THE FIRST
My school days were 1951-1960, we had 10 years of schooling, which always led my son to complain how lucky we were since they had twelve years of schooling. In school, I was not quite bothered with examinations; my parents were of course worried at my lack of brilliance but eventually adjusted to my performance being comfortably mediocre; in a class of about 40, my position in class was around the 7th or 8th. My father started to joke about it and I too happily settled down. Once in 1956, to my complete amazement I stood 5th. I could not repeat the stellar performance again.
But 1956 was a difficult year in school; in our school till Class 6 there used to be two batches, so that classes were 6A or 6B but from 7 there was only a single section. So there used to be a selection which would be drastic. I had no worries on that score; in fact I started showing some skills in Arithmetic. Mr. Tarafdar used to teach us the subject and he was really skilled once a month, he would come into class and immediately set two or three questions and admonish us: Beware of traps and would borrow a sheet of paper from us solve the questions at lightning speed, while we would poke around looking for traps. At the end of the class we would submit the papers and after a day or two we would get the papers marked out of 10 and in red, marking the mistakes. Once, and this is actually my friend Deb’s story, who remembers it clearly, Mr Tarafdar cam to class with the corrected papers and held back our papers. In his loud voice, he called us to approach him, with the query “Who cheated from whom”?; it appeared that we had scored full marks each. But we used to sit at two extreme corners away from each other. We protested how could we have cheated, when we noticed a gleam in his eyes. He had cracked a joke. Deb tells us this story with great gusto every time we meet; he does not recall too many events from the past but it is funny so in deference to Deb, who is my closest friend in school and I thought perhaps the brightest in our batch and still perks up when we meet, I thought of including this item.
Our class years were evenly placed; Class 1 was in 51, class 2 in 52 and so on and then Class 10, when we appeared for the Senior Cambridge Examinations, was in 1960. Prior to that in 1959, we encountered the toughest looking Jesuit, Rev Father James W Cox SJ who took charge of us, taught us English and basically, provided us with guidelines which have stood us in good stead in later life. We respected him and kept in touch with him through our lives and whenever we met him, it always felt great. How an American would settle down in Patna and look after batches of boys each year training them for life is difficult to comprehend. When Father Cox stopped teaching, some people had thought that he would probably return to the US; he did actually but could not stay and returned in a short while and became an Indian citizen. Our class mate, Vinay Jha, who was then an IAS officer in the Ministry of Home Affairs organized Fr Cox’s pledge of allegiance to the country; if only Vinay had informed me, I would have gone to listen to Fr Cox pledging his allegiance in Hindi. He was a great man. I recall vividly that day in late 1960, just before we stopped attending classes and preparing for the December examinations, the lecture when Fr Cox provided us with an evaluation of our batch. He would march up and down while speaking when he asked ” So did you meet my expectations?” And he answered it in his usual stern manner, “NO!”. There was shocked silence in the class, we had our heads down when he began speaking again ” You exceeded them” and of course there was boisterous laughter all around. Fr Cox could be seen grinning away. Together with the Principal of our time, Father Gordon E Murphy, they made a very balanced team. When they passed away, the funeral processions were enormous and showed the affection of many people in Patna for these two Jesuits. Extraordinary school teachers and my first stroke of luck was having gone to that school for my education. I should devote another piece perhaps to the school.
In 1959, we had to choose our subjects for the Senior Cambridge. Somehow I did not like Biology, although we had a great teacher in the subject. And I was sure that I would not like to be a doctor. Nor was I going to be an engineer and I did not try for the entrance examinations to the IIT. I wanted to study aeronautical engineering I had bragged to a younger student and for that I needed to study Physics seriously. But Reality was grinning and waiting to pounce on me. I had chosen to take Religious Knowledge: Father Murphy tried to dissuade me from taking that subject. But I was pretty good with the Scriptures and of course there was Additional Mathematics. But the Senior Cambridge Examinations Results were somewhat quite unexpected. Results would take a long time to be announced since papers had to travel abroad, graded and so on. However, thinking back, given the logistics of the period, they did a damn good job. Our examinations were over in December 1960 while our corresponding batch who were writing the, say the Secondary Board Examinations in their Class 11 (no mistake, then they took the school leaving exams in Class 11) only in February/ March 1961 and their results would appear in May or June and we would join them for College in July. So there was a gap of about 6months or so when we had nothing to do specially those of us who were not writing the entrance examinations for IIT or Pre medical; those guys had a tough time. Around then, we found out from School that St. Xavier’s College in Calcutta were running a bridge course for four months for a modest fee. And my parents immediately sent me off to join. I was actually leaving Patna for the first time and would never return except for brief visits. I was not even 16, when I was put into Toofan Express by myself, with a steel trunk; I sat on the trunk almost the whole journey from Patna to Calcutta some eight or nine hours. I was to stay in Dover Lane with my maternal grandmother. I was sure that I could travel from Howrah station by myself to Dover Lane. And so I did.
Was this my First Mistake or was it an opportunity ?
Even now some sixty years later, I still cannot say what it was. Still it was momentous moving from Patna to Calcutta. I remember I was excited moving to Calcutta. First was the sense of independence; although I would be staying with my grandmother, I would be going to college, possibilities were endless. Having reached home, the next day I travelled to St Xavier’s College on Park Street which also had some of the most exciting restaurants. I remember meeting the Vice Principal Fr de Bon-homme who immediately admitted me and packed me off to class. I was to attend classes in Maths, Physics and Chemistry daily. The classes were fun, I remember running into Fr Goreaux. Extraordinary person. Maybe this was an opportunity after all.
Anjan Mukherji 