The witty reply

It was history class. I was in 4th at that time. My history teacher was very intimidating. Her piercing stern spectacled eyes would command fear. I would dread her class and wait for the bell to ring.

The lesson was on Indus valley civilization and how people back then used to lead their lives.There was a picture of a man bathing in 'The great bath', mohenjadaro. The picture was quite revealing and that ancient man was scantily clad in clothes. We students found it very funny and tried to suppress giggles. But no one dared to laugh out loud due to fear of the teacher. The teacher sensing indisciplined giggles got hot-tempered.

Teacher : What's it? Who's it lauging? Don't you all remove clothes and bath every morning? (more laughther from us)

Teacher:(screeching at the crest of her voice): Sshh!!...What's so funny here? You all will be sent out right now!! I want pin-drop silence now!

We tried to hide our faces behind books. My classmate Vikram was the only bold student who spoke out in defiance. He gave a sharp reply which I haven't forgotten even now.

Vikram: True ma'm we all bath every morning... but we don't have our pictures printed in the text book this way!

To this my teacher didn't have any answer. She was staring at him tongue-tied and flabbergasted. No body dared to back answer her anytime. But Vikram was very intelligent and bold. Eventually she chuckled at the joke and seeing this, our laughter got fueled up and finally the whole class for the first time in the dreadful history period, along with the teacher, were all laughing.