On The Threshold
My college education followed a Zigzag path with the two-year pre-degree course in the sciences – choosing the second group, – a Bachelor’s (B SC) Degree with Chemistry as the main subject and a post-graduation (MA) in English Language and Literature, all from Farook College, Calicut, (Kerala, India) where both my parents served as professors of English.
While awaiting my PG results, I joined Farook Training College for a B.Ed. Degree Course in English. Half way through my parents received a letter along with an application form from Prof. Kunjannam Andrews, my mother’s first cousin, saying that there was a call for junior lecturers in English at St. Joseph’s College for Women, Alappuzha (Kerala, India) where she was the Head of the English Department. The filled in application was sent with ‘result awaited’ status. When the call for interview came in December 1986, my PG result had just been published. The mark list, yet to arrive in college, was obtained with special request from Calicut University. That night (31st December, 1986), along with my father Dr George V Andrews, I travelled to Alleppey to attend the interview scheduled for next morning, the New Year day of 1987.
I had been to Alleppey only once before -on a visit with family, as a schoolgirl, to Kunjannam chittamma’s house. I remembered vividly the beach, the sea-bridge and the lighthouse. Four of us siblings, along with my five cousins packed into auto rickshaws accompanied by our mothers on a short ride to reach the coast. Sitting on a bench in the shade of a bus shelter, swinging my dangling feet, I looked into the vastness and the light of the open space. Must have been in the afternoon, it was too hot to venture into the beach sands. Since we were not staying the night and had to move on, this warm hearted exuberant chittamma of ours was making the visit memorable for us. Now once again I was at her place to wash away the travel weariness and to make myself presentable for the interview.
Stepping into the college campus, on I January 1987, I felt like entering a cathedral complex. This was sacred space. The large European structured building, Italian tiled stairs and corridors maintained squeaky clean and surrounded by greenery. The double storeyed house next to it with tiled roof was the nearly 100 years old convent.
At the porch, my father Prof. Dr. George Andrews, who had accompanied me was very warmly greeted by a dignified stranger. I was surprised to see him being recognized and acknowledged here, far away from Calicut where such greetings were a common occurrence. On the first floor were the office and the principal’s room. I saw the principal and later the manager both Goans who went about their business briskly and walked with a spring to their steps. Together with Mrs Andrews, the Head of the Department of English, they all spoke fluently in good crisp English.
We were ushered into a large and spacious lab on the second floor to wait our turn for the interview. Looking out through the open window one could see the spreading branches of a large mango tree, which sheltered a small cottage like structure beneath it (the canteen), which extended into another double storey building – the college hostel. As we waited there in breezed another candidate who seemed to be very familiar with both the college and its personnel. Bubbling with energy and enthusiasm she introduced herself as Sandhya Pai, the former student and chairperson of the college- back after an eventful couple of years doing MA (elsewhere), attempting M Phil and giving it up to enter wedlock.
At the interview I answered the a questions as best as I could and waited downstairs as the results were to be published before the subject expert left. Apart from content knowledge, I was also tested on my awareness of teaching techniques, willingness to be involved in co/extra curricular activities, social service, value education etc. The fact that my ongoing Bachelor in Education course gave me an idea of the philosophy, sociology and psychology of education and that I had English Language Teaching as an elective paper for post graduation, definitely stood me in good stead. The interview was conducted in two categories – general merit and community merit., the latter being the privilege of an institution owned, administered and run by a minority community.
When the result of the interview was written out on the noticeboard on the porch my name figured second in the Latin Catholic community merit list. Ms. Lawrencina Beryl Navis from Kollam who came first was to join immediately and I went back home to complete my course in Education, which was to continue for another three months before the examination in summer.
A week after my B Ed result was published, I received a telegram to join duty immediately at St Joseph’s College for Women. Beryl had got a placement in a college in her hometown and had left and hence it was my call. My exclusive student days are getting over and another phase of life begins. God seemed to have made perfect plans for me enabling me to attend the interview in the first place by a last-minute release of the mark list, then to complete the B.Ed. course and then an immediate entry into the teaching profession – my vocation. It meant that I had to leave the very next day, stay in Alleppey, hopefully in the college hostel and go to work wearing sarees. Sarees?! It was 11 am already. When amma came home for lunch from college she found me busy putting together the meagre wardrobe of sarees I had. She added to it from her rich collection. While in college I had been the beneficiary of her artistic and creative skills and generosity. When she felt like it, she unhesitatingly cut out and stitched designer dresses for me in one sitting from her numerous Kancheepuram Silk Sarees.
