We enter Class VII

The period 1976-77 was an exciting time. We were going into class VII. SACS then had only seven classes. After 7th we had to leave for Shahabad to continue our education. So it was a sort of graduation from SACS, the only school we had seen. It was also time to grow up and travel 11 kilometers to Shahabad daily and stay there the whole day to study. I also started wearing spectacles from June 1976 There were fifteen of us in the class, eight girls and seven boys. Very different from today’s classes which have 6 divisions with 50 students in each. All our teachers knew each of us personally, and we knew our teachers too because of this highly advantageous teacher student ratio. There were some who left us by the time we reached 7th standard, like Bhaskar, Kanniappan etc. Seshasayee was the Store Keeper in ACC Wadi. His family was in Andhra till then, but now, they came to Wadi. Srinivas and Hariprasad joined us. They didn’t study in SACS as far as I can remember, but came after our 7th and joined us in MCC, Shahabad. It was at this time that a new nun by name Sister Leonie joined SACS. She was not exactly our class teacher, because it was tradition that the Headmistress be the class teacher of class VII. That was Sr. Mary Clarissa. But Sr.Leonie was our de facto class teacher. Sr. Leonie was dark and frail. But she was totally devoid of mercy, and beat the hell out of us if we were less than meticulous in our studies. Also anyone speaking in Hindi in the campus of SACS was dealt with severely. We had to speak English. Sr. Leonie enforced this in letter and spirit. She taught us English, specifically English Grammar. She taught us so much English Grammar that we thought that ‘Wren and Martin’ was as sacred to the Christians as was the Bible. The stupidest of us, were thorough in concepts like oxymorons and metaphors. We could unerringly distinguish a metaphor from a simile. We knew the figures of speech better than the figures of more interesting girls in our class. It was around this time that a Hindi movie called “Jai Santoshi Ma” was released, in which the myth of Goddess Santoshi Ma, the daughter of Lord Ganesh was created. (I must mention that such phenomena occur in Hinduism periodically. There is hardly any mention of Santoshi Ma in any scripture. But suddenly a new Goddess was conceptualized in the 70s, waves of frenzy surrounding her was created, traditions and rules for worshipping her set up – like never eat anything sour on Friday or the Goddess will destroy you – and a whole lot of people become devout followers. Recent times saw the creation of another such Goddess Vaibhavalakshmi, who also has claimed Fridays and seems to have dislodged Santoshi Ma much like Ganguly did Azharuddin) Why I mention this is that Leonie to us seemed to have as much power and fury as Santoshi Ma and so we promptly names her Santoshi Ma. We hated the nun with all our hearts, but in hindsight, when one sees the kind of English spoken by students of reputed public schools in Delhi after paying outrageous sums as fees, one feels extremely grateful to Sr.Leonie who set our foundations right with a vengeance. I was discussing this with JC and Datha, and we agreed that to be able to come from Wadi – a one horse town as the Americans would say - and be extremely comfortable with the Queen’s English, is an honour for which Sr. Leonie claims credit. Thanks sister wherever you are.

There was also a Chapel in SACS, where we prayed every day. As the 7th Standard Boards approached, we took to praying there three times a day. We chanted “Hail Mary” with such devotion and in such numbers that would put some sinister characters of a Dan Brown novel to shame. We followed several Christian traditions. Though after and before school, we did visit the neighbouring Ram Temple, during school hours we were strictly Roman Catholics, all of us. Also Wadi with a significant Muslim population, had a Mosque in the Bajaar area. I must mention here that in the language spoken in Wadi, all festivals Hindu, Muslim or Christian, were called Id. On days like Ramzan, I visited the Mosque and the Rafique’s house, where we had “Surqumba” a sweet dish. Also I would accompany Rafique to the Mosque, where I learnt to perform Namaaz, which I can do even now.

Being a Tamilian from Kerala, brought up in that area of Karnataka which borders Andhra and Maharashtra, in a town rich in Muslim culture, in a neighbourhood which had atleast ten people who spoke each of the Indian languages, and educated in a Catholic School, broadened my linguistic, religious and cultural horizons more than anything. Nehru and Indira Gandhi spent decades travelling in Europe and Gandhiji traveled all over the country by Third Class coaches for years to achieve just this, but I am proud to stand up and state that the kind of upbringing I had in Wadi made me a more complete Indian at a monthly cost of Rs.5/- (which was then the monthly fees of SACS. Actually it was Rs.10/- but I was given a 50% concession by Father Anthony of Moncombu, to whom I have referred to in an earlier post). And that is what makes Wadi my Mecca, My Kashi, My Jerusalem.

A postscript: Datha called me up today and gave me the phone numbers of Janaki, Arvind Agarwal and D M Usha. By then Arvind also called me up and we caught up on old times. Arvind was a dear friend and my roommate from the Jain Hostel days in Gulbarga and I heard he was in Baramati, working as the Engineering Head of a Clinical Research Company.

Addendum: JC reminds me of an incident which had slipped me. Our hatred for Sr.Leonie, the wounds she had physically and mentally inflicted on us was so fresh in our minds, that we had no thoughts to spare for the good she had done. It was on one such day that she, for some reason visited Shahabad and took the school bus with us. By deliberate design, we, who had studied under her in 7th standard, scrupulously ignored her presence all through the journey. It must have hurt her and if did she was too proud to show it. She also ignored us equally scrupulously. Isnt it sad how egos screw up relations?