Reveries

Dusky Musings

It is late afternoon. The sun has set, leaving behind a pale, white light. The scorching Mid-May heat has eased a little. I sit alone on the sofa; feet propped up on the coffee table and watch the lilies in the flower pot sway gently in the soft evening breeze. Looking outside the balcony, one wouldn’t think of switching on the lights. But shadows start darkening certain corners of the room. Furniture, vaguely visible in that half-darkness, assumes a spectral aspect. 

 I open my Facebook page and dig out an old photograph. Carmel Primary School, Class 2, 
Section C.  The principal, Sister Leela flanked by our class teacher, Bipasha Miss, surrounded by the entire batch. “Why did I fish out this photo?” I wonder. Is it nostalgia? Hardly. Nostalgia would imply a yearning to re-live those days of the past. And I have no desire to go back to my school days in Carmel.

Class Photograph - Carmel Primary School, Class 2 C

It’s almost a cliché that school days constitute the idyllic time of one’s life. That’s far from true for me and some of my school friends. Recalling happy memories about Carmel is like excavating a mine in the hope of finding that rare diamond. After quite a bit of thought, two incidents pop-up in my head. One involves Sister Leela. She was not one of those typically oppressive nuns, ready to scathe you with her look or words for the slightest faux pas. She was amiable and perhaps that’s why some of us managed to acquire the courage to ask her for her address when she left for a convent in Australia. After much hesitation, I sent her a letter along with an appropriate card that Ma kindly bought for me. I never expected a reply. But it came! Not to my personal address but to the school’s address. In fact every single girl who wrote to Sister Leela got a reply. Our class teacher called out our names, one by one, we approached the wooden platform and the envelopes were handed over to us. I was eight years old. For the first time I saw my name scrawled neatly on the cover of an envelope. I couldn’t wait to open it! Inside, was a single sheet of ruled paper written over in tidy, cursive handwriting. On one side of the letter was pasted a picture of the Sydney Opera House, neatly cut out from a magazine.  Sister Leela fondly thanked me for the card, mentioned some details that indicated that she remembered me and added a few lines about her life in Australia. It was a simple letter. But for me it was like a talisman that repulsed, for a brief period, the curse that haunted me for the ten years I spent in that school – the curse of invisibility. Suddenly, I was part of a coterie that included the toppers, the teachers’ pets and the average students. The class celebrities were interested in seeing Sister Leela’s letters to us, lesser mortals and we were allowed to see her letters to them. Living miles away from Kolkata, Sister Leela, momentarily acted as the great leveller.

The other memorable incident involves our Life Science teacher in high school. She had distributed our graded answer scripts for the second-term examination. I was thrilled to see that I had received 75 out of 100, which meant that I got an A+. But once I re-checked the total, I realized that it was coming to 74 and not 75. Not very confident about my math skills, I asked a couple of my classmates to re-count. Every time, the total came to the same: 74. “I suppose I have to tell her to correct it”, I said. “Are you mad?” exclaimed my classmates. “It’s just one mark. She has overlooked it. Why don’t you let sleeping dogs lie?” Well, I must confess that I was tempted to lie low because owning up not only meant slipping down a letter grade but also losing the possibility of getting a certificate at the end of the year. The rule was that if a student maintained A+ in a subject for three consecutive terms then she would be awarded a certificate of merit for that particular subject. I had an A+ in Life Science in my first-term examinations and according to the teacher’s calculations I had scored one in the second-term. It was only a matter of maintaining an A+ in the final term, which I was determined to do. But then a voice started droning in my head: “Yes, you would get a certificate. Yes, perhaps, at least one teacher would notice you. But it will all be a lie. Is it worth it?” With a sinking feeling I got up from my bench and approached the teacher’s desk. My heart was pounding. My hands were clammy. Pointing out a teacher’s flaw was not looked upon very kindly at Carmel. I went up to her and said in a small voice; “I am sorry, Miss, but I think my total marks adds up to 74 and not 75”. She gave me a quizzical look, took the answer script from my hand, re-counted the marks and said: “Oh yes, you are right” and promptly changed it. I took the answer script and was quietly walking towards my seat when the teacher remarked: “Wait a minute. You are going down one letter grade, aren’t you?” she asked. “Yes, Miss” said I. She gestured for my script. I handed it over. With one bold stroke she wrote: 74+1=75= A+, smiled at me and said: “That’s for your honesty”. I froze for a bit and then gasped: “Thank You, Miss”! It felt like I had already won the certificate of merit. I wish I could recount more such instances of moral justice and impartiality in my Carmel memoirs. But sadly, I can’t think of any.   

