Boarding school, learnings from lessons not taught in the classroom
I went to boarding school in the beautiful foothills of the Himalayas. Those years (from a few weeks after my 7th birthday till a few weeks before my 16th birthday) formed the basis of the person that I am today. I say this now, but it was never a conscious thought till I was asked to write a short essay for the school’s Golden Jubilee book on, ‘What school meant to me’. I don’t think I had ever considered the question till then. It was just a part of my life — to try to define what it meant was something I needed to actually ponder.
Taking memory back brought up incidents and moments. In that remembrance, ‘what school meant to me’, appeared.
That first cold January day, in new grey slacks and overcoat –I was a little, grey, drab of a person, and I met just such another. Also holding a parental finger and completely unaware, like me, that this was to be the start of a new chapter in our lives. We were suddenly to be left all alone in an alien environment of which we had been completely uninformed.
I think very hard to try and remember if I knew anything at all about where I was going to be and what to expect — it’s a blank — I don’t think we new, little girls knew anything. Parents in those days thought it was just fine to leave us with what they considered responsible people who would give us a good education. They proved correct, willy nilly.
So Joy, my very first friend and I stood in the back verandah of the ugly, also grey, junior school building and watched our parents walk out the gate. Not at all understanding that everything familiar was disappearing from our small lives for what would end up being the majority of our transition from little girls to young women.
I think that was the first and possibly most important learning — alone and a necessity to cope. There were no choices here. You couldn’t even sink you had to swim. Accept the change, cope with what came, survive it. Does that lesson toughen you — yes and how?
This is something I’m figuring now as I write. At that point I wonder if Joy or I even had a thought in our heads. We were just two, very lost, little girls who cried themselves to sleep that night in utter, confused misery. And spent the next few weeks in what the seniors termed the crying club. It was a bench where you went and sat if you felt weepy. Well, we felt weepy very often.
In the dining hall that first morning, I was the last person left sitting at my table, trying to finish my breakfast. Till then a bad, slow eater from being a rather pampered little girl. I was hustled out and told to go stand in my line for assembly. I had no idea what assembly was and even less of an idea which line I was meant to belong in. I can’t remember how I sorted that, but I must have somehow — so I guess there began survival. After a few more unfinished meals I become a gluttonously fast eater and still am. And after being yelled at for loitering and not being where I was meant to be, mostly because I had no idea where I was meant to be, I also learnt to always know where I should be and how to be there well in time.
One night in number 3 dorm as I hacked into my pillow with the kind of cough only 7 and 8 year olds seem to get, an angel in a white nightgown, with one sleeve pinned up (Mrs. Ayling) appeared with a little glass of warm brandy, honey and lemon and sat with me till I slept. There was never anything that quite matched the most wonderfully warm, cared for feeling that delightful lady gave one lonely child. I still can feel the warmth of that hug and the elixir she offered. Cherishing kindness and knowing how important care can be surely came from that imprinted night.
Another night. Possibly a year later and I can’t remember the matron, but I do remember the lesson. During the afternoon in a spirit of generosity I offered someone the pleasure of sleeping with my favorite doll — Padma. Padma had become for me my only family, my security blanket and the person that kept the demons away; now all those needs generally emerged at night. So during the day magnanimity reigned. Once it was bedtime and Padma had gone to her new, for the night, home. My poor bed had become the terror house of the world. So I went and tried to get Padma back. However, whoever had her did not want to be magnanimous or were perhaps holding their own nightly fears at bay with the ‘Padma’ talisman. I became a very bad girl who was not willing to share with her friends. No wonder I do not remember that unfeeling matron! Who was to understand what other terrors were manifesting themselves? So Padma stayed away and I coped with a million insecurities through that night, and somehow after that — though Padma was still much loved she ceased to be the person who looked under the bed first before I put my feet down.
Did any of you ever have all of your friends suddenly start treating you like you had bad breath and body odour all combined. Yes, sent to Coventry, shunned, turned backs. No one talking to you. And you don’t know why, so you go –
a) Who cares, they’re just being mean, I can be by myself, walk alone, eat alone, read my book, not share any fun or chat or tuck and not even go to the playroom for Saturday night music.
b) Then you decide — ok I’ll ask my best friend, but she is the one who turns most viciously away.
c) So start thinking back - what could I have done? And sure enough you find it or some kind soul takes pity on you and finally tells you.
d) Then of course you didn’t mean it like that, but hey! that’s how it came across. So now, be sorry and understand what you did and how it affects people and eventually yourself.
You know this is what the HR companies are creating programmes for: Mindfulness, communication, consequences. We got it automatically, growing up.
I also discovered books, they make the bestest of friends. At a get together of old school friends last year, I happened to mention that I didn’t really feel very included in groups while at school. My friends turned to me in surprise — all eight of my closest buddies — ‘Really! When were you out of a book long enough to notice?’
I’d found books to hide in without even realising it. They were the perfect escape, I think back now to the fact that I would start getting panicky when I was reaching the end of a book, because I needed to find another. If I were without a book, I would be naked and exposed and needy. Lord! That must have manifested in all those unfulfilled early relationships which I had not even begun to consider so far! However, it also made me a supremely well read person with great general knowledge. Bonuses of loneliness and inadequacy.
And you know that thing called a counselor / therapist that you pay lots of money to go to when you are down, out, confused. Ever tried an old school friends’ get together — whether with one or two or twenty. They start with lunch and can end with breakfast the next day and you can get everything off your chest, have twenty opinions, all from full lives lived and experienced. From people who are not going to give you jargon, but who care, lots of support , and someone who will actually work with you to help, help, help, if needed.
I sent both my daughters to Welham(my old school), mainly to get that; A support system for life, plus the confidence to just be you and a sense of survival, which allows you to have that confidence.
You know, it probably happens to all kids sometime somewhere, but if you are home — I think someone is always there to make things better after any and every hard learned lesson. At boarding school, you just learnt it and dealt with the traumas and plodded on, there were no Mommie’s and Daddy’s to make things better, fight battles, or even give advice. That sink or swim maxim holds sway. It leaves you with a cushion of self reliance to bounce off all your life.
Nothing can take you down, if before you were ten you were able to fight your own demons and win. What could be fearful any longer?
It started of being about survival, by the time we had navigated those years of adventure and learning what emerged was a complete sense of self!! Though I said at the beginning that it took some thought to figure this all out, I think it was there intrinsically, because the navigation of the later teens was coped through knowing you’d already walked through the toughest.
The certainty that I have walked through life with is that I am able.
