Fr Kuruvila Cherian SJ, former Principal of Loyola School, died in British Guyana yesterday, confirmed a source at the headquarters of Kerala Jesuits.

Born on 18 July 1941, Fr Cherian taught in various Jesuit schools in Kerala for three decades, and was Principal of AKJM (Kanjirappally), and later Loyola School (Trivandrum). In May 2000, he left Loyola and joined the Jesuit Refugee Service in Nepal.  He served there as the Assistant Project Director of the educational programme, in camps set up for refugees from southern Bhutan, who had been expelled from their country in 1991 for being of Nepalese origin.

After a stint in East Africa in the Jesuit Refugee Service, Fr Cherian moved to British Guyana, the English-speaking country in South America. There, among other things, he worked in Berbice on the east coast, at the Human Development Center, a Jesuit training centre for children, young adults, and women.

Towards the end of February 2010, Fr Cherian suffered a stroke and was admitted to St Joseph Mercy Hospital in Georgetown. While in hospital he also suffered from a lung infection, but recovered and was discharged on 5 March. According to a news flash from the Jesuit residence in Georgetown, announced via Facebook, “his night was not too restful so he was left dozing until after 9.30am [on 6 March]… and then he was sitting up and having something simple to eat to take down the tablets. Although he was responding to people, his responses were somewhat dazed and sleepy.” Around 10.20 in the morning on Saturday (1820 hrs IST on 6 March), Fr Cherian collapsed again. He was rushed to the hospital but did not recover.

At Loyola, for many years in the 1970s and 1980s, Fr Kuruvila Cherian was Vice-Principal. He was “a great support to all of us in this venture,” acknowledged Fr C.P. Varkey, reminiscing on the new approach to students adopted in those years. Fr Cherian had worked with Giles Francis on the design of logos of houses. In his last years in Loyola, he encouraged student  representatives like the School Leader to get involved in decision-making about the school. But he was also perceived among the staff, as a priest who pushed Christ and Christianity in Loyola. That might not be entirely unfounded; as reported earlier on this blog, Vice-Principal Kuruvilla commissioned a series of paintings on Jesus Christ (Jesus as a toddler, a young boy, and so on), one to be hung in each classroom, .

In 1982, Fr Cherian took a break, left for the US and successfully completed a two-year Masters programme in School Administration. Although he came back in 1984 to Loyola, he spent much of the late 1980s and 1990s in AKJM. In 1998, he returned to Loyola, this time as Principal. Alas! School and society had changed. Swimming against the tide, he tried to place emphasis on students’ extra-curricular activities, rather than academics.  After an unusually brief tenure, he left Loyola (and Kerala) for good in 2000, amidst rumours over difference of opinion with the then Jesuit Provincial, and against the backdrop weeks ahead of the announcement of a poor academic result in Loyola. [Readers are advised to see the comments section of this blog, especially Fr Toby's clarification.]

Since starting this blog, I’ve repeatedly tried to contact Fr Kuruvila Cherian by e-mail. He replied with silence. Perhaps he did not wish to take credit for his work in Loyola, or share his views in public about the changing face of Loyola in the 1990s. I should not have expected a bull in the china shop; after all, he was our karadi.

Hat tip: Fr Toby e-mailed to me the news of Fr Kuruvila Cherian’s death.

Hat tip: Harikrishna M. (1994 ISC)

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Thampi Sir taught in Loyola in the late 1980s and 1990s. The bald schoolteacher with a doctorate degree stood above his colleagues, also literally — he was over six feet tall. The news of Thampi Sir being awarded a doctorate reached him when he was a teacher in Loyola. Hence, many of us know that it was awarded for his research on place-names, which has since been published as Sthalanama Padana Pravesika. (According to the Mathrubhumi obituary, he won it from a German university, but my recollection is that it was a Belgian one.) My brother, who was taught by Thampi Sir, always used to go ga-ga while discussing his Malayalam classes. Those less fortunate, like me, have to content ourselves with discovering Thampi Sir after his death.

* * *

A neglected aspect of the much-praised student-teacher relationship of Loyola is that students know very little about their teachers. That neglect is most striking and shameful in the case of Dr Thampi, for he was a scholar who, even before he set foot in Loyola, had etched his name in the annals of Malayalam literature and Kerala historiography.

