Unfortunately my sharpest memory of boarding school is not very pleasant. I contracted Hepatitis A in my second year there, and it was a pretty bad attack. I remember being repeatedly sick and being put in the infirmary (yes, that's what our sick room was called). The worst thing about Hep A during it's worst stages, is the total lack of interest in food and the puking! The time I got it was near Easter and my mother had ordered for a big chocolate Easter egg to be delivered to me. The sisters very kindly brought me a piece of the egg. I took a bite of it, more because my eyes were hungry, and probably brought it all up! I couldn't look at chocolate Easter eggs for quite a while.

After about 10 days there, (so it seems to me now), my mother landed up all the way from Bombay, to take care of her very sick chick. What a relief it was to see her! She promptly got permission for me to leave the hostel till the doctor certified me free of the Hep A. She then stayed with me somewhere nearby for around 2 weeks, by which time I could atleast look at food without loathing. She then brought me down to Kerala for our traditional treatment of Hep A. But by then I was rid of the Hep A virus. I went back to school around a week later.

The whole boarding school way of life was still quite Brit at that time (remember it was only 13 years after Independence). I was there only for 2 years. I went in in the 4th standard(grade) and was moved to the 5th in the middle of the year (what was called a double-promotion). When I moved to the 6th it was the 1st Form(yes, as in Enid Blyton & the England of those days).
I remember among my chosen extra-curricular activities were ballet and riding. I like watching ballet and love ballet music, but I realised, pretty early, that I was too clumsy to be good at it.
But riding I loved, more because I love animals I think. We were taught on sturdy ponies, who had all been used to having green kids, try to control them. So they were very gentle. I so loved their horsey smell and the brushing them afterwards. I remember once, as a special treat, I was allowed to ride our instructor's horse, a beautiful big, black horse and the thrill of it. Incidentally, our riding instructor was an English woman, one of those who had decided to stay on. There were quite a few of them in Ooty, and the horse was her own. All the ponies were for hire from the men who kept them for tourists near Ooty Lake. Of course, after leaving Ooty there's been no chance to ride.

I went off to Boarding school in Ooty when I was 8, which should make it '60 January. I can't remember the logic for being sent off to boarding school except that both my elder brothers had been in boarding school--in Ooty. There was also the fact that my mother probably found it difficult to manage the 3 of us younger children together. Anyway, whatever the reasons, I went.
I remember getting together all the requisite clothes and my mother getting name tags--my name, machine stitched on a tape roll kind of thing. It was pretty easy to get something like that done in Bombay of that time. Then my mother took me to the book store in Flora Fountain and brought me 'The Naughtiest Girl in School' by Enid Blyton and a sequel, writing on the inside cover 'I hope you won't be the naughtiest girl'. [I loved the book and the character, but I was never like the heroine, being the sort who almost always followed rules and was rebellious only in my mind!]
The next most important thing was getting one's tuck box ready. For that, one was expected to have a box, into which all the food items from home were to be packed. These were then given into the custody of the nun who was one of those associated with the dining room & kitchens. What I remember most was a raspberry shaped sweet (like the orange shaped ones), pink in colour and sour-sweet, which I loved. There were certainly some of these in the tuck box. Any medicines that were needed were also to be specified. I was, in general, a healthy 8 year old. But it was usual to be given a multi-vitamin tonic and the in one in those days was Feradol, a sort of malty concoction. In the cooler weather of Ooty it got thick and was somehow much tastier and so almost and addition to the tuck box :).
I remember the day I was to leave, all of us girls who were part of the Bombay party, had to assemble at the Villa Theresa convent and all our luggage--box of clothes, tuck box and bedroll, given to the nuns. After that we all headed for the station, where there was a whole first class carriage reserved for us. I think I was one of the very few South Indians. Most of the other girls were Parsis. Anyway, we were all asked to take our places in our assigned compartments, after saying our good byes. Now my mother, having been brought up as a good Anglican, was very stiff-upper-lip, in the old Brit style. So she shed not a tear, which made me also hold my tears in. Besides this whole 'travelling in a gang' thing was exciting. I was fine through the 3 day journey. I enjoyed every bit of it---the carriage being shunted into a lay-by at Madras station, the day trip out to Madras, the changing of trains at Mettupalayam for the small Nilgiris Blue Train, the putting on of cardigans as the weather grew cooler at the higher altitudes--were all new and interesting experiences. I didn't cry even on the first night after getting to school. What finally did me in was when after about 3 days I woke up in the night to hear one of our school nannies snoring in exactly the same tone as my mother's snore! That brought the tears in earnest and I cried enough to make up for the past week I think. I can say I settled down and was very happy. But that's not really true. I stuck it out in a fairly well adjusted manner, but I was deeply homesick. Luckily it was only for 2 years. More on that later.

