Ajay Jain. Photograph Ajay Jain

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Sapere Aude, Sincere et Constanter

Ajay Jain is a writer, photographer, and traveller. He has written sixteen books across genres including travel, business, fiction and memoir. He also runs Kunzum, an independent bookstore in New Delhi. He holds degrees in mechanical engineering, business management and journalism.

Charlie’s Boys is a memoir of Ajay Jain’s schooldays at St. Columba’s School in New Delhi during the 1970s and 1980s. At the time, the institution was regarded as one of the finest in the country. Founded by the Irish Brotherhood, it balanced academic rigour with a social commitment: though its standards were elite, it admitted a significant number of students from less privileged backgrounds. Despite being a Christian missionary school, it remained secular, never imposing religious instruction on its students.

The book moves between past and present. Jain narrates incidents from his youth and interweaves them with reflections from his current perspective. The writing shifts between anecdote and commentary, inviting the reader to smile, laugh and pause.

The following extracts are reproduced from different sections of the book with the author’s permission.

Sudeep Sen

Back to School – Fighting Tears!

Tears.

Of apprehension when I entered St. Columba’s School for the first time as a five year old.

Tears.

Of a yearning when I visited fifty years later.

While I left the school, the school never left me. It was still there, waiting, with little changed. The buildings, the classrooms, the fields, the canteen—they were the same. As was the lighting in the corridors, the water in the coolers and the odour from the bathrooms. Weathering the test of time were the murals on the walls, the stone on the floor, the banisters on the stairs and the bricks in the walls. The doors to classrooms were their robust self, their aluminium latches still intact; iron-framed windows open as always, for nature to provide its air-conditioning.

Of course, it was a different era. Then and now. As I walked the corridors, I expected a certain Br D’Souza, a Mrs Kak, a Mr Rocha to appear, requiring me to wish them a good morning or a good afternoon and their nods of acknowledgement. My ears were cocked for the Walter’s bell to make it to class on time, lest Charlie get upset. Oh Walter, all of us groaned when your dong marked the end of the lunch break; it’s ring would now be music to the ears, if only I could hear it just one more time.

I imagined walking into any of the classrooms, finding my desk, unlocking it, taking the ink pot and filling the fountain pen. And listening. To the mute walls, the boisterous students and the stern teachers.

And thus, this memoir. Where I retraced the same steps but arrived elsewhere.

Why I Wrote the Memoir

I was in St. Columba’s High School from 1975 to 1988.

I wrote this memoir for myself. To pay an ode to the institution and its teachers.

To re-live the joy of childhood and adolescence. To revise the lessons learnt. To reconnect with my schoolmates. To remind myself of the innocence and simplicity of the times gone by.

To tell myself life need not be very different than what it was in school. It is only a matter of choices we make. So, we can hum along, free in the mind, nimble on our feet, light in the heart. It does not take much to be the same child in spirit as we were back then, ever the youth in appearance and outlook.

I wrote this memoir for you. So, you may pause a moment. Go back to your own school. And then experience the same sentiment, the same resurgence, the same catharsis I have.

So many people in school contributed to shaping who I am today. The most important thing they taught me? Pay it forward. So, the lamp of knowledge, of kindness, of goodness keeps burning.

This memoir is written from my heart.

Admissions Open to St. Columba’s School

St. Columba’s opened its doors on January 7, 1941 (India became independent in 1947). The records show thirty two boys showed up: five Catholics, eighteen Hindus, eight Muslims and one Sikh, conspicuous in his purple turban. Classes started as numbers swelled gradually. The vast majority of pupils were the sons of government officials, genial and easy going, and were fonder of pleasure and amusement than studying, as per official accounts of the time. Homework and preparative work of any kind were things they abominated. ‘Our teacher,’ said one of the youths, ‘impose a lot of homework and yet call themselves Christian Brothers.’

If the boys thought they could get away with this attitude, then they should have paid attention to the address by Rev. S. Mulligan, Archbishop of Delhi, on the official opening of the school:

‘St. Columba’s is a dream I have had since I came to India—a dream I feared I would not see come true in my day. I looked on it as a mere possibility but faith, trust in God and the courage of the Brothers have made it a reality in the shortest time possible. There it stands today, under our eyes—an ornament to our city, a monument to the educational zeal of the Irish Christian Brothers, a credit to the architect who designed it, to the contractor who executed the work and to the Brothers, who supervised and improvised its routine.

If you ask me why I turned to these Brothers when there was the question of St. Columba’s. I have known these Brothers all my life. I have been a witness of the wonderful educational work they have been doing at home and abroad. They have won laurels in every phase of educational work from the kindergarten up to the university curriculum.

Somebody has said that a school is as good as its teachers. If that be so, then I can predict that this school of Delhi will be second to none in India. Long and thorough has been the training these Brothers have received in their own Institute, while they are heirs to a tradition of successful teaching, stretching back for a century and a half. They have sacrificed everything dear to human nature—bright prospects, lucrative position, many of the pleasures of life—in order to dedicate themselves unreservedly to the intellectual and moral training of the youth of the country where they happened to be.

