Two Extraordinary Schools

In September 1949, Pitaji, my Nana, moved from Bharatpur to Udaipur as a Rajasthan High Court Judge and, of course, I went along with him and Mataji, my Nani. Pitaji knew Shri Mohan Singh Mehta, a renowned educationist who had founded a number of educational institutions among which was the Vidya Bhawan School in Udaipur which I joined in Class VII.

This was a unique school which catered to an overall development of a child than just learning Academics. To start with, it was co-educational for both boys and girls, something remarkable in those days particularly in a largely purdah dominated state of Rajasthan. Boys and girls studied and played together right from junior classes to Class X, the highest class in school.

There was whole day packed schedule for students. As a day scholar, I was picked up early in the morning by a tonga along with 4-5 other kids. On arrival at School, we started with Physical Training followed by a light breakfast. Classes commenced at 9 am till 1.30 pm which was lunchtime when we could have our own tiffin or opt to eat with the hostellers. This was followed by a Rest period for which we had our own bedding stowed in lockers. We would take the bedding out and spread it in the verandah and lie down/sleep for one hour.

At 3 pm, it was time to get up and pursue a hobby of our choice such as carpentry, pottery, folk dancing, etc. A quick snack and it was time for games like hockey, football or volleyball. Cricket was not very popular then but we did play it at times. At 6 pm, it was time to go home in our tongas.

A certain number of days were allotted for going outdoors. When the weather was pleasant such as after rain or cool and sunny, the students and teachers could take a decision to go out and visit a nearby village or farm field. I had my first taste of fresh sugarcane juice on such a day.

In less than a year, the Udaipur bench of the Rajasthan High Court was wound up and Pitaji was transferred to Jaipur. My association with Vidya Bhawan would have ended then but Mummy, who was teaching in Bharatpur,  was selected to undergo B.Ed. in the Vidya Bhawan Teachers’ College in Udaipur. So it was decided that I would continue for another year at the School. Special permission was taken to keep me with Mummy at the Women’s hostel and we were given a small single room instead of a dormitory. It was fun having many aunties showering their affection on the lone boy in their midst!

For their practical training, the ladies at the Teachers’ College were assigned to conduct some classes at our School. As they came from different parts of India, their accents and mannerisms provided some comic relief to the mostly Rajasthani students. I particularly remember a Punjabi Maths teacher holding a geometry class at which she stated, “A suker +B suker =C suker”. Nobody could understand her despite her repeating it a number of times. Beginning to lose her cool, she went to the blackboard and wrote, “A square +B square =C square”. The mystery was solved but the class broke into loud laughter resulting in punishment though the teacher could not fathom what was funny!

Our headmaster, Shri KL Bordia, was a well-known educationist. He was soft-spoken but firm and respected and loved by the students. One outstanding teacher was Shri Devi Lal Samar who conducted folk dancing classes. I was fortunate to have known him for the two years I was at School but shortly afterwards, he left to become the Founder/Director of the Bharatiya Lok Mandal which popularized Rajasthan folk dances and puppetry all over India. He earned national recognition  and was awarded the Padma Shri in 1968.

I spent only two academic years in Vidya Bhawan but loved the concept of the School and remember it fondly. In all these years, I have not met too many people familiar with the School. But in 1987, Shri Jagat Singh Mehta, then Foreign Secretary and son of the founder of Vidya Bhawan, visited Singapore and I invited him for dinner at our house. He was thrilled to learn that I had studied in that School and we exchanged lots of notes about the institution. Over the years I have made a number of trips to Udaipur and make it a point to visit the hallowed grounds of the School. I am glad to see that the old building still exists though it has been extended and other blocks have come up but the general topography with vast playing grounds still remains the same.

After Mummy finished her B.Ed. in May 1951, she was appointed as Asstt Headmistress in Maharaja’s Girls School, Jaipur. So we joined Pitaji and Mataji and it was nice for the four of us to be together again after two years.

