On Mrs Gandhi’s assassination

One fine lazy afternoon (or near-Noon?) at Loyola School, Trivandrum

1. We were in Class X (1984) and I was in X B (ICSE)
2. Mr PK Sebastian was taking the Malayalam class in X B.
3. India were playing Pakistan in a One-day match (? at Delhi)
4. I was sitting on the penultimate bench.
5. Alex Vacha was sitting under the desk in the last row, pocket radio in hand, listening to the commentary oblivious to the class in progress and PKS was taking class obviously oblivious to Vacha’s under-the-table exploits.
6. Both class and commentary run simultaneously while Dilip Vengsarkar, batting magnificently, touches 94 (still batting towards a sure 100…).
7. All of a sudden there’s aloud ‘THUMP’…..(the sound – we realised later, was that of Vacha jumping up from his subterranean perch and knocking his near-tonsured head on the undersurface of the desk that he was hiding beneath)…..He (Vacha) emerges from his lair, pocket radio still glued to his ear…surprising all of us. Astonishment writ large on the face of a bewildered PKS (as if asking….what was this rapscallion doing while I was taking class here?).
8. Vacha…overwhelmed by the enormity of the historic (or notorious) moment and momentarily forgetting that he was ‘caught in the act’ (kindly note – pocket radio still glued to the ear with commentary running in the background) excitedly announces (to the Malayalam class of X B and shell-shocked PKS in particular and to the world in general)……..CRICKET MATCH ABANDONED – Mrs GANDHI SHOT!!!!”.
9. News spreads like wildfire…commotion in the campus and in the city…school bell rings to cut short classes…..students go home early.
10. DD starts playing soulful (or rather ‘soul-less’) music as was their wont those days..
11. AIR keeps giving out bulletins of Mrs IG being shot and how she was ‘critically wounded’ and in hospital.
12. By 6 or 7 pm Fr Manipadam catches BBC announcement of IG’s death and relays the same to staff and students
13. AIR finally gets a weary Giani Zail Singh to announce Mrs IG’s death around half-past 8 (a good two hours’ after BBC lets the cat out of the bag).

We learn the next day that IG was shot by her own security staff belonging to a particular community.

Images-that-refuse-to-go-away:

No.1 – Vacha (with pocket radio) jumping out of his hole into the midst of sombre PKS Malayalam class gesticulating wildly..
No. 2 – Wide-eyed PKS perplexed at the sudden turn of events (Vacha surreptitiously listening to cricket commentary during class / Match abandoned / PM shot)
No. 3 – Mr CNK Nair (by the way – he used to live in his house in front of Medical college – on the street near the old DME till last year….now lives with son Movie actor Santhosh in Calicut…….Did anyone invite him? He’s not in the best of health) announcing
in class the next day – “Oru thoppikkarane ente kaiyyil kittiyaal njaan avane………(A la Jayan).”

1984-85 was my last year at Loyola. My twin brother (Sriram) & myself (Srikrishna) were in 7th Std, and I remember practising with the school cricket team during “second trip”.. with guys from the older batches such as Pradeep Suthan, Moncy, George P. Thomas etc. The highlight for me was being allowed to play in a house match, and being given the last over to bowl.

James Conway was a great guy, though misunderstood by some boys. His family is originally from Ireland, and part of his family owned farms in Ireland – But his dad immigrated to Canada – That explains his dual Irish & Canadian roots. As a matter of fact, I’m living in Canada now, about 100km from Conway’s then family address. Conway taught English (A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens) to VII-A, and most boys failed miserably in the first test. He asked questions like, “On what grounds was XYZ acquitted at his trial?” Many boys didn’t understand that the phrase “what grounds” was an idiom meaning “cause or reason” – The answers were shocking to Conway, such as “On the grounds of Old Bailey” (the courthouse in the story), HaHa. After that test Conway realized he needed to go slower.

Conway was sincere and tried to gain the interest of all boys, I recall: On one occasion he spent many minutes asking boys to teach him words like Vazhuthacaud and Vizhinyam (the “zh” sound), saying, “What beautiful sounds you have in Malayalam”.. and especially asking those boys weak in English to help him with Malaylam. On rainy afternoons when we had occasionally free time in the period, I recall Conway telling us ghost stories that allegedly happened in his remote farmhouse in Ireland – True or not, the stories got our attention.

I also remember Mrs. Gandhi’s assassination day. A bunch of us piled into a friend’s car and made our way thru chaotic city traffic. Near Medical College our progress halted when confronted with a small-scale riot.. a KSRTC bus was burning in plain view. Our car had no adult males, so we were allowed to pass through the junction. Otherwise, the aspiring-professional-goonDaas were emptying passengers from all cars and trashing the vehicles.. (How their actions were justified by the PM’s assassination, that they did not clarify!)