GTT was born on 23 September 1929 in Manavalakurichi, in Kanyakumari district of Travancore state. Growing up in a Tamil-speaking village in a state dominated by Malayalam speakers, GTT became proficient in Tamil and Malayalam. When Kerala state was created in 1956, his native village, along with other Tamil-speaking taluks, went from Travancore state to Madras state (renamed Tamil Nadu). But GTT began his teaching career in 1957 in Kerala. For the next four decades, he taught in various Nair Service Society schools and Loyola, Trivandrum. He also served as President of a cultural history organisation in Kanyakumari district.

Our generation will most likely remember GTT as a teacher. When we are gone, he will be remembered as a scholar and litterateur. His oeuvre comprised researched studies (on place names and ballads), a biography (M Rajaraja Varma), children’s literature (Bhoomi Enna Muthassi), on grammar (Vyaakaranavum Vrithaalankaarangalum), historical non-fiction (Mandaykkaadinte Charithram; in Tamil), and a historical novel (Aditya Varma; in Tamil). He also published articles in periodicals (including Malayali, Malayala Rajyam, Manorama, Vijnana Kairali, and Vachinad) and presented papers at seminars organised by the University of Kerala, the latter on studies of grammar and folk literature.

In 1984, the Kottayam-based Writers’ Cooperative published two works by GTT — Thiruvaathirakali Paattukal, and Valiyakesi Katha. The first was prompted by a “renaissance” of thiruvaathirakkali performances in youth festivals. GTT compiled several songs of this popular art form of southern Travancore (according to the book, the corresponding art of northern Kerala was kaikottikali) and wrote a researched article to accompany the compilation. The second (Valiyakesi Katha) is his most notable contribution. Valiyakesi Katha was a ballad that he had heard of when he was young. When GTT began his literary odyssey by going about collecting thekkan pattukal (literally, “songs of the south”; the vadakkan paattukal are more familiar to Malayalis), he had little hope of stumbling upon Valiyakesi Katha, estimated to be written around AD 1696. After several years, when he discovered this popular ballad of southern Travancore, he published it with his notes explaining the meaning and historical context of the composition. This work became a textbook for MA students of Malayalam, in Kerala University in the 1990s.

In 1999 and 2000, out came two studies on thekkan paatukal. The 1999 work — Thekkan Paattukal: Oru Padanam — was published by the Trichur-based Kerala Sahitya Akademi and is a good introduction to songs and ballads of southern Travancore. In less than 80 pages, GTT lucidly touches upon various aspects of the songs — their language, their descriptive styles, their themes (devotion, heroic exploits), their typology, and the method of writing on palm leaves (even how the leaves were readied and bound with wooden pieces). In it we enter the world of southern heroes like Eravikutty Pillai,  who match Thacholi Othenan of the northern ballads.

In contrast, GTT’s 2000 book — Thekkan Paattukal: Chila Adisthaana Chinthakal — published by the Trivandrum-based Rajarajavarma Bhashapadana Kendram, is not for just everyone. It is a sequel to the 1999 book, and intended for those who wish to go deeper into the linguistic and literary aspects of the songs. It is based on a study of 17 songs and ballads, that include those he found in books, unpublished scripts, and palm leaves; those he could recall; and those he heard from others. A dying tradition, some of these songs continue to be sung, in private temples in Kanyakumari district, every evening after deepaaraadhana. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the foreword to this scholarly book was written by GTT’s Loyola colleague, poet, critic, and my Malayalam teacher in high school K.V. Thikkurissi.

In his books, GTT lamented the neglect of the study of thekkan paattukal and in general, the literary culture of the past. “It is not just stories that we learn from the ballads. We can, in them, find the political conditions, cultural customs, and social history of that time. In these ballads, we can see the people of that era,” he wrote. These two recent works on songs of southern Kerala reveal a patient man who went about collecting songs, and decoding them, so that our past can be enjoyed by our future. His native soil was fertile to supply the knowledge of Tamil and Malayalam that such an enterprise called for, but the passion and persistence were cultivated.

It would be a fitting tribute to institute GTT prizes for researched essays in Malayalam by school children, on any aspect of Malayalam literature. GTT, who pored over songs written on palm leaves as well as quickie publications that appeared on pavement stalls will not object to the medium of the document — it can be a humble essay, a creative multimedia presentation, or one prepared for the mobile phone screen. As long as the research exercise fans the flames of curiosity and students learn more about their culture, Thampi Sir would be alive in Loyola, perhaps more meaningfully than he ever was.