 Recently, I caught up with some of my old school friends. We have long outgrown that blue skirt, white blouse and red sweater (during winter). One of them has turned her talent and passion for dance into a profession. She has made quite a name for herself in the Mumbai cultural scene. The other one is a teacher at a reputed school in Kolkata. But when we talked about Carmel none of us could admit to feeling any allegiance or love for the institution. My dancer friend was quite well-known in school for her talent and performed in almost every function. But, if she were to be asked to place her hand on her heart, even she cannot claim to have been completely happy in Carmel. The fact is one can outgrow one’s uniform. But one can never completely outgrow the slights, the insults, the unjust reprimands, the partiality. And most importantly the indifference – the feeling of being a “nobody” – a non-entity.  That was the story of most of the Carmel girls apart from the few fortunate ones who were either toppers or teachers’ pets or managed to distinguish themselves in some extra-curricular activity. The rest of the lot were treated either as creatures who had to be tolerated or worse still, as invisible beings. No effort was ever made to find out if an average or even a below average student might be good at some extra-curricular activity. For instance, my other friend has a real talent for sketching and painting. But she was never given a chance to employ her artistic skills for the charts/posters that were specially made for the bulletin boards outside the principal’s office or even for the soft-boards in class. Later on in life this friend completed a course in graphic design with flying colours. To put it plainly, Carmel stultified the spirits of most of its pupils instead of allowing them to blossom.

Ironically enough, my first ever job was in Carmel, as a teacher in a leave vacancy position. To my utter surprise, few of my former teachers recognized me – probably because I was the dark horse who had given some of them a bit of a shock with her results in the board exams. In fact, one of the teachers who never taught me in class went out of her way to show me the ropes. I would always be grateful to her. The librarian asked me, her eyes shining brightly: “So, how does it feel to come back to your own school as a teacher?” “It’s nice”, I replied with a polite smile. Her face fell a little. She must have expected a more animated response from me. But the fact is that I felt nothing except a slight contentment at being employed right after finishing my master’s degree. One might think that I must have felt vindicated. After all, I was standing on the same wooden platform from which so many of the teachers and nuns made many of us, lesser mortals, feel utterly worthless with their scathing words or their implicit attitude. But there was no sense of vindication. Because by that time I had been through the portals of another high school, a college and a university. Carmel had shrunk into a puddle. I had begun to hear and answer to the call of the vast ocean. I was preparing to apply for higher studies abroad.

So, did those ten years in school teach me anything? Yes, they did. They taught me what NOT to do as a teacher. One should try one’s best to be fair and impartial. One should never dampen a student’s spirit or an honest endeavour. However, a decade of convent education has also turned me into a task mistress. I cannot suffer laziness, lack of integrity, honesty and sincerity. Audacity and pretentiousness get my hackles up and my verbal whip comes cracking down harder than any nun in a medieval convent. When I judge a student’s work, I try my level best to be fair. But that also makes me brutally honest. I cannot sell justice to buy popularity. These attributes, ironically, at times, make me resemble the very educators I grew up hating. Perhaps, that’s the irony of life. In trying to defeat one’s enemy, one begins to resemble him/her. Then there’s the stultified spirit. Even today I grapple with lack of confidence and battle a sense of inferiority and worthlessness. They are like scars which lose their rawness over time but never quite fade away – haunting reminders of past wounds.

And that brings me to my opening question. Why did I dig out the old photograph that afternoon?  Probably because in that magical hour, as I sat flanked by the pale brightness of twilight and slowly creeping shadows, fragments of memory, scraps of reflection, long-lost feelings and sensations all mingled somewhere in my subconscious. And I instinctively reached out for that age-old picture. As I write today, it seems like that moment embodied my life itself.

Will I look out the balcony until the last glow of twilight fades away and switch on the lights? Or will I let the gradually approaching darkness engulf me?

The answer is still a mystery.