Now the question was which school I should go to. Pitaji and Mummy were keen on St. Xavier’s but I protested for two reasons. Firstly, it was an English medium school and as I had so far studied only in Hindi medium ones, I felt I would not be able to cope up with the change. Secondly, Xavier’s followed January-December academic year and joining it in mid-year would mean a loss of one year apart from having to complete the new syllabus in six months instead of the full year. So I was keen on Mahavir School close to our house but Pitaji would have none of it and said one year was a small price to pay to go to a fine school!

And a very fine school it turned out to be! The School was the brainchild of Sir Mirza Ismail, Dewan of Jaipur in the 40s and the architect of modern Jaipur, who wanted nothing but the best for the city. A Christian school named St. Mary’s Boys’ had been started in 1941 and Sir Mirza decided to give charge of the School to the Society of Jesuits in ’43. Then in ’45, the School shifted to its 21 acre present location and renamed St. Xavier’s School.

Apart from following the international syllabus of Cambridge University, what really made the School outstanding was the total dedication and devotion of the founding Jesuit Fathers and the personal attention they paid to each student. The Fathers of those days were legendary and each one of us who studied under them remembers them most fondly and reverently. My earlier post “Fathers who art in Heaven” describes them in detail. To briefly recapitulate, there was the strict disciplinarian but ever smiling Principal Fr. Mann followed by the gentle Fr. Wiizbacher, my favourite teacher the cigar smoking Fr. Pinto, folk singer and cricketer Fr. Mackessack, the Saturday evening movie showman Fr. Cosgrove, the genial photographer Fr. Wilmes who continued to look after the alumni affairs till his passing away not too long ago, the baseball expert Fr. Batson who now has the new School Sports Complex named after him, the man who introduced basketball in Rajasthan Fr. Berney, the small built but muscular live wire on the sports field Brother Nehr etc. etc. All larger than life legends and I remember them so vividly it seems like yesterday!

Some devoted Indian teachers need mention too. Shri Hukam Singh taught us Hindi, Shri Misra geography and the ever popular Miss Francis the junior classes. The last named was still her sweet, charming self when I met her just a few years ago.

Getting back to my schooling, I found the going tough for the first six months and was in the lower half of the class in the VII standard finals. By half-yearlies next year, I had worked up to fifth position and topped the class in the finals. That position I maintained over the next two years ending with a first division in Senior Cambridge exams with As in English Language and Literature!

Out of school hours, I joined Fr. Mackessack’s singing class and learnt American, Irish and Scottish folk songs. That led to my developing interest in Western music. I also made it to the School Cricket team as a batsman and occasional trundler.

St. Xavier's counterpart was the Maharani Gayatri Devi School for girls (MGD). Under the martinet principal of MGD, Miss Lutter, no contact between the two schools was permitted. The only time we got to visit MGD was for the final Senior Cambridge exams for which due to small numbers (in our case in 1954, 9 boys and 4 girls), MGD was the single centre in Jaipur. There too, we were admitted just before the exam, with no contact, not even eye, between boys and girls. No wonder that despite being two top schools, MGD girls and Xavier boys never formed life partnerships. Among the girls that I knew, Tara Mathur, Chandralekha Sahai, and the two sisters Kishen and Bishen, all married non-Xavierites though Kishen and Bishen found two naval officers, RN Singh and Vijai Shekhawat with the latter rising to become the Naval Chief. The other naval chief from Jaipur, Madhvendra Singh, a Xavierite, married Kumud from Nepal and my own wife, Akhila, came from Bijnor.

I remember one other visit to MGD to see a play performed by the theatre company Shakespeareana featuring Geoffrey and Laura Kendal with their daughters Jennifer and Felicity and our own Shashi Kapoor. As we know, Shashi Kapoor and Jennifer soon fell in love and got married.

The Senior Cambridge exams brought an end to my schooling. I consider myself fortunate to have studied in two distinguished and unique schools thanks to Pitaji's insistence.

My own insistence led me to join the NDA!