My Alma Mater, St.Helena's School, Pune.
As we went back and forth on the Core Group via WhatsApp, regarding the sequence of events that would unfold during our 25th Reunion on 24th June 2017, a couple of our team members categorically told me that I would have to give a speech! I had been the Head Girl of my batch and had also represented the school during elocutions and debates, and so they insisted I speak a few words. At first I tried to wriggle out of the responsibility, telling them to find a worthier candidate (they found this most shocking!) but both of them absolutely insisted upon a speech, with the remaining core committee chiming in their agreement too.
And so I thought I would come back from our sojourn up North and would pen down a few words just before the reunion. Imagine my horror when, one hot summer's day in Delhi, I received a message from the group saying they wanted to print my speech in the Memoir Book and needed it before the end of next day. So in the middle of sight seeing and admiring Mughal architecture under a scorching sun and gorging on North Indian delicacies, I had to actually write! I had to borrow my husband's lap top since I wasn't carrying my own and had to sit down and write, after our day had finally ended at 12 midnight. It took me a couple of hours to write this, it was fun after I actually began and got into the groove and I finally finished the speech and mailed the group by 2:00 am!
Last Sunday afternoon a dear aunt and her family came to our house for lunch. In the midst of all the chatter and feasting on ice cream, she did not get adequate time to go through the memoir book in detail. She herself writes beautifully and so she was especially keen. I told her I had been mulling over the idea of putting up the speech on my blog, so fellow Helenites who missed the reunion could read it and I would do it soon. I have reproduced it verbatim from the original. (In other words I have copy pasted it!). Here it is!
From Anupama's Desk
Our dearest teachers and my fellow
Helenites, (notice that I still say Helenites and refuse to use the word ‘ex’!
Once a Helenite, always a Helenite!
I would like to welcome you all to the 25th
reunion of the batch of 1992. Precisely twenty five years and four months ago,
we were hard at work, studying for our much dreaded and much awaited ICSE
exam. Today, we realize it was the first
of many challenges life would throw our way. Our teachers had prepared us so
well for the ICSE and it is that training which has stood us in good stead. No
matter which field we chose in life, no matter where we travelled, we have
excelled in our respective fields and continue to do so. We stand head and
shoulders above the rest, though I say it myself, I know I speak for all of us.
The credit for our achievements, clichéd as it may sound, lies in the roots
that gave us wings to fly: our teachers.
No matter where we may be, we remember you
all at any given moment. Whether it is while explaining concepts of various
subjects to our own children or to our students, while reading a poem, or while
travelling, or while watching a classic movie and humming each song along with
the lead pairs, listening to or using a foreign language, conversing fluently
in Hindi, doing the household accounts, making a hand written list, admiring a
work of art or while using computers, or exercising or playing a sport to keep
fit, you, our dear teachers loom large in our minds. You rank really high for
us, the people who molded us, guided us, yelled at us or gently corrected us,
as the need may have been. You cannot even imagine how your words remain deeply
engraved on our minds. It takes but a WhatsApp chat trail or a mini reunion (or
the planning of a mega one!), or a sepia tinted school photo doing the rounds
to revive many, many fond memories. I quote:” Recall it as often as you wish, a
happy memory never wears out.” Truer
words were never said. Our memories of our school days are such happy ones!
Never mind if we got pulled up by Miss. Massih herself for the wrong patterned
uniform, or that we were caught eating in class or rebuked for using bad
language or chastised for rushing pell-mell down the ancient wooden stairs, at
the risk of breaking our necks. It was our safe, secure world, where the only
stress was wondering which vegetable Mummy had made for our tiffins, or whether
our friend had brought our favourite veggie or pickle that day or whether we
would pass the Maths test or if we had enough money for a visit to the tuck
shop to buy Zebra sweets or Bobbies! How fortunate we were that our parents
chose St.Helena’s School for us. How proud we are that she is our Alma Mater.
Those were the wonder years. The
friendships and the little cliques that were formed during our school days
remain alive and thrive even to this day. Such is the beauty of being school
friends, that although years may pass by
before we meet, whenever we do, we reconnect as if we had never parted that
long ago March day. There’s a comfort factor that’s peculiarly unique to each
batch and so it is with us. We have all eaten India Ice cream under the ‘shady’
tree, we’ve gone through adolescence together, had fights, burst into tears,
gone for sleepovers, laughed at the silliest jokes possible, agonized over
miserable marks in a particular test, worn super short P.T uniforms (and
imagined that our gangly legs and bony knees looked stunning!) we’ve
experienced it all. We knew each other before we knew our college friends,
husbands and colleagues, we have experienced so many things together, have had
so many firsts as a group. The 8th standard Mahabaleshwar trip
experiences, our concerts, choir festivals, debate and elocution competitions,
sports events and games, our 10th standard socials with the Bishops
boys, our first board exams, to name but
a few. Whenever we meet our fellow Helenites, we fit together like pieces of a
puzzle that had been scattered by the wind and has now been safely gathered up.
Many of our girls could not make it to the
reunion today and we are missing them sorely. Some of us are here from far
flung lands, some of us never moved out of our home town, but wherever we may
be, our school and our teachers and all those associated with it hold a very
special place in our hearts. The green uniform, which we grumbled so much about
during our days, stands out today in our minds, as the one cohesive factor that
united us. Coupled of course, with our green bloomers, black ribbons, black
shoes and white socks that the teachers and prefects were forever asking us to
pull up! See what I mean by comfort factor? Would I have dared mention green
bloomers from any other podium?
We were a highly spirited batch. The
average IQ for our batch was super high and some of us still have those IQ
cards because we were all tested together in school! But sometimes we used our
brains to get out of doing work. I guess it’s now time to disclose to our
teachers that one really dark and dreary monsoon day, to get out of giving a
Maths test with Mrs. Iyer in 9 B, we managed to turn off the main electricity
switch for the entire floor. We instigated our bell monitor to flip the switch
on her way out to ring the bell. It really was too dark to see and gave us the
perfect excuse for refusing to give the test. 10 B had a Chemistry test at the
same time and they later told some of us that it really was impossible to see
what they were doing, but Mrs. John refused to cancel their test! The switch
was turned back on when the monitor went out to signal the end of the Maths
period and no one was the wiser that we had actually managed to play a trick a
la Mallory Towers and St.Clares!
We were in 9th standard when
Mrs. Thadani had Ashwin, Mrs. Dinshaw’s daughter had Lianne and Mrs. Iyer’s
daughter too had a baby. Close to Mrs. Thadani’s due date, we spent every lunch period before
every Biology test, praying that the right hormones ( which Mrs. Thadani
herself had taught us about) would get to work, land her in hospital and make
us miss the test! No such luck! That was also the time each of these teachers
put me in charge of their classes, to teach and to productively use the period
to make the class do the work they had set out well in advance. I truly tried
my best and I can honestly say I learnt how hard it was to be in their shoes,
in charge of fifty girls! My respect for all our teachers went up many notches
in those few months.
Our children are horrified when we tell
tales out of school and they cannot believe how terrible and incorrigible we were!
But all good things come to an end and so did our school life….But all said and
done, we were good kids, as I’m sure our teachers will be more than willing to
testify. Of course we are no longer sixteen going on seventeen, innocent as
roses, like in the song Ms. Postwalla taught us! No, for our 25th
reunion, we can safely be described as ‘ Roses in full bloom’ but Mrs. Dinshaw herself explained to us ‘ A rose by any other
name would smell as sweet.’
Lastly, I don’t want to brag or make anyone
jealous, but I can still fit into the ear rings I wore in High School!
Thank you.
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