My Story 3 - Calcutta, South Point School

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Neena and I had been admitted to South Point School in Garihat Area, in Ballygunge, in class 7 and 5 respectively. At the time we joined South Point - it was a relatively new school with a strength of only about 300 students. It had been started just over a year ago. It was administered and run very well. English medium and coeducational; one could avoid having to learn Bengali, we could choose Bengali or Hindi as the extra language, although Sanskrit was taught there as a compulsory subject. Thus the school suited us very well as transfer students from Delhi, it was also at a reasonable distance from Lake Place, just about 3 kilometers. We had a school bus service, so it was also very convenient. Pushpa had got admission for the MBBS course at the Calcutta National Medical College in the previous year itself, as per her heart's desire. Prem had finished her Senior Cambridge before we moved to Calcutta and she got admission into the Ashutosh College for persuing her under-graduate course for her English Litterature, in which she ultimately did her M.A. & Ph.D. 

Victoria Memorial, Calcutta

In spite of the fact that the school was just over a year old, it was well managed and we were a happy lot. It was strict in discipline yet maintained a friendly atmosphere with the students. Ii was a fairly small premises having a playfield that was a wee bit smaller than the area required for a football field. It seemed quite enough for most of the needs of the school. The administrative block was the size of a modest bungalow. Many of the classrooms were constructed with cement sheet walls, they were well maintained and did give a good feeling because of the newness. We had a good interesting faculty and many of our teachers were involved with the well known CLT (Children's Little Theatre) group who excelled in stage plays. They were very well known for their Shakespearean plays. Fantastic stage dresses, excellent lighting, makeup, direction - all were considered the best in the Calcutta theatre networks. The most famous name was that of Utpal Dutt, who not only made a mark on the Bengali Stage and Bengali movies but also excelled in the Hindi Bollywood cinema in the later years. While Neena and I were studying in South Point, he had already created and proved his histrionics on the Bengali Stage and Cinema. We had quite a handful of other teachers in South Point, who did not just act on the stage but also excelled in many aspects of the theatre, viz., makeup, stage lighting, dialogue delivery, etc. I still recall quite a few names - Mr. Chatterjee (PT & Games), Mr. Sen, Mr. Bannerjee (Fine Arts).

I remember I had gone to school one day without completing my homework for the Maths class. It was a fairly common practice to skip doing the homework with some lame excuse. No action was taken normally, except a reprimand. Today the maths teacher became strict - no excuse or story would be heard. We were six of us who had not done the homework. He got dunces' caps made for us and we were paraded and taken to all the classrooms to be shamed. When we reached Neena's class I started sobbing. I was terribly ashamed. She showed her kind nature and did not tell our parents about my humiliation.

Mr. Utpal Dutt had unique characteristics very much of his own and without compare. He used to teach us the Queen's English. He not only had mastery of the language but he also made his classes very interesting with his histrionics. He was a die-hard Marxist as far as I can recall. He had quite a loud and booming voice. His hallmark was a thick cigar that was always with him, matched his personality. While teaching his class, he was always with his cigar and he easily spent 10% of his time lighting the damn thing with a match, he never used a lighter. I think he used to think out his next step or direction while lighting his cheroot.
Another catchphrase of Utpal Dutt is illustrated here.
English has many anomalies that come up while teaching language and grammar. When an anomaly would rear its head Mr. Dutt would say in his booming voice, "BECAUSE....." and the entire class would respond in unison,"...ENGLISH IS A MAD LANGUAGE!"
All these little quirks, if you like to call them that, made him an interesting and memorable teacher. His historic cigar was always there even in his Hindi movies, starting with "Shakespeare Wallah" - his debut on the screen is lighting his cigar by a blow torch, he is busy doing some welding work. His most popular Hindi movie was Bhuvan Shome, a non-commercial film that went on to win three National Film Awards, including the one of Best Actor, for him. He is no longer with us except in our memories. He died in 1993 at the age of 64.

The deficiency of a big playfield got highlighted very cruelly during a football match with St Lawrence School. They had very huge premises, possibly 8-10 times ours. The match was held in their football ground. In spite of a valiant fight we were down by a dozen goals - the final tally was 12-NIL. A fairly large contingent of two busloads of students had gone to cheer our team. We were all so excited while we were going with slogans and cheers of an anticipated and misplaced victory. In the return journey, everyone was totally silent, you could hear a pin drop.

Like any other school of that time, we had our share of street vendors at our gate. I developed an insatiable urge and taste for the historic Orange Bar (of Magnolia), and also a digestive pudia of a gooie chooran. I also loved an occasional daab (tender green coconut) for its water as well as a layer of soft and tender coconut that had started forming within the shell. The vendor would split open the fruit with his hasiya a heavy sickle-like tool, and scoop out the yummy still soft and tender fruit from its insides, deposit it one half of the shell of the nut and hand it over as the 'bonus' - after all only the water had been paid for.

In 1957, the Naiya Paisa was introduced. India had overtaken many of the advanced Western Nations in adopting the CGS (and the decimal) system. The earlier rupee had 16 annas, Each anna has 4 paisas. Smaller denominations of paisa, viz., dhela and pai, had already been discontinued. Now we had coins of 1, 2, 5, 25, 50 and 100 (1 rupee) paisa. One Anna became equivalent of 6-1/4 paise; the earlier coins of 1 paisa (old), 2 paisa, 1 anna, 2 annas, 4 annas 8 annas were gradually withdrawn from the system. Initially, a lot of confusion prevailed but we gradually got used to the new system. We stopped referring to the Naiya Paisa as such and it was replaced by calling it Paisa only. Gradually miles were replaced by kilometers and yards by meters; degree Fahrenheit by degree Centigrade or Celcius. But we still live in a dual system. Body temperature is still Fahrenheit, though the weather is in Celcius, land measurements are still in square yards in many places.

The lack of playing fields in the school did leave me with a little setback as far as my sporting abilities were concerned. I was an outdoor person by nature and I did get my exercise in the improvised football field in the empty plot by the side of our Lake Place residence, but that somehow could never help me become a good footballer nor allow me to learn the finer aspects of the game.

Another change happened for the better in 1957. Pitaji was allotted government accommodation in a beautifully developed new colony within the huge compound of the famous National Library. 84 flats were constructed for the Central Government Officers in the area they called Belvedere, in fourteen 3 storeyed blocks. It was not only a modern and posh locality with lots of greenery and open spaces. Proper garages for parking the cars were also made, although owning a car was not all that common at the time. Thus we shifted to a new and totally different environment from the paada culture.

I shall continue the narrative in My Story 4 - Calcutta, Belvedere. Click here to continue.