Parliamentary Democracy in MCC - Part I

While SACS had a system of introducing its students to parliamentary democracy it was rudimentary. Like monitors of a class, the authorities nominated a student they thought fit as what they called SPL or School Pupils’ Leader. He or she was the top monitor of the school, but what the SPL did was negligible. We were introduced to real school level parliamentary democracy at MCC.

MCC had a full fledged election with all the accompanying fanfare. Like the US Presidential elections, two people – OK let me be stop being gender sensitive at this point; it was invariably two boys from the 10th Standard – were proposed by the school by unanimous choice, and sanctified the blessings of the sisters of Mt. Carmel, for the top post of the Prime Minister of MCC for the year. On Election Day, the high school students duly cast their votes and the results were declared soon thereafter. In what could be a lesson to the Indian Democracy, while the victorious candidate became the Prime Minister, the vanquished became the deputy prime minister. Each had a say in choosing their cabinet. And thus it was, that I became the deputy minister for literary association, with special charge of Library, holding literary events etc., in April 1978, while I was in 9th Standard, in the cabinet of Rapheal. The Cabinet was real and did meet occasionally and did some good work, but it was always under the benign but compulsive gaze of the incumbent Headmistress, very much like the Pakistani Cabinet under Musharraf.

The batch of 1979 eventually passed out and we were at the threshold of the summit. The clash for the post of Prime Minister for the year 1979-80 was between Christopher Anil Rao, for whom I campaigned, and Ashok Ratnam. Chris was a perfect balance between brain and brawn. He was the nephew (or was he a cousin?) of the Indian Test Cricket player Roger Binny and was simultaneously a good student. Ashok Ratnam was all brawn and was at the bottom of the academic table.

MSD

Mysore S Devaraj or MSD was the other master who left an indelible impression on our minds. In some ways, especially physically and temperamentally, he was the exact antithesis of NRB. MSD taught us Physics and Mathematics. (By the way, it was in MCC that we learnt the habit of addressing people by their initials – NRB, MSD, KB etc. I was to learn that it is something that is practised widely. I am now Cr(NRI), meaning Curator N Ramdas Iyer). In some other ways, like commitment to teaching, professionalism, integrity, mastery of their subjects etc., MSD and NRB were very similar. MSD was a Brahmin and NRB a Lingayat and this is a critical difference in Northern Karnataka.

MSD being from Mysore, did not belong to Shahabad and hence was allotted a quarter in the ABL colony. This was very near MCC and he traveled the distance on foot or bicycle. He was just about five feet tall compared to NRB’s almost six feet. He resembled Sunil Gavaskar. In keeping with the times both masters wore their hair long, a sort of hippy cut, but while NRB sported a pencil line moustache, MSD was clean shaven.

MSD was precise in the lectures on Physics and Maths in the class. He was our class teacher in the 10th Standard. But he had a romantic streak in him as well. Occasionally he would spend a period telling us in graphic detail the story of Julius Caesar. At other times he would launch into a Mukesh number like “Jis gali me tera ghar na ho balma”. Mornings were strictly for serious study both with NRB and MSD. Post lunch sessions saw a lot of story telling and singing.

The way these people taught science brought home the fact that science is human too and that while science itself is rigorous, scientist are human beings. This is something which great scientists like Einstein and Feynman have always understood and advocated and what many pseudo scientists today tend to undermine. That my erstwhile top boss was of the firm belief that a scientist is one who essentially is non vegetarian, atheistic, objective to the extent of being mechanical, devoid of aesthetics and human values and who looked at people as a mixture of amino acids contained in a bag of skin, shows how far ahead of the times were MSD and NRB.