Get Thee to a Nunnery for City Reporter, circa early 2000s

 

Get Thee to a Nunnery

 

The badge of ‘convent-educated’ is one I tried to shake off for many years after I graduated from school. Looking back now, it seems a waste of time- I realised somewhere along the road to maturity that I couldn’t and didn’t want to escape from the influences and the experiences of being a product of Sophia High School, Bangalore, so I might as well sit back and enjoy it.

 

And it was rather enjoyable- the Sisters of Notre Dame were a bunch of entertaining, often irreverent teachers, philosophers and guides. From the Irish-American nuns in their pristine white habits, who were gradually replaced by the Malayali sisters in their peach saris tied flood-level, the Sisters were a source of constant amusement, even inspiration, to us impressionable (but ready to die before admitting it) young girls. 

 

The first memory I have is of a quiet soul with the unlikely name of Sister Anima who was principal when I joined school at the seriously destructive age of 7. She was a mild-mannered, near-invisible presence in her white costume- I was fascinated with her slim brown legs and her unfamiliar Malayali accent. Only much later did I understand and appreciate her impressive quality of gentle governance. 

 

Sister J was the owner of an operatic voice that would put Maria Callas to shame, and trying to follow her soprano in morning assembly made many a young heart quiver- and many a young voice break. Morning assembly- ah, now there’s an institution. Row upon row of prepubescent girls subjected to a stumbling rendition of the day’s headlines, mingled with mutterings of “Our Father who art in heaven”, beautiful hymns and liberally sprinkled warnings against the direst evil in the world- BOYS. (Just being female exposed us to the risk of falling into the darkest pits of temptation.) Thereafter, strict checks to make sure nails were unpainted, eyes un-kohled, shoes polished, socks pulled up knee high and hair tied securely back- and NO TALKING in the file, please! The army was nothing compared to this.

 

Sister L was famous for her hilarious comments- she once enquired of my friend Gayathri- “Gay-a-three, where is gay one and gay two?” In another legendary tale, indoors in a classroom, while some prankster squirted her with water from behind, she exclaimed, “The Lord has brought us rain!”

 

But then there was Sister M with her wizened face and a sense of humour just this side of irreverent, and Sister R with her penchant for Julie Andrews’s songs- and my favourite, Sister Jessina. 

 

You know that one teacher in your life who changes you forever? Who opens up worlds you never thought existed, who breeds in you a love for something that will stay rooted in you for life? Sister Jessina was my personal portal to great literature and writing. She was the first person who cast me in the lead role of a class play- so you could say she sort of had me figured!  

 

She was young and (to my 10-year old eyes) gorgeous. She should have, I thought, been an actress, or a journalist, or something equally glamorous, and I used up all my romantic imagination conjuring up stories about the abuse and destitution that forced her to waste her life being a nun. Contrary to all my imaginings, Jessina seemed a happy person, with no signs, however much I searched for them, of deep trauma and un-fulfilment from not being married, a mountaineer or any of the other parallel paths I would have chosen for her. I so often wonder where she is now.

 

The strong Malayali accent the Indian nuns spoke with made for some miscommunication and often great laughter. Many an hour was spent mimicking the rolling ‘L’ sounds and flat vowels- so much so that after a bit we started talking to each other the same way! To this day I speak to the father of a friend (we call him engle!) with the same accent. So much for posh convent- school English.

 

So many of my milestones were passed with, so many lessons learnt from, so much fun made of these women whose lives were wholly different from any other people I knew. Devout relatives who used to get shocked at the sacrilegious singing of Christmas carols on car journeys to Tirupati still blame ‘that convent school atmosphere’ for the terrible (read: unmarried), disobedient (read: independent) girls my sister and I are today.

 

And so I graduated, having only glimpsed the dreaded enemy (boys!) occasionally and from a distance at school competitions, or when they came to beg for socials yet again (naturally they were refused- the IDEA!); and having studied in a classroom with ‘differently-abled’ kids from the Notre Dame “Opportunity Section” and classmates from every strata of society (our fees were only Rs80 per month).  

 

And I ended up in a co-ed college run by priests. Which is a whole different story….