Being a good child nothing much about schooling other than a few incidents
Being a lazy soul there are few things which gives a sort of guilty feeling.
My schooling started with the vidyarambham with the well known or supposed to be No 1. ആശാൻ of the village who was known as കൂടത്തിങ്കലെ ആശാൻ. His students did well in studies and got them Govt Jobs which was considered an achievement those days. Incidentally my father was also taught by him and I wanted to be like my father. ‘Dad superman for every girl child.
We started off with ഹരിശ്രീ in അരി the first day and he taught me to greet him ഗുരുവേ നമസ്തേ with folded hands. So far so good. I sat quietly and listened to him and did everything according to his instructions. The next day the lazy soul woke up and told me don’t sit and study. So may be after greeting him with folded hands, I ran out of the house saying I don’t want to sit and write. Mom being a primary school teacher may be used to seeing such kids and being a very strict teacher, ran after me followed by ആശാൻ and managed to get me for writing again.
But the class got over faster than the scheduled time. ആശാൻ seemed to know child psychology better than mom. After that incident, third day onwards everything was smooth and I successfully completed my കളരി education. Don’t remember if this was at 3 yrs or 4 yrs, but started going to mom’s school along with her at the age of 4. Till ഓണപ്പരീക്ഷ, no problems. At the time of ഓണപ്പരീക്ഷ, the devil showed up again and I didn’t want to go to school for exam and mom dragged me to school while I was crying throughout the way, but did the exam well. Then onwards no problems. Enjoyed the privilege of teacher’s child and 4 years passed with all the usual stuff like school annual day and sports day with small Kala paripadis which consisted of only പാട്ട്, പ്രസംഗം. etc taught by the teachers and events like running race, muttai perukkal, Lemon and spoon race etc. I don’t remember winning any of these races, not even a 3rd position. There were kids smarter than the teacher’s kids for these events. May be I always believe in slow and steady wins the race. I remember writing a song and my friend and me dancing on that while our craft teacher sang the song for us That was the first and last attempt on literature. It will be injustice on my part if I don’t mention the name of the school. St Mary’s LPS , Vazharmangalam, Kallisseri, which had 5 teachers and a head master, who was the only male member in staff and a lady who was the peon cum cook who used to make ഉപ്പുമാവ്. While talking about ഉപ്പുമാവ്, we the teacher’s kids were not allowed to sit for the ഉപ്പുമാവ് meal along with the other children though I wanted to taste it as the aroma was very tempting. This is where I picked up the initial lessons of my favourite hobby embroidery. Thanks to the craft teacher അമ്മിണി സാർ.
The next phase started with 5th standard in Balikamadam GHS, Thirumoolapuram, Thiruvalla. This is one of the oldest and famous boarding schools of that region with a lot of specialities. This is owned by Kandathil family (Malayala Manorama family) and had a huge compound with lots of buildings of different styles and architecture for different sections. The office and main building was so beautiful with tiled roof and wooden staircase and two courtyards , with some of the class rooms having open space to the courtyard.
Teachers were addressed as ‘കൊച്ചമ്മ’. If they are Christian and Chechi if they are Hindu. We had only 3 chechis, one music Chechi, one Malayalam Chechi and one drawing chechi.Never did research on this topic. But my assumption is when they started the school it was a residential school and teachers were not supposed to get married and some English ladies were also there as teachers. In our English Composition the two memorable sentences other than name of the school, location etc were ,The founder of our school is Sri Kandathil Varghese Mappila. The headmistress of our school was Miss P Brook Smith, though the HM at that time also was mentioned. Those who studied during those days have fond memories of this British lady who chose to stay there after retirement and devoted a lot of time for the school.