This blogpost is based on an obituary in the Mathrubhumi (31 May 2009, p. 8), and four books by GTT.

The death of Mrs Maya Thomas at the age of 92, in February 2009 marked the passing on of an original teacher who taught in Loyola during the early days of the school. The ones who spring to my mind are Mr KS Jacob (Science), Mr Pillai,  Mrs Varghese (Geography), Mrs Muthunayagom, and Mr Doss, all  under Fr E Kuncheria. They taught me way back in January 1965 when I started studying in Loyola English School, as it was then known.

She was an excellent teacher of English and stressed to her students that knowledge of English was the ability to express ideas simply and concisely. She used to allude to George Orwell’s book Animal Farm as a prime example of how even such a complex political philosophy such as communism could be dealt with at various levels, be it as a story or political satire, and still appeal to a range of ages. Her corrections of my homework and test papers would have the comment “Keep it simple.”

Her style of teaching was not formal; nor was she one to pile on homework. She did expect you to behave in her classes; there was an element of old-school expectations in her demeanour and style of handling her students. She taught us English Prose and Poetry (including Shakespeare), as well as History.

She used to display righteous indignation at any “injustices” shown towards students, especially by the Jesuit priests. She would storm to Fr Kuncheria’s office and make her case with little regard for repercussion.

The obituary at her family website says “Mayakochamma was a remarkable individual and anyone who interacted with her over the years could not help but be struck by her personality. … She was an intellectual in the true sense, interested in ideas and had a fine critical mind. She was not given to the usual preoccupations of many middle class Indians — money, family connections and status symbols. She was an idealist and a true secularist through her life, having no time or patience for communal or religious divisions.”

The obituary also reveals how she came to be named “Maya” (after Buddha’s mother), and her early influences in life, including her visit to the Sabarmati Ashram, and her participation in the freedom struggle.

She spent the last two decades or so at the Yuhannon Marthoma Mandiram in Manganam, Kottayam. She was buried at the St. Andrews CSI Church near Puthupally, and is survived by her three children (a daughter and two sons) as well as three grandchildren.

Peter Panicker (1970; Eapen Joseph Panicker) lives in the United States and works in the infotech industry.

In June 1983, the school’s new building (the Silver Jubilee Block) was inaugurated by Bishop Acharuparambil. According to the accounts presented in the souvenir released on the occasion, the building was constructed at a cost of Rs 15,53,116.55, and further works worth Rs 1,50,000 were expected at that time. The money for the building came from loans (more than Rs 9 lakh), from the school (Rs 3.15 lakh), building fund fees (around Rs 1.95 lakh), donations (about Rs 1.29 lakh), the souvenir itself (Rs 1,09,959.17), and interest. To publish these accounts immediately after the Principal’s Preface, and before Page 1 of the souvenir, suggests an ethic of transparency that was extraordinary. Interestingly, the same publication also carried the fuzzy presentation of results of a Jesuit evaluation of the school.

The most historic happening of 1983-84, when I look back, is the change of guard at Loyola. Readers will quickly and rightly guess that Fr CP Varkey left that year. True, after fourteen years at Loyola, Fr Varkey left in September 1983, and Fr Varghese Anikuzhy became Principal. But in retrospect, an equally important change of guard had happened four months before Fr Varkey’s departure. For when school reopened in May 1983, two priests returned after several years to Loyola: Fr John Manipadam (as Rector), and Fr Mathew Pulickal (as teacher of English and History in high school). Together and separately, they were to influence a generation of Loyolites, and build Loyola’s alumni network.

The School Magazine dated 1984 had quite a few pages on Fr Varkey — including the Malayalam poem written by Loyola’s bard Mr PK Sebastian (which was presented as a “mangalapatram” from the staff during Fr Varkey’s farewell function), and an article on Fr Varkey by the other Sebastian in the staff room — Mr BO Sebastian. But here, I will present extracts of only two of the many brief notes by students:

The boys of my class told me how Fr Varkey used to thrash the boys (V to X). I was frightened. But during that time he experienced a change….From then on he started using a new phrase “Golden Heart!” Once when some money and books were stolen, he became very angry. In the Assembly he gave us a verbal beating. In the end he overcame his anger, urged us to kindly return the money to the owner. After a few days the owner got back his money and the boy had apologised to Fr Varkey.
- C Prem IX B

Though one could not call him perfect, one had to admit that his good qualities far outweighed all the others. We boarders were a group to which he had always been attached.”
- Cherian Abraham IX B

In his annual report on School Day, the Principal Fr Anikuzhy said, “From 1st Sept 1983 we arranged for a special bus-trip from the school at 4.45 pm to encourage games to build up teams.” (sic) That year Loyola won the Junior Championship in the District Sports Meet, the athletes also shone in the YMCA Meet, and our cricketers and mini basketballers were runners-up in the District. The “second trip” was an innovation that extended opportunities to day scholars to develop their sporting abilities.

