Nehemiah Dhariwal

Trigger Warning : This post revisits themes of physical punishment and trauma from United Christian Boys Hostel, now exploring the immediate aftermath for the enforcer. Reader discretion advised. Based on my lived experience, written as the memory blurs yet persists. The Reckoning I Witnessed:  What Happened to the Study Incharge? When I shared the searing memory of those 80-90 hand strikes in the crowded sleeping room of United Christian Boys Hostel, I left a question lingering—one I know many of you have pondered. What became of the study incharge, that 6th or 7th grader who swung a wooden stick with such force over my zero on an English test? Did he walk away unscathed, leaving my pain as a distant echo? Or did the universe, in its unyielding way, demand a reckoning? As I write this tonight, October 16, 2025, at 08:56 PM IST, the answer floods back—not years later, as a distant discovery, but in the same year, unfolding before my eyes. The memory is blurring now, edges softening...

Trigger Warning: This post describes physical punishment involving intense pain and potential trauma. It reflects on outdated practices once common at United Christian Boys Hostel but since reformed. Reader discretion advised. Based on my direct experience; the study incharge system was abolished years later after seniors, including myself, pushed for changes. ## The Hostel World of Rules and Ranks At United Christian Boys Hostel, during my 5th-grade year, life felt like stepping into a mini-military camp, worlds apart from the day schoolers who commuted from home and knew nothing of our isolated routines. Away from family, 12–14 boys crammed into each sleeping room filled with cots and double-decker beds, sharing tight spaces, whispers, and the weight of unyielding rules. Study hours, bedtimes, and silence after lights out were enforced with iron fists—academic performance was non-negotiable, with each grade having its own "study incharge" appointed by the warden to oversee...

  Content Warning: This post discusses domestic violence and may be triggering for some readers. The smell of burning fabric still lingers in my memory, sharp and acrid, like a wound that never fully heals. I was just a child, huddled in the dim light of our home in North India, where my father, a priest in the Church of North India, was supposed to embody love and grace. But that night, his rage consumed everything—my brother’s clothes, my mother’s safety, and my trust in the religion he preached. My elder brother had left that day to drop my two elder sisters at boarding school. He didn’t return, choosing to stay with my father’s relatives. The absence seemed to ignite something in my father, a possessive jealousy that had long festered. I watched, frozen, as he piled my brother’s clothes into a heap and set them ablaze. The flames danced wildly, mirroring the chaos in his eyes. My mother, desperate to stop him, doused the fire with water. That act of defiance unleashed his fury....