Introduction

In nineteen forty-four, the world was at war. But, the harsh, haunted screams of terrorised, traumatised children did not penetrate the sweet, spreading scent of jasmine, which clung to our garden wall; or, the sounds of the mating call rhythms ‘croak’ and answer ‘aagh’ of frogs in a garden pool. There was no evidence of wartime shortages in my softly caressed, childhood days spent in Carter Road, and the rest of my school years which I spent living on St. Cyril’s Road in Bandra, a suburb of Bombay (Mumbai) - known as the Queen of the suburbs. This seaside suburb had two bumps on either side, bearing the lofty names of Pali Hill and Mount Mary. Short, squat, comfortable, detached bungalows and two-storey houses fringed the rock-strewn beach. Malis tended gardens where rose-crimson bracts of bougainvillea, which faded to magenta, sprawled across verandas; and white-leaved caladiums with a network of green veins, held rutilant raindrops in the setting sun.

1944: Going to school in a gharry, Tiffin Time and Rigorous Rules

My day started with the gharry journey from Carter Road to St. Joseph’s European and Anglo-Indian Convent School on Pali Hill Road. At eight each morning, a slightly built, sunken cheeked man wearing baggy, trousers held up by string, a faded, plaid shirt and a spotless white skull cap arrived at our home. He drove a one-horse gharry; clucking and sucking on a bidi, clenched between toothless gums; and wielded a whip with studied insouciance. He clucked, sucked and talked in that order, while four ample-bosomed ayahs climbed in with four excited girls.

There were two Parsees, one East Indian and one Anglo-Indian, me. There was a sparkle to life, like the sunlight, which bounced off the polished brass lamp of the No. 10 gharry. We squealed, if, the gharry came to a sudden halt. We yelled, curling our legs around the ayahs as it swerved precariously around a corner. Between the squeals and the yells, we all chatted amiably. We children spoke English, exploring and expanding our vocabulary; and the ayahs laughed about the vague vulgarities of life in suburban Bandra, while their fingers levelled, arranged and folded the first paan leaf of the day.

The clippity-clop of horses’ hooves played a rhythmic counterpoint with the seascape sound of swirling, splashing breakers, as the gharry made its way along the sea front. The pungent smell of waving seaweed mixed with the sharp, sun-dried stink of skinny bomblee fish, which swung on bamboo racks. We sat on our ayahs’ laps, clutching our ‘mummy embroidered’ cloth bags. Each bag had been filled with one or two picture books; a small handcrafted wooden box with pencils and erasers; a guava jelly or apricot jam sandwich, a bottle of sweet limejuice and a small glass. When we arrived at St Joseph’s School, Kindergarten Section teachers Totsie Fernandes and Sister Laetitia greeted us enthusiastic five year olds.

‘Tiffin’ for lunch would entail the ayahs making a midday return trip back to the school, with the ayahs carrying serviette wrapped plates and cutlery; warm, aluminium tiffin-carriers of food; home-boiled-then-strained water, seasonal fruit and one shiny anna coin which the ayahs had wound in, and tied to, the end of their saris. The money was only handed over to the children, if no food was wasted. ‘If, you have place for the toffee, then you should have place for all your food’ was the Rule. So, the food was rarely wasted. We children used the money to buy a scoop of convent-made-toffee of jaggery and crushed peanuts. It was still warm and sticky in the aluminium pan. To us, it was sheer bliss. We put the gooey lump into our mouths, sucking the molasses and rolled the soft sweetness from cheek to cheek. The sounds that we made rang like music in our ears. We then sat down to pick our teeth to dislodge the nuts. For a five year old, the experience had a dual edge to it, because, there was purchasing power, combined with sheer culinary fulfilment.

