Adnan Sami: I coloured my hair with boot polish

For my teachers, I was a mystery. I was a pain to them for being mischievous, but I also used to kill them with my great results. Whenever there was a prank in the class, the teachers used to ask –‘Where is Adnan?’ And whenever, the results were declared, they used to wonder how this guy who was ‘brat personified’ scored so well. Well, my theory was –Work hard, party harder.

I studied at Rugby School, one of the top three schools of England, which is where the game rugby was invented. First came my school then came the game. Somewhere in 1850s, a student while playing soccer, picked up the ball and started running. That’s how rugby came into existence. I remember how the history of the game was engraved on the stone and we were all asked to memorise it!

I had the best moments of my life during my school days. The brat that I was, I once decided to highlight my hair, which back then was an illegal thing to do. One fine day, I walked into the salon and got the hair dyed. I only wanted the tip of the hair to be coloured, but to my shock the guy coloured the hair a little deep and I looked blonde! That evening, somebody told me that the headmaster of the school wanted to see me. I assumed that he had found out that I had coloured my hair and wanted to rusticate me. It was a Sunday and I couldn’t have gone to the salon to dye my hair black. The next morning, I woke up early and out of fear used the boot polish to colour my hair black.

When I met the headmaster, I learnt that he wanted to give me a pat on my back for doing well in the test. And then suddenly he said, “Sami, something smells like boot polish.” To which I said, “Oh really? I don’t smell it!” “Yes, it does,” he insisted. I replied, “Ah of course, I shined my shoes this morning.” He then looked down at my shoes which were so filthy that it looked like I had borrowed them from Charlie Chaplin. He said nothing and I ran to the salon, for which I had to bunk a class. That was one of the good and fun things from my school days.

(As told to Suhani Dewra)