My top ten memories of St. Vincent’s (in no particular order)
1. The Favorites
– Biladwalla – oh the disappointment went you ended up in Furtardos’ German class instead
– Mascarhenas – with a body like hers she should have been a fitness guru
– Leena – remember Noel placing his school bag on his thighs during her Chem class.
– I heard she died in an accident, someone please tell me this isn’t true
– Irani – I am guessing her name here but it was that music teacher they hired to hasten our puberty
– Junior Katkati – made pencil dropping an art form
– Ghaisas – can’t remember he name but my interest in books coincided with her joining the library
2. The Terrors
– Edwin – I am almost certain that my stammering was a direct result of the trauma and fear I experienced trying to recite hindi poetry in frint of her.
– Chaubal – “in the dustbin” … I still get nightmares about this
– Kulkarni – just thinking about those mental math tests makes me sweat
– Senior Katkatti – I remember her throwing the new English text books across the classroom expressing her disdain at Gajpati. And the freaking duster she kept throwing at me and anna as we chotus sat innocently on the first bench while someone played some prank behind.
3. PT
– aah those atrocious banyans and chaddis we had to strip down to.
– the feeling of knowing your fucked when you realized that Harold was going to be your PT instructor for the year
– Pacheko, pulling beedis from his 555 pack
– Chavan, whose only contribution during class was to send us running around the school, with many of us just sitting around in that corner of Gulati hall.
4. Puberty
– Deshpande “confiscating” Sudhir’s magazines
– Eustus and the canteen girl
– Marzban pointing at Namu while singing “hey baby” from Dancing in the Dark
– Nagde – the sub-teacher whose unfortunate name caused us much amusement
– hanging outside St Anne’s … something I never had the nerve to do.
– the Loyola girls
5. Food
– the made rush for battawaddas during short break
– the 25ps perus and 10ps ice cream
– sitting at the stadium and throwing chappati’s for the kites to swoop up
– celebrating Lala’s birthday during one of Katkatti’s class without her knowledge
– “holy” bread we used to get from one of the churches right at the end of lunch break
6. The Fathers
– ducking under Fr Schock’s spit bombs
– Fr Oesch … I just adored the man, although I always feared his very mobile dentures falling right off his mouth
– Fr Dileema … Santa Clause with an attitude problem
– Fr Misquitta … singing .. If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands .. to sixteen year olds.. WTF !!!
7. Punishment
– I still know my tables up to 20, having written them like a million times
– the dreaded remarks page … amazes me what a big deal we made of it
– standing in the dustbin, with rotting food and used bandages
– wooden rulers on knuckles
– slaps across the face
– Kulkarni’s death stare
– the rooster pose
– standing on benches
8. Unit Tests
– Knowing that as soon as one set of unit tests were finished another one loomed in the near future
– shitting in my pants as the teachers handed out the unit test results .. please God, all I want is 7 .. more so for some of us than others on this list
– trying in vain to copy .. I remember Shridhar stuffing his shirt and shorts with cheat notes only to find that he ended up sitting on the very first bench in the hall, and then spend most of the time hiding all those notes from the teachers.
9. Sports
– the secrecy of the Recklin cup and the general rivalry with Loyola … aakad paakad, kheechkay paakad … what the hell does that mean anyway
– the booming echo on Sports day
– Fr Oesch yelling from the sidelines
– trying to kick mud covered footballs in June
– french cricket during breaks
10. The classmates (well some of them)
– Wahid Risaldar and his laughing fits
– Christopher Dileema – the violin maestro
– Guru – apparently he really did become a tech guru, although I will always remember him as the guy who pinched comic books from the raddi shop in camp
– the football guys : Derrick, Ansen, Sanjay, Andrew, Vijay, Anna .. the goalkeeper (Greg)
– the Marathi crowd none of whose names I can remember
– Amit Kelkar sincerely finishing of his prayers after the final bell while the rest of us rushed out of the class
– Mohan Mysorekar who was excellent in Math and Science and really sucked in languages
– Rakesh Khurrana – always inviting trouble
– The Kocchars – Nitin the model student and Dheeraj the prankster
– Shridhar the misguided rebel with his Aids speech and questioning of pastoral celibacy.