As I've mentioned earlier, the Bombay I grew up in was a much more laid-back city than it is now. It was also a much smaller city. In those days the Aarey Milk Colony(was what it was called) was far out of the city and we were taken there as Junior School kids, as a one day excursion out of the city!
There were more open spaces in those days. We were taken to the Malabar Hill gardens quite frequently, where there was a boot shaped slide--more like the 'Old woman who lived in a shoe' kind of thing--a boot with a roof on top. I wonder whether it is still there. Once we moved to Bandra, the Bandstand was a favourite spot for a quick visit.

Juhu beach was not the hip and happening place it is now and we went often to swim there and I think there was a club nearby which someone in the family was a member of.

There were lots of eateries we were taken to as both my parents were adventurous in their food tastes. I remember the Irani restaurants for the falooda and pattice; then there was Nanking's Chinese restaurant (the one near the Royal Yacht Club) near the Gateway of India, a regular haunt; there was Bombelli's bakery at Breach Candy (not there any more) which had the most moist chocolate pastries. Then there was the Parsi Dairy farm icecreams, hot jalebis--somewhere Worli side is what I remember faintly--bhelpuri around the Breach Candy area, absolutely delicious Kala jamuns and rosogollas which were brought to the house in big clay pots (absolutely unthinkable now I'm sure), gingerale and some other fizzy soft drink, all inextricably linked to my memories of Bombay.
Of course now Bombay has more than enough famous eateries and the bhelpuri and hot jalebis are available in so many places. But I promise you that those absolutely black and sweet gulab/kala jamuns were to die for and I've never had stuff like that afterwards.

I haven't posted here in a long time. Somehow the memories didn't seem so important and my words not at all compelling!
There is one more memory from that childhood visit to my aunt's farm, which shocked and upset me then. That was my first instance of seeing untouchability at close quarters (or at least my first clear memory). The fields were being harvested and the rice fields were full of workers. At that time they too were fed by the house. So, at noon, I saw them all sitting down in a long line in the front yard away from the house. As I watched, each of the people sitting on the ground made a hole in the ground in front of them (this was in the Mavelikara side of Kerala, where the topsoil is almost like sea sand). Then the holes were lined with leaves and they were then served with 'kanji'--rice gruel into these holes, which they ate with spoons made from folded jackfruit leaves. I was really upset. I remember asking my aunt why they had to eat like that, why did they not have some vessel to have the 'kanji' in. She explained to me that they were from the lowest castes and could not be given food in our vessels.
I am really glad to say that that was the last time I saw anything like that. This would have been in the early '50s. After that I must say Kerala progressed rapidly. Elected Communist governments certainly improved the lot of people a great deal, bringing in education for all and really helping the lower castes feel a sense of pride in themselves and a sense of hope for the future. Now, belonging to the Backward classes is not something to be hidden because of all the benefits, chief of which is reservation of course. Now, each caste works hard to get the 'backward' tag attached! What a change!!

I'm going to be 56 tomorrow. Most of the time the inner me doesn't remember that. But of course in the outer me there's no getting away from that!

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There are so many wonderful memories of the time I spent in Kerala at that time, enough for a huge number of posts.
One of the memories is connected with one of the cows. There were a number of cows there. As I've always loved animals, I hung around, when they were being milked, when they were taken being untied to be led out to the fields and when they were led back to their shed. I loved the smell of the cows and the hay(which is dry rice stalks here).
One day one of the cows was being delivered of a calf. I remember her as a big black cow. Naturally I wanted to see. I was in time to watch the calf being wiped down and the cow standing up to lick her. Oh how cute the calf was. It stood up on it's wobbly legs and took a step towards me. I was thrilled. Just then my aunt called me. So I very merrily turned round to go back to the kitchen verandah. The calf--probably because I was the first living thing he/she had seen, started following me. The cow took one look and decided that her calf was being stolen. She charged after the both of us--calf and me, be mooing loudly. I ran for my life--5 yr old me--and cleared the verandah steps in one jump, by which time someone came and caught the cow! But I must confess that as the memory is dredged up, I remember being scared, but more excited by the thought that the calf followed me!