(Photo to be included)

Miss P Brook Smith was a very beautiful English lady, who lived in a cottage in the school compound, just beside the chapel facing the play ground, with her cook.(forgot her name). She used to wear the English style frock and had short hair. She used to make rounds while classes go on and advise students to sit in correct posture. She used to take our English transcription books for correction. I proudly remember getting ‘ ‘very good’ in all the pages written in red ink in her beautiful handwriting. Enjoyed this school till 7th under the shadow of my sister, getting noticed by teacher’s as her younger sister (as well as a good student) as we used to wear the same kind of dress always.( Though the school had uniform, they were not strict about the patterns or shades.).Any shade of green with white was ok. Some days we even wore it upside down with white skirt and green top. I enjoyed the school though I was punished for forgetting homework book and made to stand outside the class once which was a nightmare as getting caught by my sister and then punishment from mom was beyond imagination.
An event of V th grade often come to my mind.
One of our classmate Gayatri was caught copying from her neighbour during Malayalam dictation. We had a lesson about Velu Thampi Dalava who was a strict administrator and severely punished those who were found guilty. So there was a dialogue between his mother and him refering to the punishment of a surveyor – ‘ആ കണ്ടെടുത്തു പിള്ളയുടെ കൈ’, we kept this name for Gayatri and used to scare her with that dialogue.
Our Music teacher ,I think a brahmin lady from Trivandrum was beautiful and used to dress in the traditional way, the two piece cream coloured mundu neryathu. She used to conduct her classes in a room on the first floor which was also a hall where the boarders slept . We climb the wooden staircase to reach the room and sit on the wooden floor cross legged and she would start with sa ri GA ma, we all following her and two of the songs വര വീണ, മൃദു പാണീ, വനരുക ലോചനു റാണി.. and ശ്രീ ഗണ നാഥ് സിന്ധുരാവർണ കരുണ സാഗര കരിവദന…were always recited in the class after the swarangal. We would religiously follow her at the top of our voice without knowing the actual meaning or the relevance like Saraswathi vandana, or Ganesh stuthi.
School Excursions
Excursions were always memorable.
In the primary school time, there was no excursion except the outing for a movie in the nearest town at a cost of 50 pais per head . My first excursion was from Balikamadom in my 5th grade. I was thrilled as I have heard stories about it from my sister who is 2yrs senior to me and already did it.. She had told about the visit to Cochin Shipyard, going onboard and even the ക്നാവള്ളി (octopus) she saw for the first time.Our trip was also to Ernakulam , but we saw the ship from outside only and the visit to Modern bread factory was memorable with the good smell of baking everywhere around the factory.
I liked to spend time in the play ground and I learned to play volleyball here. After finishing lunch some of us would gather near the court and play without wasting any time till the bell for the afternoon session rings.
We had enough extra carricular activities including NCC and NDS. Sadly by the time I.joined NCC was not there, but the teacher in charge was there and was known as NCC Ammukkutty Kochamma or NCC Ammutty Kochma. I have never heard any other school having NDS or National Discipline Scheme. We had our Deenamma Kochamma conducting NDS class outside the classroom in open space with songs like
Hind ke Jawan hum
Hind ke kisan hum
Jai Hind Jai hind
Bolte badhe rahe…
On which we were supposed to march.
We used to go to school by KSRTC bus. As my house was walkable distance from MC Road and so was the school location. It was very convenient. Many girls and boys from different pockets of the village would be at Kalliasseri junction to catch bus to go to different schools near Thiruvalla(This place is famous for having many good educational institutions then and now with two medical colleges added in the recent past). KSRTC was kind enough to provide student’s special buses. We had two ladies specials going to Marthoma College, Thiruvalla with the board കുറ്റപ്പുഴ ലേഡീസ് and ചങ്ങനാശേരി ലേഡീസ് for NSS college and Assumption College , ചങ്ങനാശേരി. All the big chechis in the buses were very accommodative and would allow us to stand in front of them in the space between two seats, sometimes even hold our bags in their lap.
School days are full of superstions and such things won’t change and it is passed on to the next gen and generations after that. One of them is spotting myna
One for sorrow
Two for joy
We added more to it as the boarders always waited for letters from their parents, or visitors with goodies.
