Don Bosco was a secular school. Christian students left the class for special "Catechism" lessons. The rest of us stayed behind for the class on "Moral Science and Community living".
"Ch" in English has multiple possibilities when it comes to pronunciation. It could be "ch" as in 'Chimpanzee' or "ch" as in 'character' or even with overtones of "sh" as in 'charade'. Needless to say, "Catechism" was a complicated word we stumbled over and made little headway. We chose to refer to it in our circles simply as Christian studies (or "krish-chin studies" as we pronounced it).
Occasionally, the Catechism students came back and openly gloated over the stamps, key chains, postcards and other trinkets that Father Oscar donated with overflowing generosity. It appeared an interesting subject as well- the books were colourful and filled with references to quaint personalities like "Job", "Jeremiah", "Isaac" or Geography centred on distant lands like Jersusalem and Jordan. If we had had the choice, many of us would have surely opted for Catechism.
"Moral Science" on the contrary was dry, bone-dry-- an insipid, tasteless subject which made even Mathematics appear delightful! As it was meant for a "secular" audience, the "Moral Science" textbook could not teach morals through mythological stories we were familiar with... which would have had a far greater impact on children. It would have been easy to appreciate the value of "speaking the truth" through Raja Harishchandra's travails or the "spirit of sacrifice" through the stirring story of "Rantideva" or "the value of friendship" based on the story of Krishna and Sudama. Moral Science chose to teach these values with no illustrations whatsoever- it was didactic, preachy and simply tedious.
Sometimes, it borrowed contemporary American idioms which the students were unfamiliar with. The textbook had a picture of two boys with angry faces and a broken glass between them and on the other page, the same two boys.. all smiles this time and a full glass between them. The caption read-"break up and make up". It was much later in life that it dawned upon me that the picture was suppose to symbolize "break up in relationships" and "make up in relationships". For a seventh grader, the message was more straightforward- it just meant that the boys were angry that one of them broke the glass and were happy later on when the glass was repaired with some fevicol! The rest of the page had to be filled with 5 examples from our lives. Given our direct interpretation, it was rather simple. We just filled it with 5 other things which could be broken and mended- bottles, bats, chairs, cups and saucers!
In a way, we made up for the ugly textbook by having the most colourful notebook for Moral Science. The students had to choose the picture of a God, a saint, a visionary or some other religious symbol for the cover. A thin strip of cotton was stuck all around the picture and the entire notebook was then wrapped in colourful, translucent, "gelatin" paper. The book had a distinct aura- Vivekananda with all the cotton around him appeared as if he was standing behind the clouds and fixing his gaze on us... his eyes now.. even more mysterious when seen through the coloured blue paper!!
Students preferred their present day heroes though regardless of their moral standing. Mrs Clare was aghast when she caught Mehernosh in the act! He had a little slit on the cover through which he secretly inserted pictures of Kapil Dev and divas like Dimple Kapadia and Zeenat Aman to study how they would look through the gelatin paper!! Of course, Mehernosh had to kneel down outside the class for the rest of the period!
The notebook was meant to write down "good deeds" on a daily basis. The deeds were evaluated every week and "houses" were given points based on the impact of the act. It allowed the students to exercise the full range of their imagination more than any other faculty. Adhir was forever helping old people to cross from this side of the road to the other. Since the position for this job was already taken, Sridhar had to make a slight modification. He helped old people to cross from the other side of the road to this side! It appeared as if old people would finally flop down- dizzy from all this ferrying across the road, regardless of whether they actually wanted to cross it in the first place!
Going through the Moral Science notebook, the world appeared a really needy place- it was overflowing with challenged people, both physically and mentally, all of whom required a Moral Science student to either fold clothes or to run errands or to help a sibling's homework or to clean the room!
If I ever write the Story of My Experiments with Truth, I can boldly confess that I have copied in an examination just once. The irony is that it was for a Moral Science examination! Father Romel conducted the mid-term Moral Science examination for the tenth grade. You didn't prepare for Moral Science. By tenth grade, we were past masters in writing eloquent answers on "sharing is caring" or on "helping our less fortunate brethren". However, Father Romel added a sudden twist which completely caught us off-guard. He wanted us to quote from memory a particular poem in the textbook. He stepped out of the examination hall, convinced that by now, each of us, were living embodiments of values and morals that he had taught over the years.
The number of the marks against that question was not trivial. It did not seem prudent to skip the question and answer the rest of the paper. Morals could wait another day. The moment was opportune. We dashed across the hall, hurriedly pulled out the textbook, copied the lines of the poem out feverishly and put the books back just in the nick of time!
Moral Science was the last examination and we travelled by train to Chennai that night.
Like Gandhiji who was anguished by the bleat of the goat after he had furtively consumed meat, it was tough to ignore the pangs of conscience. Why did I have to copy? Was copying necessary? Couldn't I have forsaken 10 marks? After all, Pragnyat did not copy.
It gnawed my insides and kept me awake as the train made its way through Lonavla, Pune and Daund. The first rays of dawn streamed through the window as the train ground to a halt at Solapur. "Garmaa-garam tea.. tea...chai-chai... chaiye...chaiye"...the hawker was doing brisk business for sure. I looked out of the window.....
A peddler.. with this most beatific toothless smile... looked me in the eye and announced... "garmaa garam...." and followed it up with "copy-copy-copy... fine copy-copy... fine... copy!" It was like "ashariri-vaak"(divination/heavenly-voice).....with an overt beverage advertisement for some... but with a hidden message especially for me....Don't be too hard on yourself.. It's fine to copy this time!!