The daily journey had the makings of life in miniature. There was the jostling, pushing and shoving of everyone wanting to be heard at the same time. Excitement lay ahead because we learnt to read aloud and surreptitiously skipped over LARGE five letter words. We joined our first choir, and attempted to sing Action Songs in preparation for the first Musical, entitled ‘A Doll’s Hospital’. The basic piano accompaniment to the five-note melodies was laced with a pleading voice: ‘Please, please try, everyone, not to sing between the cracks of the keys’. How could we?

Young voices never penetrated the dark abyss of cracks in the keys. We didn’t know how to do it. We struggled to write between the blue lines, with our small, clumsy fingers entwined around slim pencils. ‘Only use the rubber - not the rubber and spit. Black holes appear, and that is untidy,’ the teacher would admonish us. We knew most definitely, that these black holes were the original ones, not those other ones, which we learnt about later that languished in space and bewildered scientists. We had our own secrets about black holes.

We learned about the intricate and convoluted world of RIDICULOUS RULES; where, if you OH-DEAR-BROKE-A-RULE, you could end up with a pink, paper tongue, which was tied half way across your face. And why? Because you talked when everyone else was silent. Pink tongues were of symbolic lengths. There were short ones for goody-goody-gum-balls who only muttered two or three words under their breath. Half way down the neck, the length of the tongues told a different story. They were given for whispering two or more sentences. But, the prize of the longest tongues went to the great conspirators; they were the cardinals of conversation, who combined their childhood wisdom with the charming waywardness of clowns.

This resulted in Belly-laughter, which was rewarded with tongues that swept the belly button. ‘And, I do not want to tell you that mine poops in, and I do not want to see yours, if it poops out,’ said the teacher, shrugging her shoulders in resignation. Ah, but it was the ayahs, who enjoyed the spectacle most of all. They arrived to see their missy-babas lined up with pink paper tongues and chuckled behind their saris. On the return journey home, we would snooze, the ayahs would sigh, the horses would snort, and the gharry-driver would smile quietly, because another day was safely and securely tucked away into eternity.

1946: The First Communicants

Nineteen forty-six was a ‘transition class’ year, where we were ushered into a theological area of ‘Firsts’. We made our First Confession and we also received the title of First Communicants. Joan Almeida was our class teacher. She was a gentle woman, with hair swept back from her forehead, and a friendly smile, who attempted to teach us the two basic skills: knitting purl and plain, and how to pray. It all seemed to fit together. You sweated when you dropped a stitch and you sweated when you dropped on your knees.

In the first week of December, I dutifully confessed my sins. The worst, recurring one was disobedience and running a close second to that sin, was neglecting to say my morning and night prayers. We received our First Communion, and now bore a lofty new title, because we were called ‘First Communicants.’ We wore knee-length (only the super-rich had ankle-length), white soft silk, or luxurious lace or trailing taffeta dresses. Hidden under the layers there were cambric ‘Sunday’ knickers with lace and ribbon edging. Frothy nets framed our faces and rested on hair, which had curled overnight, quite miraculously into ‘Shirley Temple’ curls. Hurrah, for damp lengths of rags, which our mothers would wind and wrap around stubborn, straight hair each night. We felt grown-up clutching silk, padded purses, which contained shiny, new rosaries and prayer books with pictures of angelic fair-skinned children.

‘Why aren’t there pictures of girls with our colour?’ I wondered. I already had a sneaky, suspicion that I would never get myself into a prayer book. There were just too many sins to think about confessing each week. My mother was shocked at my observation, saying: ‘Just pray, be good and who knows, you’ll end up in a prayer book!’ Hope, eternal hope never to reach reality. I wonder if prayer books published in India for First Communicants in 2001, have changed since 1946?

Vernon, my younger brother, had to be convinced that my candle was not intended to improve his skill at sword fencing, because there really wasn’t any room for Junior Captain Bloods joining the queue on my First Communion Day. Eventually, my father restored my dignity by repairing the broken candle, and I dutifully smiled for my First Communion photograph, blissful in the thought that I still had all my teeth. Tooth fairies and calcium tablets belonged to the near future.