I remember our music teacher Anthony fondly. Not sure if it was 1984 or 1-2 years earlier, but “Thenum Vayambum” was a wildly popular song. For the Youth Festival try-outs about half-dozen boys from our class sang this same song.. Anthony Sir was laughing and threatened disqualification if any more boys sang “Thenum Vayambum”. “Mainaakam” was another popular song. In 1984 I recall the guy who won the competition from 7th Std sang “Ezhu Svarangalum Tazhugi Varum Oru Gaanam”.. beautiful song by Yesudas that evokes for me memories of those days and of Kerala in general (since I’m not from Kerala but Andhra)

In 2001 I went back to TVM for a visit with my wife.. Loyola was deserted (Sunday, probably) but Fr. Anikuzhi was alone in his office and actually recognized me from 16years ago, asking specific questions about my brother & I – Great memory. He showed me albums with photos of my batchmates in later yeras. I also toured the old playground and cricket fields.

Nostalgic mid-80s at Loyola.. Thanks for the chance to share memories.

- D. Srikrishna

abt the day mrs. gandhi was assassinated. very vivid memories indeed. a group of us decided to walk back home (some of us, all the way to karamana which was right across town) and to cut time we took the prashant nagar “short-cut” instead of the usual sreekariyam route. as luck would have it, my dad came to pick us up on the usual route and we completely missed him. fortunately we got a ride from another parent whose car was already packed when he saw our school uniform and stopped (i believe this was manoj surendran’s father). long story short, we got home safely after walking maybe around 6 k.m. instead of the planned 15-16 odd k.m.

In fact, we won the inter school cricket team championship with ease in 1985. We had a bunch of good cricketers then. Biju Mohan for one. Moncy was another. S Jayashankar. Rajesh Nambiar. Rajeev Sreedharan. Rajiv Narayan. Antony Chacko and Biji B R of the 9th std. In fact in 1985 we had four students from the 8th standard … selected to the team so that they could get some exposure. I have some snaps of those days. I can send them to you.

And in 1983-84, we were the runners-up. Our seniors had to back out since the tournament dates were very close to their boards. So we played the tournament with 9th and 8th std boys. And we came a creditable second place. A good team performance.

Our seniors had Mahesh Surendran, G Vivekanand, Rajeev Madhavan among others in their ranks … Mahesh was a wonderful all rounder with swing and pace and control … and a good bat too … just that he was so good at so many things that he perhaps did not pursue cricket like some of us did.

Aside : soon after the assassination, Fr. Manipadam made us write our version of the brutal killing (part of Eng Composition). Most of us misspelt assassination. Perhaps, for the last time.

Apart from that, I also remember how difficult it was in the ensuing days to accept Rajiv Gandhi as the PM. Me as a child simply refused to believe that this was the new PM. For me the primary function of the PM was to walk down stairs from the aircraft, wearing goggles, waving hands at the public. Without wearing a saree and without covering the head with ghunghat,how could anyone be a PM?!

Sandeep, to me the “Mass PT” drills were fun. The athletic gents and ladies from LNCPE were a far cry from the local hero; so for us, it was more like, “Oh! So, PT instructors are like this!” Varkey sir, on his part, picked up “Demonstration for you, command for me” from them. So, on the whole the LNCPE brigade increased Loyola’s exposure to PT. The drill was quite fun, methought.

Rajamma madam is there in the staff photo. In 1984-85, Fr Kuruvilla Cherian returned from the US after completing his Masters in School Administration. In the same year, Fr MM Thomas replaced Manorama madam as teacher-in-charge of junior school.

I remember that in the late 80s we were subject to extreme torture by instructors from LNCPE who arrived to “train” us in “basic limb movements” marketed as an exclusive display of Lazeme (or whatever that jingling contraption is called) skills on Sports Day. I can still vividly see VC Jacob sir and CT Varkey sir, both standing in the pavilion, taking turns at shouting into the microphone to enforce at least a semblance of coordination, which remained an illusion even on D-Day. ;P

Thank you for drawing our attention to the scene in the library. If the library has Nehru (and Gandhi?), in addition to Jesus, I would see it as Loyola trying not to project Christianity. But then, your comment also reminded me of pictures in classrooms — Jesus was pretty common, while non-Christian or non-religious scenes weren’t. Can’t be more in-your-face than that, right? Forgot those.

Also, my comment was just my personal recollection — of a non-partisan, cosmopolitan, atmosphere/feel of those times. I would love to hear what others felt or experienced while studying in Loyola. Did it strike the Loyolite that he was studying in a ‘Christian’ school?

Also, when u mention Loyola not projecting Christianity publicly, well the Library has always had a portrait of Jesus hung on the wall with other portraits of Nehru. And it seems ages old.

Before the regular school time for the day ended, Sreeji Gopan’s (X-1992) father drove to school in his car and transported all the West Fort kids back to their homes. Though I wondered why this rescue was necessary, I just went with the flow. It was only later that I came to know that the local Congresswalas had gone on a rampage in the city after calling for a hartal. The only building in Trivandrum with ‘Punjab’ written on it happened to be the Punjab and Sindh Bank at Pulimood junction, and the Congresswalas did a lot of damage there. Anyway, the drive back home gave me an opportunity to see parts of the city that I had not seen before. I used to take Bus No. 1 (‘One-Bus’) to school, and during hartals, it was prudent to avoid that route.