"Ch" in English has multiple possibilities when it comes to pronunciation. It could be "ch" as in 'Chimpanzee' or "ch" as in 'character' or even with overtones of "sh" as in 'charade'. Needless to say, "Catechism" was a complicated word we stumbled over and made little headway. We chose to refer to it in our circles simply as Christian studies (or "krish-chin studies" as we pronounced it).
Occasionally, the Catechism students came back and openly gloated over the stamps, key chains, postcards and other trinkets that Father Oscar donated with overflowing generosity. It appeared an interesting subject as well- the books were colourful and filled with references to quaint personalities like "Job", "Jeremiah", "Isaac" or Geography centred on distant lands like Jersusalem and Jordan. If we had had the choice, many of us would have surely opted for Catechism.
"Moral Science" on the contrary was dry, bone-dry-- an insipid, tasteless subject which made even Mathematics appear delightful! As it was meant for a "secular" audience, the "Moral Science" textbook could not teach morals through mythological stories we were familiar with... which would have had a far greater impact on children. It would have been easy to appreciate the value of "speaking the truth" through Raja Harishchandra's travails or the "spirit of sacrifice" through the stirring story of "Rantideva" or "the value of friendship" based on the story of Krishna and Sudama. Moral Science chose to teach these values with no illustrations whatsoever- it was didactic, preachy and simply tedious.
Sometimes, it borrowed contemporary American idioms which the students were unfamiliar with. The textbook had a picture of two boys with angry faces and a broken glass between them and on the other page, the same two boys.. all smiles this time and a full glass between them. The caption read-"break up and make up". It was much later in life that it dawned upon me that the picture was suppose to symbolize "break up in relationships" and "make up in relationships". For a seventh grader, the message was more straightforward- it just meant that the boys were angry that one of them broke the glass and were happy later on when the glass was repaired with some fevicol! The rest of the page had to be filled with 5 examples from our lives. Given our direct interpretation, it was rather simple. We just filled it with 5 other things which could be broken and mended- bottles, bats, chairs, cups and saucers!
In a way, we made up for the ugly textbook by having the most colourful notebook for Moral Science. The students had to choose the picture of a God, a saint, a visionary or some other religious symbol for the cover. A thin strip of cotton was stuck all around the picture and the entire notebook was then wrapped in colourful, translucent, "gelatin" paper. The book had a distinct aura- Vivekananda with all the cotton around him appeared as if he was standing behind the clouds and fixing his gaze on us... his eyes now.. even more mysterious when seen through the coloured blue paper!!
Students preferred their present day heroes though regardless of their moral standing. Mrs Clare was aghast when she caught Mehernosh in the act! He had a little slit on the cover through which he secretly inserted pictures of Kapil Dev and divas like Dimple Kapadia and Zeenat Aman to study how they would look through the gelatin paper!! Of course, Mehernosh had to kneel down outside the class for the rest of the period!
The notebook was meant to write down "good deeds" on a daily basis. The deeds were evaluated every week and "houses" were given points based on the impact of the act. It allowed the students to exercise the full range of their imagination more than any other faculty. Adhir was forever helping old people to cross from this side of the road to the other. Since the position for this job was already taken, Sridhar had to make a slight modification. He helped old people to cross from the other side of the road to this side! It appeared as if old people would finally flop down- dizzy from all this ferrying across the road, regardless of whether they actually wanted to cross it in the first place!
Going through the Moral Science notebook, the world appeared a really needy place- it was overflowing with challenged people, both physically and mentally, all of whom required a Moral Science student to either fold clothes or to run errands or to help a sibling's homework or to clean the room!
If I ever write the Story of My Experiments with Truth, I can boldly confess that I have copied in an examination just once. The irony is that it was for a Moral Science examination! Father Romel conducted the mid-term Moral Science examination for the tenth grade. You didn't prepare for Moral Science. By tenth grade, we were past masters in writing eloquent answers on "sharing is caring" or on "helping our less fortunate brethren". However, Father Romel added a sudden twist which completely caught us off-guard. He wanted us to quote from memory a particular poem in the textbook. He stepped out of the examination hall, convinced that by now, each of us, were living embodiments of values and morals that he had taught over the years.
The number of the marks against that question was not trivial. It did not seem prudent to skip the question and answer the rest of the paper. Morals could wait another day. The moment was opportune. We dashed across the hall, hurriedly pulled out the textbook, copied the lines of the poem out feverishly and put the books back just in the nick of time!
Moral Science was the last examination and we travelled by train to Chennai that night.
Like Gandhiji who was anguished by the bleat of the goat after he had furtively consumed meat, it was tough to ignore the pangs of conscience. Why did I have to copy? Was copying necessary? Couldn't I have forsaken 10 marks? After all, Pragnyat did not copy.
It gnawed my insides and kept me awake as the train made its way through Lonavla, Pune and Daund. The first rays of dawn streamed through the window as the train ground to a halt at Solapur. "Garmaa-garam tea.. tea...chai-chai... chaiye...chaiye"...the hawker was doing brisk business for sure. I looked out of the window.....
A peddler.. with this most beatific toothless smile... looked me in the eye and announced... "garmaa garam...." and followed it up with "copy-copy-copy... fine copy-copy... fine... copy!" It was like "ashariri-vaak"(divination/heavenly-voice).....with an overt beverage advertisement for some... but with a hidden message especially for me....Don't be too hard on yourself.. It's fine to copy this time!!
Moral science was not taken seriously after coming to 10th std as though we have so much to do.Those things which were so significant is understood later as insignificant ones. Hence the setting aside of values at that time.'bachche tho seekthe hi sudhar jayenge'
ReplyDeleteamma
Shankar, I have just started reading your blog and its amazing!!!!! Moral science, what next?
ReplyDeleteThanks! Am not a handwriting expert or a content analyst to figure out from the writing who anonymous is... nonetheless, we all like appreciative readers!!
ReplyDelete-shankar