1947: A ‘watery end’ to the British Raj, and years later meeting the last Viceroy, Lord Mountbatten of Burma

On August fifteenth, nineteen forty-seven, we were lined up, and then formed circles on the school’s front lawn. ‘Of course, you cannot wear a raincoat, and please remove those gumboots,’ the teachers said to us. A flagpole had been erected and the British flag was slowly lowered and the brand new Indian flag was raised. Everyone sang a song in Hindi. We were taught it phonetically and belted it out with all the fervour our hearts could muster. The monsoon rain lashed our faces, and we smartly saluted the Indian flag. The teachers said to us, again: ‘Now remember, there will be no monkey-salaams. You will stand straight, with your shoulders back, and will take this very seriously. This is an important occasion, so there will be no giggling.’

The wind howled, the coconut palms swayed and dipped dangerously, and I could imagine the watery tumbling, and long, splashing seas that spun in the rocky crevices of the beach near my home. It was a monsoon day that is etched forever in my memory. We lowered our hands from our foreheads. We looked up at the unfamiliar flag, which clung to the flagpole. To our astonishment streaks of saffron, green and black colour, slipped down the white pole, settling into a pool. It looked like watered down curry. Not a giggle, not a whisper as we continued to watch the colours run down the flagpole. Piano chords rang out, and the four-bar introduction was thumped out, reaching our ears through microphones, which had not been used for the rehearsals. We sang ‘Rise India’, managing to get our tongues around the words, and wondered what ‘the comrin’s point and evrist peak’ was all about, as the microphone continued to hiss and squeak accompanied by wind and rain.

Years later in 1978, when I lived in Singapore, and taught music at the United World College of South-East Asia, I attended a tea party, for staff and students in honour of Lord Mountbatten, the President of the global United World College educational movement. I found myself standing next to an English woman. I introduced myself to her and she replied: ‘My name is Pamela Mountbatten’. Seizing the opportunity, I said, ‘Oh, I’d love to meet your father. I was a little girl when India was given her Independence.’ Leaning across me, she tapped a man’s shoulder and said: ‘Daddy meet Ann, she was a little schoolgirl in Bombay in ‘47.’ I then looked up into the smiling, blue eyes of a handsome, tall man, with a shock of white hair framing his tanned face. I found myself shaking hands with the charismatic, and controversial, last Viceroy of India, Lord Mountbatten, dressed in tropical fatigues. ‘Mmm, what a dashing, lady-killer,’ I thought to myself, dressed in my crisp, cotton sari, holding a cup of strongly brewed Indian tea. He was delighted to listen to me talk about the ‘watery end’ of the British Raj in ’47, as I experienced it, in St. Joseph’s Convent, Bandra. It also helped in the process of the conversation that I was the only member of the teaching faculty who had read his book, ‘Freedom at Midnight.’ I assured him that the book would make its way into the College library.

1948 to 1955-6: Growing up.

There were many women who taught me in St Joseph’s Convent; they all had strengths and weaknesses. After spending four decades teaching, I can without hesitation pick out three women who influenced me tremendously during my years at St. Joseph’s. They were Sister Bertilla, Betty Vincent and Mrs. Foulds.

Music: Trinity College examinations, boogie-woogie and Bertilla.

Western Classical music was taught according to the Music Curriculum Gospel of the Trinity College of Music, London. When the examiner arrived for a day of practical examinations, his stay was punctuated with lavish hospitality, and unnecessary ‘bowing and scraping’, which had little to do with the art of musical performance. ‘I always remembered to starve, before going to examine in an Indian convent – they fed you so well,’ a Trinity College examiner said to me, years later, in England, when I was taking over from him as Head of Music in a London school.