– Kuwad – always sweating
– Chandra – I just remember him being a nice guy who for some reason was friends with Kuwad (just kidding RK)
– Rohinton – the smart bawa and I mean no disrespect to Xerxes, Darius and Marzban
– Gulshan – the big red head who seemed more comfortable acing his classes than playing left back for the school team
– Pratish, Shibu, Jai, Chandra, Gautam, Rohinton – the class acers
– The super fast *aya twins
– me – average mousy guy with a really bad stammer
– anna, the class mascot … always involved in everything
– Vikas trying really hard to impress us with his accordion
– Jaideep and Taneja trying to convince me that the Scorpions were the best band ever
– Khera – I am convinced you must have beaten me up in school because I seem to have completely blocked you out from my memory
Comments
Pratish:
– Chaubal’s “dhakal tyaala khaali” – she had a fetish about not having compass boxes on the desk… and all school bags had to be on the floor in the aisles… what?!!!
– Sr. Katkati quoting pages out of the “wren & martin”
– Chavan – try getting a basketball from that fucker during the lunch recess – Girish Mokashi could sue him for child molestation!
– Augustin (sp!) Fernandes’ threats – “I’ll give you biskut”; “I will write a love letter to your mummy”…
– Chanting “Vincent’s, Vincent’s… Vincent’s Vincent’s….” during the Fr. Riklin’s cup… btw, I carried this tradition on even during PICT soccer games! 😉
– “Loyala chi baylaana ho! Loyala chi faatli zig zag, zig zag…” wonder, how many years old this phrase is??
Kuwad:
My first shave was at Shridhar’s house. He got this fucking electric
razor ( I guess it was his dad’s or brothers) and bragged to me, that he
is being shaving since class 6. And here I was in class 11, who still
not had tried it. Very awkwardly then I had a go with that electric
razor, and half way through I realized that this was not as smooth as
Shridhar made it out to be. Hence landed with only one side of the
pencil thin moustache shaven at house, which was very funny indeed.
Shridhar :
hmm rajesh.. my dad had an electric razor which he had got back from russia around when i was born.. no one ever used it.. i used to play with it i remember.. maybe that was the razor u used… fuck sorry ha ha….
Gautam :
remember sudhir’s thumb sucking … also fr dlima’s phat-phati…the librarian’s name was mrs. ghaisas (she did give us the ehsaas no?)…..riklin cup woes (loyola always seemed to have a upper hand..thanks to the girls cheering them)….monishs brattish stunts….also, venugopal’s dad who came all the way from NDA to teach geography…..vilas – the lab assistant with a filmstar’s attitude….man, so many memories.
Jai:
the priest getting off the boat was in our Ceylon trip….when we were on the glass boat to see the coral ..and he saw a couple of bikini clad ladies and took off barefoot into the water,,,,,,ooops coral and cut himself. But that did not stop him … magician too from what i remember, ended up coming back to the hotel later….with a limp!….haha.
And Chetan Joshi….urf…What does the Cow give? Answer: calf……and the MULA in Pune river is joined by which river?…answer – The Brahmatputra……..
Cant believe he has come up with a book … of facts i hope.. but its good news.
Ashish Pandit:
You can get out of St. Vincent’s but you cannot get St. Vincent’s outta you!! As a side note, her name was Mrs. Balakrishnan [Leena] and we should address her as such, just as we never addressed Fr. Oesch as Arnold. And I remember Mrs. Kulkarni telling us that her husband was the unfortunate victim of an accident…..I may be wrong….plz correct me if so….great memories Sajid…yes took us all down the St. Vincent’s lane/marg….kudos!!