Parents have a right to expect their children will be given, during the course of their training, the love and an appreciation of the spiritual values of life that lie beyond all thinking and all action—that lie at the very basis of civilised society. A young man may leave college a prize winner, a classical scholar, and may be able “to roll to bed with a Latin phrase and rise with a verse of Greek,” but unless his mind is clean and his heart is pure, he is not a cultured man but a monstrosity that may become a danger to the state. He is without self-control and unable to stem the tide of passion, of rouse, a lethargic will to action, is without a sense of responsibility to conscience, society or God.

I have great pleasure in declaring St. Columba’s school open and I pray that it may become a nursery of good, intelligent boys who will be able to fight their way through under the standards of Truth, Justice, Religion and Charity.’

Brother Eric Steve D’souza Could Have Been Anyone

He could have been Bill Gates or Steve Jobs—he had what they had, probably more. Coincidentally, all born in the 1950s. But Br Eric Steve D’souza (the Headmaster of the middle school) did not use his brain to make billions; rather, he crossed wires with his heart so his soul could resonate with the likes of Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King. People who could have been anyone but choosing to serve those who needed them the most.

Mr Pokhriyal, the singing Mathematics teacher in senior school, had an apt song for Br D’souza:

Apne liye, jiye to kya jiye (If you lived for yourself then what is that living)
To jee, ay dil, zamaane ke liye (So live, my heart, for this world)

Br D’souza was a brilliant academician. Not just in what he was formally trained for, but also with an uncanny ability to grasp new subjects like computer programming. He could easily be a student and his own tutor.

He was a musician, a theatre director, a quizmaster and a sportsman who could dribble a football, swing a cricket ball and wield a hockey stick. His had a mind whirring all the time, with a photographic memory, able to pull out any information quicker than a computer. He punished you with Charlie and yet be your friend, your confidant, your mentor. He never forgot anyone, nor their strengths and weaknesses—he would be there to bolster the former and aid with the latter. Because above everything else, he was a teacher in every sense of the word.

He could have stayed on in St. Columba’s School, in the centre of the country, and soaked in all the adulation. But he moved away—to obscure Shillong before hitting thirty-five. His best years were yet to come and he felt an impoverished region needed him more than a glitzy city. He would go on to don the hat of a social entrepreneur, setting up the Providence School from scratch. For those who were too poor to even afford free Government education—to train them in skills so they could earn a livelihood and lead a life of dignity and hope.

Br D’souza travelled a long way in a short while: from the rebellious spirit of the 1960s with his long hair, John Lennon glasses and infectious charisma to the educationist, the missionary at ease in a modest cassock. Son of an army officer, he joined the Christian Brotherhood at sixteen. He touched thousands directly and many more through them, but his sensitivity, his empathy made everyone feel he was there only for them, so deep was his connection to each. His life was defined by his deep and unwavering commitment to his students, his belief in the power of education to transform lives—it was the source of his youthfulness, his energy, his faith.

The conviction of his calling and his honesty allowed him to speak his mind. He forged his own, always thinking ahead and always seeking new ways to inspire, educate and uplift.

Those who knew him admired him but feared his chain smoking would cut short his stay, like many geniuses who did not live long. Instead, Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP) got to him first, a cruel fate for someone who donated all of God’s gifts to improve lives other than his own.

Whether he taught you directly or not, every Columban who was there during Br D’souza’s time feels blessed to have walked the same corridors as he did. He left an indelible mark on each of us and there would be no better tribute than to imbibe and practice all the values he himself led with.

If you were seeking him, he would be found amid his students. Even now, we just have to look around and he will be there—smiling, laughing, singing, joking. To bond and to disarm you. So he could ram into us a sense of discipline, an understanding of what it takes to be an upright human being. Ensuring we apply ourselves to what we decide to do, bringing out the best versions of ourselves.

And yet, even he would need some assistance at times so his boys, his children, could be what they were meant to be. That’s why Br D’souza’s left a sidekick along, responding to the name, Charlie.

Learning Secularism in a Christian Missionary School

Why would anyone leave the comforts and security of the western world, settle in a difficult region like India, driven to teach generations of boys; unruly and docile, bright and dim, rich and poor?

How can you look at such men with suspicion, doubting their intent, questioning their motives? They are guided by their religion but they do not impose it upon others. Not once in thirteen years was Christianity, or any other religion, discussed in the classroom. Not once were we asked to offer prayers in the Sacred Heart Cathedral, one of the most important churches in India, standing between St. Columba’s and Convent of Jesus and Mary.

Ours was a truly secular environment, in letter and in spirit. Christian boys were taken to Catechism classes while others stayed back for Moral Science. To be taught what it means to be a conscientious citizen of this planet, a good human in society.

The years following independence were quite liberal and then the mood and narrative started changing politically. Things were progressively made more difficult for Irish brothers running St. Columba’s and for other western missionaries. Each was projected as being here to convert our population to Christianity, while all they wanted was for us to be proficient in mathematics, english, science, tennis and other subjects and sports. Upholding the right principles, with empathy and charity towards all.

They carried on, standing tall on pillars of truth and justice, even if vilified by those who saw them as missionaries out to change our demography. They were here to uplift anyone who needed to be; it did not matter whether they prayed to Ram, Allah or Jesus, or to no one in particular.

Those who were in the country would stay on but entry was restricted to new ones coming in. Leaving our country poorer, being denied education and a value system agnostic of ethnicity and religion. Because these Brothers not only taught us but brought the best out in other teachers.