THEY gathered in the fading winter sunlight on the beautifully-manicured lawns of Il Palazzo Hotel, five boarding school principals and one nun. The nun was Sister Lovenia Almeida F.C. of St. Joseph�s Convent, the prestigious all-girls� institute, where such starry boarders as the actresses Kajol and Twinkle Khanna have studied in academic years gone by.
�F.C. means Filles de la Croix,� Sr. Lovenia explained to me, �Or Sisters of the Cross.� I liked this nun. She was God�s chosen woman, that I could see. And from what I had heard, she was every school-girl�s friend and guide at St. Joseph�s. Unconsciously, she took her place among the five male boarding school principals of Panchgani I had invited for tea.
There was Morris Innis of Codesh, arguably the oldest educationist in Panchgani, if not the finest. He was many years ago, the principal of St. Peter�s, the most popular all-boys school in the hill-station. A most distinguished man indeed. Sitting across him, perhaps aware of the generation gap, was the present principal of St. Peter�s, a young, rugged Anglo-Indian from Ajmer. Gene Oscar Lee, the new principal, had taken charge only in August and was still finding his feet on Panchgani�s dusty red slopes.
Representing the old Billimoria High School, was principal R. B. Simon, a dark and jovial Keralite with flashy white teeth and dressed in a bright yellow shirt. All the other principals wore suits, whether for the chilly winds that were blowing across the lawns or in honour of my tea-party I did not know.
And there was principal Javed Khan of Green Valley School, who had graciously accepted my invitation, even though there was a bigger Idd ul-Fitr celebration at his own home that day. Plus Arne Kittang, a Norwegian, the only foreigner among us, and the principal of New Era High School.
Steaming hot cups of tea were being poured out by Il Palazzo�s staff, and trays of chicken and vegetable sandwiches were being produced, plus potato chips, a chocolate cake. I asked if they met frequently like this. Whether there was a kind of fraternity among the Panchgani boarding school principals. Innis, who proved to be the life and soul of my tea-party despite his image of the proverbial strict master, said: �Only when there�s a crisis in the hill-station. Like when the schools don�t get water!� And from there, the conversation flowed like this:
Farzana: What do you�ll do on Saturday nights?
Kittang: There�s no such thing as Saturday nights here!
Innis: No Saturday night fever, he means!
Lee: It�s better not to have discos here.
Khan: Yes, already Panchgani is so crowded.
Simon: And what haphazard growth!
Innis: The heavenly weather is the only compensation.
Farzana: What about a movie at least? I remember coming here as a child for my hols and seeing movies in big tents!
Simon: Not tents, tambus they used to be called! But that was over 18-20 years ago.
Sr. Lovenia: There is no social life. No parties. But, yes, we do have get-togethers and picnics once in a while.
Lee: Yes, where drawing, singing, and rangoli competitions are held, impromptu fashion shows are staged, Jest-A-Minute skits performed.
Innis: You know the old 1970s� let�s meet with an intention kind of thing that were popularly known as socials! They used be twice a month, actually, and they were held in various schools. When the staff and students danced to music and played games. But that petered out.
Khan: We have moved on to staff versus students kind of activity now.
Lee: Yes, where the staff of one school invite the staff of another for five-a-side football matches and badminton tournaments. Sister Lovenia excelled at the last meet!
Farzana: What do you miss most of all in Panchgani?
Lee: I miss good restaurants.
Khan: Yeah, all the good restaurants are in Mahabaleshwar and Satara.
Innis: Ignorance is bliss!
Simon: I go to Pune once a month or so...
Kittang: Well, yes, I do miss things like Norwegian smoked salmon, but at home I have a good cook who makes up. And I get invited to friends� homes for dinner.
Sr. Lovenia: We nuns do manage to have a good time in all innocence. Our time is not only spent in Church. We celebrate birthdays and Christmas.
Farzana: How do you let your hair down, then?
Innis: From morning to night, we are in harness. There�s no such thing as a Saturday or Sunday off. We let our hair down when the students go on vacation!
Khan: Yes, that�s when there are no classes.
Farzana: What about tuck-boxes? Do you�ll allow that in school?
Lee: Yes, but in St. Peter�s, we have changed the rules slightly. Students can have tuck three times a week and all of them eat the same thing. Only the senior students are allowed to take tuck up to the dorms.
Sr. Lovenia: I go on raids and find such a lot of make-up in the dorms!
Lee: I find deodorants!
Innis: Beauty salons years ago were meant only for ladies.
Kittang: Yes, we allow it at New Era.
Khan: No, tuck-boxes are not allowed at Green Valley. But thrice a week, the school canteen is open and that is like a tuck-box! When the students are going home on holidays, I have a one-hour meeting in which I explain I want them to return in the same shape to me!
Innis: We�ve had good reason to stop it at Codesh. If everybody gets the same thing, then it�s fine. Otherwise there are comparisons. Some kids get foreign goodies, others don�t even have local. So we keep one big common tuck-box into which every student dives!
Farzana: What about midnight feasts like Enid Blyton wrote in her Mallory Towers and St. Clare�s books on girls� boarding schools?
Kittang: Yes, the students do have them but in their dorms.
Innis: Yes, but only after their final exams. I find nothing wrong in midnight feasts.
Khan: I once caught my boys roasting a goat! I didn�t know what to do, so I joined them!
Innis: The sacrificial sheep!
Lee: There no midnight whatever, tuck or talk, after lights out! But it�s normal in all boarding schools.
Simon: Yes, they do that at Billimoria and mess up the place. Then I have to take notice. Otherwise, I tend to ignore midnight feasts.
Farzana: What about boarding-school food? It used to be notorious for being awful! Is that still the case?
Khan: Oh it has changed completely. Parents now want to see the dining halls and dorms first and then the classrooms.
Simon: Yes, I have parents checking what kind of food we serve before seeking admission for their children.
Kittang: I have a kitchen committee that consults the kids and goes through the menus with them. We try to give the best. We cannot, of course, accommodate every student�s tastes, but we try to find a balance.
Lee: I have a boys� mess committee, two boys per class, one a vegetarian, the other a non-vegetarian. We tell them our budget and ask them what they want out of it. This way, they cannot grumble later on.
Simon: Yeah, but you cannot satisfy everybody. Often the other students are not happy at the choices made by the committee.
Innis: Sugges-tions are welcome. But the students are in a �mess� when they do this!
Khan: The students� involvement through a committee is important. But often, these students get harassed by the others.
Farzana: I have to ask, if you all had one wish for Panchgani... what would it be?
Khan: I wish the Table Land could be cleared up.
Innis: A platform through which students could be made aware of the realities of life... about things like AIDS, etc.
Lee: Outdoor-oriented events in the hill-station for students.
Kittang: I�d like Panchgani to be a learning community... where the students, by coming out of school, would be like stepping out of the closet and into the community.
Simon: Better roads, more greenery, like Panchgani was ten years back.
Sr. Lovenia: An opportunity for students to come together just so that they can be themselves and enjoy life.
Farzana: I�d want to rid the hill-station of all the structures that have come up here.
Innis: You people live in skyscrapers in Bombay and want to come here and change all this!
The Principals� Tea-party!