Early next morning I left for Alleppey with my father by boarding a train from Feroke. We reached Ernakulam by mid-morning and proceeded by bus to Alleppey. I was familiar with the route upto Manakkodam, Thuravoor where we used to spend each vacation of my childhood at my maternal ancestral home. But this one seemed like too long a journey, which was taking me far away from home. When we arrived, from the porch itself we could hear the resonant voice of Mrs. Andrews, lecturing in the room adjacent to the guest room, with her students in rapt attention. We waited. It was this exuberant Head of the department who led to the principal’s cabin in the college office. Since it was Friday and afternoon already M. Olive suggested that I take time to settle down, get acclimatized and join on Monday. Mrs. Andrews took me to the English Department, to her table right at the entrance to it, and handed me a paper kept ready with the list of portions to be handled by me along with a few textbooks. Then she took us to the college hostel to meet the warden. I was allotted Room No 1 in the staff quarters of the college hostel on a twin-sharing basis along with the French teacher Ms. Ranjini Samson. As we were leaving the hostel, in the outside corridor, we met Renjini, and Ms Kasturi of the Home Science department, both from Tamilnadu. The love and regard Mrs. Andrews enjoyed became evident in the way the senior lecturer Ms Kasturi greeted and spoke to her. I stood in her shadow basking in all the love reflected on me as her niece. Ms Renjini maintained a smiling and respectful demeanour and seemed to be in awe of this professor. She was also introduced as the staff secretary for the year.
I had brought just a bag of clothes and had to purchase all the required stuff for the stay in the hostel. Achan took me to Mullackal. Located at the very centre of this tiny town, it seemed to my mind to serve as a version of the S M Street, or Broadway of Alleppey. We purchased a Durrey to be spread on the wooden cot, a cotton quilt to serve as a bed, a pillow, sheets and counterpane, and the shopkeeper added a mosquito net saying it was a ‘must buy’. I had never used one and felt it would make me feel claustrophobic but he insisted – he definitely knew better. A bucket and mug, soap powder for washing and a plastic rope to spread out washed clothes, a plate and a glass for the dining room, and some basic toiletries and we were done. On return we found the campus quiet and deserted and not soul in the staff quarters. They had all accompanied mother Josephine D’mello to St Mary’s convent Fort Cochin, to where she had been transferred. My father left me in the hostel, bid goodbye and returned to Calicut. I put up a brave smiling front till he left. Then got into my room sat on the cot and cried my heart out. I wouldn’t be going home in a hurry, since the journey took almost eight hours. Crying done, I got up, unpacked, cleaned and set my space, had a bath and settled down. When the teachers in the hostel returned from Kochi, they found me calm and poised, ready to take on the world. I was introduced to Ms Usha Devi, the Hindi lecturer and Ms Ancy of the Physics department who shared the next room. Together with Ms Kasturi and Renjini we were all in our room talking and laughing together when there was a knock on the main door. It was my father. In his anxiety to get back home as quickly as possible he had boarded a bus and was on his way; but troubled by the image of me standing alone by the hostel he alighted at Cherthala and came back. He thought of taking me around a bit, – at least show me the cathedral and Leo XIII School where he had studied. On return he found me in good company and left in peace.
Soon little bells could be heard announcing the time for prayer, and the rosary could be heard recited upstairs in the student wing. Then it was study time and silence, broken only for supper. As we moved to the staff mess hall, the students streamed into theirs with a flurry of activity, fell silent for a moment of prayer before meals and then their chatter and laughter filled the air. After supper the students had an hour of recreation when they sat around in small groups chatting or played in the quadrangle in the moonlight. Back to study and at 10 pm it was lights off. Just before dispersal to their rooms for the night I could hear the girls singing from the study hall – njan urangan pokum mumbai . . ninakkekunnitha nanni nannai . . . day after day I heard this and learned the song. Later I used to sing it to my children to put them to sleep when they were young.
Late in the night we could hear brisk steps moving down the corridor. It was our Principal M Olive D silva who occupied that bath-attached single room at the end of the corridor.
The next day, Sr Eliza Mathew from Cochin took charge as the mother superior of the convent and the new Manager of the College. Though it was mother Josephine who was involved in my selection process, I started my service with mother Eliza as the manager. On Monday, July 13th 1987 I, Miss Sheena George joined duty as lecturer in the English Department in the loss of pay leave vacancy of Sr Margaret Peter. Teachers in the hostel had prepared me to face the day. Leave the hostel by 9.30 they said, at the first bell go to class and be there for prayer that starts with the second bell. Each class begins and ends with a prayer. Even in the small square structure of the college, with two sets of staircases, it was easy to lose one’s way. As I moved searching for my first hour classroom, a first year pre degree student anxiously asked me the way to the very class I myself was searching for. “Chechi, where is room Number . . . .” I said: “I’m going there too. Let’s find out.” It was their first day in college too. Later she was surprised to find me in their class as the teacher. Thus began my career at St. Joseph’s.
That afternoon as classes were suspended due to a strike, the principal called for a staff meeting and that’s when I first met the Josephian teaching fraternity. There were quite a few stalwarts among them, confident and powerful personalities who voiced their opinions, put forward creative suggestions, agreed and disagreed. By the end of the day I felt blessed to be a part, however insignificant, of this big family. Still do.