Why my school was founded on April Fools day

Today is April 1, they call it All Fools day. The school I studied in from Class 3 to Class 12 was Founded on April 1.

I have often wondered why the Founder, Satikanta Guha would choose this day to start a school way back in 1954. Delaying it by a day or starting a day earlier should have made very little difference but would atleast have offered students a chance to not be made fun of for having studied in a school that was Founded on April 1.

So today, 41 years after I left school, it struck me. Perhaps the man was sending a message to all of us who went through South Point. Allow me to explain. Because Satikanta Guha himself was no fool, he was an accomplished writer, a much awarded litterateur. He was a man of letters.

As I research the word Fool, I find that its roots have been traced to the Latin word, follis, which literally translates into windbag. Perhaps Mr Guha did not want us to become windbags in later life and become pompous for just the reason of having gone to school. A little bit of reminding on April 1 every year would certainly have served to take the wind out of the bellows.

The Fool, as the dictionary tells me is also a simpleton. A simpleton is one who marvels at the wonders of life, awestruck by the routine of a sun rising in the east and setting in the west everyday, curious as to why it happens. If the purpose of the school is to fan the the curiosity of a simpleton while offering the grounding to sate the curiosity using a framework that is called education, that school would have done well for its students. Being in awe is after all a good thing. May be that is what Satikanta Guha had in mind.

Being made a fool of is also about having fun, about laughing. May be Satikanta Guha was telling us to do just that, laugh. Get laughed at. Get pranked. Whatever.

I still don’t know why he had to start the school on April 1, but I am not at all unhappy that he did.

Thank you Satikanta Guha.