Me in my boarding school uniform
At the age of four I began school at the infamous and prestigious Catholic Loreto Boarding School in Kolkata(Calcutta). With the funds of Rabeya(adoption maker) and later my adoptive parents I was given a “proper education”.
Behind a gate stood buildings of decades dating back to the late 1800’s. The grounds were beautiful with large leafy trees bowing over the spacious lawn giving the sense of peace and serenity. The drive swayed with haunting shadows of ghosts of past students. To the left a small chapel graced the landscape for student prayers. In the back stood buildings with classrooms and a large cafeteria lined with tables and silverware perfectly placed in waiting for meal times.
One of the buildings contained the sleeping porches for the girls on the downstairs and upstairs floors. The older children downstairs and the younger ones like me upstairs. It was a large expansive room with numerous beds made of a metal mesh with a mattress on top. Large windows embraced the light into the sleeping porch.
We marched to class, to meals and to the chapel. Always in perfectly pressed white-collared uniform dresses. I enjoyed having shiny shoes and a clean dress that I felt so proud to be adorning. I also liked marching to and fro.
Learning that English was the only language allowed to be spoken; I quickly had to swallow my Punjabi, Bengali and Hindi to avoid the smacks with the ruler from the nuns.
One day was special. We were told someone was coming and we mustn’t be out of line at all! As usual we all marched to the chapel in eager fashion to await this person not really knowing who it was going to be. We waited, and waited patiently but with the long wait came the urge to go to the bathroom. I was trying so hard to follow the rules to stay sitting still and wait in our places. The nuns had me so scared of them that I could not ask them for anything, even to go to the bathroom. I couldn’t hold it anymore and felt the warmth of the poop in my pants as the smell began to envelope me. At this time Mother Teresa walked in and was introduced to us when one of the nuns bitterly said “what is that smell, and who pooped in their pants?” I withered into embarrassment as the girls turned and glared as they said “Pushpa”. This was my first meeting with Mother Teresa, one I will never forget.
Mother Teresa began her work in India at this school as a youthful teacher and then began taking her work out to the poor in the streets of Kolkata where my mother Shanti came to know her.
© Pushpa Duncklee and Pushpa’s Blog, 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Pushpa Duncklee and Pushpa’s Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
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