2. hair loose. They frown upon religious customs not theirs. So grin and bear it. Or send your kids to other schools. No one asked me where I wanted to study but since I was there I took it in my stride probably because even then I wasn't interested in any religion, even mine.
3. Yes, we were taken to church and those of us who were not there for the purpose intended spent our time at the back playing knots and crosses or whispering dirty jokes. And no, the Good Lord did not smite us. Anyway who cared? They were bigger things to worry about. Read on...
4. I studied in a Jesuit-run boys' school. I don't think they had problems with Hindu festivals. I remember teachers and students came to school sporting rakhis on the occasion. One thing I did learn there was to say 'F**K OFF', because everyone used it from Principal to peon!
5. The first time I heard the word 'bastard' was when a teacher on a cycle, came up behind us laggards as we were walking during a long distance run and said "come on you bastards, run!" I asked a senior "Why is he calling us bustards?" I got a pitying look and then "look up the
6. "f*****g Oxford dictionary." I did. I think we must have been the only school that gave away beer bottles as prizes at school fetes. I'm sure no Hindi or Marathi medium school ever did that. We studied Shakespearean English which was then explained in colloquial English.
7. I never understood why we did Shakespeare. But it was because of Twelfth Night that I learnt that there were other meanings to the word 'pregnant'. And 'missionary position' didn't mean getting on our knees to pray. We felt so superior when asked what our English textbook was
8. and said 'Lord of The Flies' or 'Room with a View' or 'Far From the Madding Crowd' and erroneously presumed our peers from 'govt-run English medium' schools looked at us with awe! Even today I wonder, apart from the first one, which idiot chose the other two as textbooks.
9. I still tease a friend who studied at one such 'Govt-run English Medium' school. She is today the hotshot head honcho of an MNC while I'm spending my time on Twitter writing rubbish like this. I mean, when you are taught English by a propah Englishman who came to India to
10. teach the Queen's English to natives, one did tend to look down one's nose. While Christian schools did make you bit of a snob, things were never so blatantly religious as they are today. Who's to blame for that turn of events? But they were better managed than most others.
11. That doesn't mean non-missionary schools were bad, or badly run. When students of another Jesuit-run school came visiting, there we were in our starched shirts and trousers, tie and coat looking down on the ruffians from downtown, without ties, shirt tails out, laces undone
12. who were probably pulled out of a football match. That's why i hate wearing ties today. There was a girls school next door who we also looked down upon or up at, depending on whether the girls were standing or sitting. Uhh! So, maybe things have changed from my school days.
13. I realised early in life that places of worship or prayers left me unmoved. So, instead of desecrating them, I stopped entering them unless forced. Ok, so I sang hymns in the school assembly because it was a compulsion. It wasn't a conversion. I can't remember a single line
14. of any of the hymns today. I mean, if I my family were against my attending a missionary school, they would have put me in the school in the neighbourhood. The word 'hardcore' as it is being associated today for religionists wasn't there then. It had only one connotation for
15. schoolboys and it had nothing to do with religion! Today, so many years later, I wonder whether some people make too much of such schools. Seriously, I could have become a junkie, an alcoholic, a priest or a wastrel. But by fluke, I ended up becoming a journalist. Don't know
16. which is worse. Oh, my son studied at one of those govt-aided schools, became headboy, is now studying in Europe, and doing brilliantly. Sorry for boring you with sarcasm. But you had the choice of not reading it. And finally, I was inspired to begin this in the loo. Cough.