3 for letter
4 for visitor and just to make it 5,
5 for gold.
If we were expecting exam results after Onam vacation or Xmas vacation and happen to see a single myna sitting somewhere in the school compound, we would expect the worst result, whereas two mynas make us so happy and expected good marks.
One memorable incident was during the Indopak war in 1972. Some people were of the opinion that that will lead to world war III and the end of world. To support that there was a story about a dream someone saw. In that dream Jesus appeared to someone and Jesus didn’t have beard. So when he asked Jesus about the beard, Jesus said the world is going to end, so I kept all the hair in all the bibles people used. So we decided to find if it is true went to the chapel and started looking for hairs in bibles and we could find hairs. Poor little girls, we believed it , never thought of the possibility of fallen hair from the person using the Bible.
Here again I fondly remember our craft teacher റോസമ്മ കൊച്ചമ്മ who taught us more needle works like cross stitch and knitting which helped me in the future to pursue my passion. I was always happy and satisfied that I could knit sweaters for my son in his childhood.
Recently this school celebrated the centenary and I would have loved to attend if I was not travelling.
After 7th I changed school and went to St Anne’s Chengannur. There we had a school bus and no more struggling with KSRTC bus. This time no Chechi to provide protection or reflect image, I had to establish myself in the school. Initial days were trouble some as I never had to establish myself anywhere as my first school, I was the teachers kid and in the next one I was my chechi’s sister. Here I had to prove myself. So till I got a chance in the first term exam I was nowhere, struggling to prove myself. Then onwards the journey was smooth. And here I got a chance to fulfill my dream of representing school in the interschool meet as a member of the volleyball team. In the other school, being chottu ( 7th grade) never got a chance as the higher class students were there. Here also we had lots of other activities including guiding and band set and youth festival and school annual functions and schools excursions. I limited my self to volleyball and Guiding. Sr Hakkim , a Maths teacher who was our class teacher of 10th was Guides and band set incharge also. She devoted a lot of time for these activities and trained us for difference levels of Guides badges. One of my regrets is missing the opportunity to become a Presidents Guide. An interesting story about the bandset. Sr Hakkim was very enthusiastic about using every single opportunity for the bandset to perform. So in each and every functions in Chengannur or nearby places, St Anne’s Chengannur Bandset would be present to welcome guests. At that time the railway line from. Ernakulam to Trivandrum was getting upgraded to broad guage and Union Minister Muhammad Shafi Qureshi came to Chengannur to inaugurate that section . He was welcomed by our band set at the station and he was so pleased and we got a free trip by train as a gift from him. So we had a tour with an entire boggy for ourselves. Another memorable tour was the one to Goa. St Francis Xavier’s body was taken out for public view in 1976 and ours being a Catholic school, the sisters decided to conduct a tour to Goa. So we had a wonderful tour covering most of South India. Malayalam teacher Sr Ivania’s impositions, Hindi teacher Lizzy Tr’s caning, PD Rosamma Tr’s loving approach to her favorite volleyball players , Physics ലീലാമ്മ teacher’s friendly ways, HM English and SS teacher Sr, Rehmas’ perfect English accent, all come to mind when I think about the school. I realized my love for Maths here only because of Sinen (Sin N)Teacher who taught Maths in 8th and 9th Biology and SS were not my favourite subjects and somehow managed them. My association with our Grace Mathew from Chengannur started here in this school. She was in a different section , but we both were there in some of the extra activities and then continued to be together till M Tech.
The laziest me
My father always wanted his children to work hard and study well. So even during vacation he would ask us to read the text books
Once he asked me to finish 10 lessons by evening before he returnes from office. I read 10 poems and said, yes I did 10 lessons.
When I look back I am very proud of my schools and the teachers who taught us values in life and good behaviour and good manners.
Nostalgia EE 84 