Haunting Remembrances - Chapter V

St. Anthony's High School - First Impressions

In the spring of '75, as Shillong was dressing up in the choicest finery for the new season, with new leaves sprouting to replace their withered ancestors in the trees; and new roses, dandelions and cherry blossoms opening their hearts to suffuse the air of Shillong with their fresh-born color and fragrance, I too found myself in the spring of a new phase of my life.

With my heart still grieving the loss of Shishu Mandir, busy preparations were afoot to set me forth on my life's next journey. Amid some vacillation between St Edmund's and St Anthony's as the most suited to take me on that journey - my friends, Wanbok and Klensing having already opted for the latter, and I too, set to follow suit - my cousin Ranjit, then just passed out of Edmund's, pressed forth his advocation for his former school as "much better" for me than St Anthony's. But as it was too late in the day, and the half-hearted attempt at effecting that change proving futile, it so came about that Destiny's will it was that I should be an Anthonian, and a staunch Anthonian I became, in due course. The preparatory events that ensued in the execution of that will - buying my new uniform from Lila Brothers and getting my new books after scouting several bookstores in Police Bazar, starting with Chapala Book stall - so excited me that I must admit with all honesty that even Shishu Mandir was momentarily relegated to a back seat.

So I set out on that exhilarating first day to my new school with my father, in our old Fiat 1100D. Attired smartly in a spotlessly white shirt; a sharply ironed pair of gray trousers; a glossy new navy blue cardigan with bright yellow lines on the hems around the cuffs and the waist and the neck; a shiny new badge of St Anthony's pinned to my chest; and a pair of shining new shoes with navy blue socks; the spirit of St Anthony's was already dominant in my heart and mind. As I recall with such clarity now, I sat still the whole way, with so many thoughts running amok in my mind that I was totally unconscious of all my favorite landmarks passing me by - the road to Shishu Mandir; the wooded hills of Kench's Trace; the expansive open spaces of the Garrison Ground; and the Rhino Cinema Hall, ensconsed in that beautiful grove of pines on the slope. I didn't realize when we crossed the Civil Hospital, Barik, Malki, Dhankheti and St Paul's Cathedral; and had come to a halt at Don Bosco Square.

Getting out of the car, I recall being momentarily spellbound as I was held in rapture by the cascading facade of my new school, the steep red roof with its fine skylights and the spires rising grandly out of them. That particular perspective filled me with thrill and pride, not just when I viewed it for the first time, but every time I looked upon it during the years I spent in its hallowed company. When I followed meekly behind my father up that expansive flight of steps to the main lobby with the high ceiling, where images of events and sportsmen and colorful pictorials looked back at me from the big notice boards, I felt overpowered by the sheer magnitude, novelty and gravity of the place. Many parents, with their wards in tow, were silently passing in and out of the huge doorway leading to the corridor, into which we presently passed, and whereupon we were accosted by a Brother in a spotless white, flowing cassock, who gently guided me straight to the assembly then gathering on the field. That was the farthest my father was allowed to go, and I ascended with shaky legs and a throbbing heart the steps to the sandy playground, whereupon I found myself instantly among a large congregation of students, standing in neat rows in their respective segments, denoting different classes, starting from Class 1. I kept walking tremulously through that crowd, unable to find my class 4B. My throat parched and heart in tumult, and my feeble and barely audible queries to some among the assemblage meeting with blank eyes, I was on the verge of despair when I found myself being pulled suddenly into the segment I was searching for (who exactly did me that kind turn, I am at a loss to recollect). There I stood, extremely still, feeling very timid and vulnerable, with a trepidation that I seemed unable to overcome, looking anxiously for my father in the crowd of parents looking on from the corridor below the ground. There I spotted father, looking at me eagerly, which caused a comforting warmth to come over me, and awakened my senses sufficiently to be conscious of the proceedings.

Presently, a hush swept across the gathering in the field and in the corridors, as the imposing figure of Fr K V George was perceived, walking with a majestic gait, up to the microphone at the landing on the mezzanine floor. Such a stillness descended on the whole scene upon his appearance that we could literally have heard a pin drop. Every murmur, every confabulation came to a halt, and an echoing silence reigned amongst the students and the parents alike; and in the hallways and corridors of the venerated artifice looking tall upon us from all sides; as he addressed the assembly, greeted the new pupils and recited the morning prayer - "our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name..." - in his quiet and firm voice. The class teachers, at the head of each segment in the assembly, led their students to their respective classes upon the class being called out by the headmaster, in a quiet, orderly sequence. That was the first time I beheld the aura and sway of Fr George, and the feeling of veneration, awe and fear that stupefied my consciousness then, I feel again with the same intensity as I recall that grim countenance and that commanding voice. Seated in my new classroom, far from home and father, lonely and forlorn, a feeling similar to what I felt on my first day in Shishu Mandir seemed to engulf me again, only that I was no longer a child, and it didn't behoove me to cry. Yet, tears that refuse to pour out, but lie stifled in the heart, torment it the more. However, succour came in the form of my new class teacher, the good-natured Miss M Pariat, kinder and gentler than any teacher I have ever met since. The sight of her kindly face and the sound of her gentle voice dispelled my gloom and made me feel at home in the new and exciting world around me. I was then conscious of what a nice little desk and a pretty little chair I had; and what a delightful text book - Radiant Reader - I was learning out of - what beautiful stories and pictures it had. What an exciting first tiffin time I spent alone in St Anthony's, roaming wide-eyed in it's long corridors, peeping into the classrooms - V, VI & VII, and into the teacher's room on the ground floor. I dared not venture up to the first floor on that day, but I looked up in awe at those long verandahs above, with their beautifully carved colonnade and railings, and the long row of classrooms within, wherefrom big and tall boys essayed forth in bursting cheer at the sound of the bell. Looking at them, how bigger and older they seemed to me; and how far away high school looked for me at that moment, and how far away it is now!

While walking the corridors, I fell into reading with great interest the history of Saint Anthony depicted in the several pictures and narratives posted on the walls; then stood watching a crowd of boys playing hockey on that sandy field with such ardor, that I could barely see the ball in all the flailing of sticks and kicking of sand. I remember my fascination and curiosity staring at the statue of a saint, ensconced in a niche high up under a gable above the basketball court, and the flock of parakeets I thought, in excitable flutter cavorting around it, chirping shrilly all the time. Recalling my state of mind then on that momentous first day, I remember looking upon the scene around me, and at the solemnity and majesty of the artifice itself, and feeling a sense of pride building up in me for being an Anthonian, and a pleasure at the prospect of spending seven years in the companionship of the great school.