The exquisite convent cuisine was served on crisp, lace tablecloths and polished silver. We candidates tiptoed all over, breathless with excitement, and entirely happy to be rid of the two pieces and two studies we had been learning for a year. The examiner from Trinity College was the Brahmin of music from Blighty - so he must know his Bach and Beethoven. We had a major celebrity in our midst. We knew how to slide our hands with elegantly executed slurs and phrases. We held the wrist just right to play shatterable staccato, and the lengths of legato phrases were smooth and silky. All scales and arpeggios were played a suitable tempo of allegretto and we would impress this Englishman that girls in our convent could read music at sight.

Gosh, we were so full of ourselves as we lined up to play the piano for the one-man audience. The routine to learn the piano was rigid. There was no room for improvisation or creativity, and my boogie-woogie or rock ‘n roll skills were studiously ignored, but let’s face it, the strict regime worked for me. I have enjoyed a wonderful career, where I often said to myself, ‘And they are paying me good money for having such fun!’

I must pay a special tribute to Sister Bertilla who taught me music up to the Associate level. She imparted a skill to me, which has kept me steadily employed for many years - in two continents, three countries and thirteen schools and colleges. And, that is saying something in the field of education, which is becoming increasingly globally demanding and competitive.

I completed the Fellowship Diploma of Trinity College in 1965 with another gifted teacher but the rock solid foundations were Sister Bertilla’s. As the Fellowship is accepted as Further Education or Advanced Levels in the United Kingdom, I was able to enter the University of Reading to read for the Bachelor of Education (Honours) in 1986. On completion, I entered Higher Education at the University of London, Institute of Education, completing the Master’s degree (1988) followed by the Doctoral degree (1994). Undoubtedly, music was the stepping-stone to this avenue of education.

Now I think nostalgically of those hours, which I spent in the small first-floor music room, which you could cross, in Sister Bertilla’s absence, with a hop, step and two jumps. The wooden floor resounded with heavy thumps and crashing chords, and all would cease when we heard the swish of her rosary as she turned the corner to climb the steps to this airy, light-filled room. The wooden windows gently creaked like a lullaby when the tide rolled in. The spiral cane stool, always wobbled when I sat on it, each Tuesday and Friday morning from 8 – 8:30. I would keep one eye on the keyboard. Half of the other eye was kept on the book. A quarter of the eye hovered on her slim beat-tapping stick, which could move with the speed of summer lightning to rap my knuckles. A quarter of the eye was on the old West End clock, which ticked away on the top of the upright piano. I did not wear a watch, and had developed a sixth sense for the school bell and the start of school, which Sister Bertilla studiously ignored.

On Saturday mornings from 9 – 10 she taught theory on a soft-rolled five-line stave ‘board’, which swayed with each punch of the chalk on its surface. I would occasionally differ with her and she had her standard phrase. ‘Stay behind, I want to talk to you.’ I knew what she would tell me in private: ‘Don’t show-off, just because you have perfect pitch.’ Ah! She did not belong to the breed of teachers who would be humbled in any way by their students. She was the guru and I her chela, and there was just no other way of managing the relationship.

She was unimpressed with the brilliance of Bill Haley’s simple chords and phenomenal success. The effortless curves of soothing melodies of Nat King Cole’s ballads eluded her. She was a musical law to herself, and I obeyed her law. When I completed the Associate (A.T.C.L.) practical exam with her in 1955, she told me I was the youngest candidate she had ever sent up for the examination. Her prize for me was a cloth bound 1880 edition of Beethoven’s 32 sonatas. I still number the collection among my treasured possessions.

Thank you, Sister Bertilla for passing on your skill to me. I in turn have passed on my skills, albeit realising that teaching in the world of composing with computers and the easily accessible sounds of portable keyboards, could not be taught as rigidly as you did. You lived in a ‘Once upon a long ago’. Didn’t you?

