sarah! Do consider it!" Smiling, Sarah said she thought both suggestions had merit. For the time being, though, she would allow the boys to escort the ladies to the library where, still nude, they could address envelopes under their direction.

Six naked and aroused boys padded off down the corridor, each in step with one of the fashionably attired females.

On these occasions the worst nightmare of upper caste youth were realized: while English ladies and girls relished their nakedness, over their shoulders low caste maids laughed at their disgrace.

As for the teachers Sarah was struck by the alacrity of the older ones in enforcing her rules. The spinsters, as she thought of them, threw themselves into TCD as if the whole British war effort depended on it. On one occasion Miss Dorothy ("Doddles") Muckberry became infuriated with an uproar that overtook her classroom when she left the 18 year olds alone for a few minutes. It was too hard to locate a single perpetrator and, yes, if the truth were told, she was somewhat tortured by those frustrations that made her toss and turn under the sheets every night. Quickly she arrived at her terrifying decision. She ordered all the nine boys in her class, sitting as they were at their desks, to remove their shoes and socks, their trousers and underpants, stowing them at their feet.

"We will see how brave and reckless you are without any clothing on your bottom halves," she told them, with a cruel smile. And to his astonishment she ordered the tallest and best developed of her boys (best developed in every sense- for this this could vouch having stripped Galwash on several occasions) to rise from his desk and walk the corridors and climb the steps and find Mrs Valda Fortescue, chairman of the town's English Ladies Guild, who with four of her friends was visiting the school today to use its facilities for work on their war charities, and invite them to hear the boys of Miss Muckberry's class at their recitals.

Poor Galwash blushed as he rose from his seat. His shirt and vest were short, descending only a little below his waist. That he was beginning a state of excitement was immediately obvious, indeed could not have been concealed. His confusion made it necessary for his teacher to repeat instructions. Yes, he would find the ladies in the library. They knew Miss Muckberry well and most certainly would want to come and spend time with them. And no! He most certainly would not be allowed to resume his trousers. If he wanted to press the point he might be made to surrender his shirt, vest and school tie...or, she threatened, "...better still surrender just your shirt and vest and wear your tie as the only item of clothing allowed given the sky-larking you were part of a moment ago. I think the ladies would love to see an Indian boy in nothing but that! It would demonstrate your pride in your school, Galwash! Nude but for your prized tie!"

And so Galwash had no alternative but to stumble out of the classroom, a certain part of his anatomy pointing the way, its red tipped head markedly large and sculpted, with bunched folds of khaki skin held back by the bold coronal edge. To the delight of a half dozen maids the boy made his journey- two on their knees scrubbing the stairs were awarded a very intimate view- to the library where the sight of the half nude young Moslem scholar triggered wave after wave of hilarity. Finally, having walked around the humiliated boy several times appraisingly, one hand on her chin, Mrs Valda Fortescue, thanked the boy for his invitation, asked him to allow her to introduce him to each of her companions (whose eyes roamed over his most prominent characteristic jutting from below his shirt) as they shook hands and then had him escort them to the classroom.

With the ladies standing around the walls boys were summoned one by one from their desks to stand at the front of their class and recite Wordsworth, Shelly and Keats, sometimes losing their way, what with the discerning stares and the whispering from the mature white ladies, and having to start again and even bend and receive a caning from a ruler when their memories failed too egregiously. Not long into the lesson the teacher lost patience and told the boys to stand and remove shirts, vests and ties, Total Clothing Deprivation indeed. So the ladies had a class of completely naked 18 year olds rising and reciting one after the other. The effect on the boys was devastating.

Take another example. If she were in the mood Mrs Cora Wrightworth, the chemistry instructor, might find that up to three boys in a single period had offended school rules. She veered to doing the undressing herself, unbuttoning shirt buttons and unbuckling belts. She undressed them as if they were five year olds. She once confided to Sarah she found undressing an 18 year old for the first time was like unwrapping a Christmas present.

Not surprisingly she favored a painfully slow removal of trousers and, when only underpants were left, her subsequent actions were ritualistic. Crouching or kneeling before a brown skinned lad, invariably taller then herself, she would look up into his eye and remind him how offensive he had been. Her fingers playing at his elastic waistbands were like creeping spiders. A boy might feel his pants - last shield of his self-respect - descend an inch before she paused and continued her lecture. Then another inch. And another. Next the timberline of pubic hair might be revealed. The boy nearly fainted with shame and her commentary resumed. The final descent, when it came, was always slow, with the genitalia coming into view bit by bit. Inches from her face...