1950: Drama – The Magic of Theatre in Standard Three

Betty Vincent fired our imagination when she embarked on creating a theatre out of our classroom in 1950. She understood our longing to experience and enter a world of make believe. The texts helped us to speak thrillingly, and we blinked in the sudden light as we emerged as fantastic flowers, tall, trembling trees and adventurous animals. The darkened classroom was filled with the magic of movement, costumes heightened by hand-held battery torches, filling us with the first shaky knees of live performance. She listened to me, oh so gently, as I told her of my plans for the future. She smiled, oh so gently when I rattled on: ‘I’m going to Hollywood Miss Vincent. I am going to marry Errol Flynn!’

Thank you Betty, you laid the seeds of my love affair with the stage. Later on, I taught drama in a College and I have directed many musicals too. You gave me the first heady taste of balancing the battles of backstage management, conducting school orchestras and choirs, and attempting to build up confidence in terrified teenagers, and eventually earning the sweet, rapturous sounds of applause. You helped me enormously to marry the two arts of Drama and Music.

The Pygmalion Theory – Teacher Expectation

Mrs. Foulds ‘fostered’ our class for three months from January to March 1956. We had completed the Senior Cambridge examinations and instead of ‘slumming’ it for three months, she introduced us to the hard ‘slog’. We dived deep into brand new syllabi, and successfully sat for the Secondary School Certificate (Poona Board). She gave us an invincible belief in ourselves, as we sat around the table-tennis table in the library, and voraciously devoured the SSC curriculum’ like people coming off a fat-free diet. She created a cerebral, female myth among the guys on the opposite side of the road. We were beautiful, super bright and bang on target to get First Classes. Legends and myths take a long time to disappear, and it was wonderful to know that you made the Pygmalion Theory successful in practice. You provided the safety net for those who failed to pass the Senior Cambridge. Gee, Mrs. Foulds, what a wonderful idea you had for us in 1956.

1955-1956: Good-bye to school

After the final assembly, we received a small, held-in-the-palm green book, that was filled with more don’ts than do’s. It should have been a red book signalling danger. It gave us Catholics and non-Catholics the laws about sexuality within the confines of the Roman Catholic Church. Now, they tell us, as if we did not know. There was nothing tempestuous or turbulent about it. It was spiritless and sterile in its brevity.

‘We’re being short-changed as usual,’ said one of the girls.

‘No, you just don’t get the point,’ said another, flicking through the pages. ‘It is short enough, so that we can add the extra pages to it. Isn’t that the excitement of what exploration is all about? We have to use our imagination. See you in twenty years,’ she said laughing at our disappointment. That was nineteen fifty-six, and forty-five years ago, and I wonder how many pages she added to her book in all these years.

‘Don’t take it too seriously,’ said a third girl.

‘Life is what you make it, as my mum says. We all have our lives ahead of us. We can’t learn to love anyone else, unless we first learn to love ourselves,’ said another.

‘I think we are a wonderful, bunch of girls, and the boys in St. Stanislaus, St. Mary’s and St. Andrew’s would agree with me,’ said another, grinning with anticipation.

‘We’ll have handsome, loyal husbands,’ said another excitedly.

‘We’ll all have clever children, maybe someone will win a Nobel Prize for Science or Literature,’ laughed another.

‘And, we’ll spice up our lives with love and laughter, like we do our curries, so let’s kiss and hug one another and wish ourselves the best life can offer,’ said another.

1990: Revisiting Bandra – nostalgia.

In 1990, when I last visited Bandra, I sat on the beach, which led from Carter road. I retraced my childhood steps. I breathed the salt filled air, sniffed at the aromas from the food carts, with spicy bhel-puri; watched and laughed at children sucking on cool, rose scented ice-lollies and indulged in conversations with people surprised to see me – a gora memsahib - sitting on a rock.

‘Imagine finding you here of all places,’ said one woman. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Watching the sun set,’ I said.

It hasn’t quite set on the Class of ’55, because a number of my friends, and, we have stayed friends all these years, are jet-set grandmothers with a different vision for ourselves as we enter the Third Age.

E-mail to: Ann Lobo