I didn’t know that Loyola had student postmen. But the the school magazine says that the Postal Squad debuted in 1983-84. “With the introduction of this Squad many problems regarding the mail have now been solved,” said the squad member’s report. This squad perhaps served the hostelers. I request the beneficiaries of that era to enlighten us on what problems you faced — mails missing? mails opened before delivery?

As in the previous year, there were various squads which went about their work routinely. But three bits struck me:

I’ll end with an excerpt from one of my favourite articles in that school mag. Abhilash Mohan’s “Mahabali 33, 83″ probably owes it intriguing title to a savvy teacher who decided the topic of the school youth festival’s Malayalam essay/story competition. And this VIII B student rose to the occasion. The article begins directly but poetically “1933-le ponnin chingam. Paadangal thelinju. Pathaayangal niranju.” Two paragraphs later, we zoom fifty years to “1983-le thiruvonappulari. Maveli airbus-il vannirangi.” And a few sentences later,

Nattucha. Nadakkaan vayya. Auto-yum taxi-yum city service-um onnum kaanaanilla.
‘Mooppinnay, enthaa eri veyilu kollunnathu. Valla nerchayumundoe?’, oru cheruppakkaaran chothichu.
Maveli: Oru Auto kittiyaal kollaam.
Cheruppakaaran: Thaan eviduthukaaranaa? Innu bandh alle?

In simple sentences, the 13-year-old Abhilash not only wove in the lingo of the times, but also captured a timeless aspect of the political culture of modern Kerala.

Loyola School teachers were generous. On a day when we students were supposed to make them feel special, they sportingly entertained us — by agreeing to a round of basketball, with the odds stacked against them. I now feel that the staff vs students match on Teacher’s Day was unjust as much as it was in jest. Let’s make amends.

Five years ago, when Vivek Krishnan (1997) and I led Loyola’s alumni association, we visited teachers to invite them for the ‘Back to School’ event. It was an eye-opener. One teacher refused to meet us, another entertained us politely, but the vast majority were simply thrilled to see us.

There’s always a joy when you meet somebody after several years. But the teachers were happy because we remembered them. They insisted that we had taken pains to visit them; our protests were brushed aside. For, in their experience, old boys rarely contact teachers, leave alone meet.

At times, an old boy invites teachers to his wedding. Among retired teachers, only a select few get such invites. And believe it or not, less than a handful of students in any batch invite teachers to weddings.

Old boys offer several explanations for this. “I was not close to all teachers. I invited the teacher I was close to,” a few tell me. Teachers, however, do not use measuring scales and differentiate students. In my experience, even those teachers who played favourites at school, consider every student “close”. In fact, the naughty boys who were shouted at the most, are the ones more fondly remembered by teachers.

Wedding invite is not the issue. If you don’t wish to invite somebody for your wedding, that’s your personal decision. In any case, all of us miss somebody or the other on such occasions.

The broader and real question is why we do not bother to write even one letter to any school teacher, after a few years of our leaving school. We often remember our teachers but we do not let them know that they are in our thoughts. It will take us less than an hour in a year, to light up the life of a teacher. If so, why not make the effort by posting a letter, sending an e-mail, calling up, or surprising a teacher with a visit?

A few old boys do contact oft-forgotten teachers, and not just the ‘star’ ones. These are exceptions, and exceptional. But why should they be exceptions? Why not make ‘keeping in touch with teachers’ the general rule, or as we often love to say, a Loyola tradition?

After that invite round of 2003, Vivek handed me the address list he had compiled from the school’s records, I keyed it in, and Abishek V (2001) uploaded it on the old boys’ association’s website. And something happened.

Mr V, one of my batchmates, used the address list to send wedding invites. He doubted whether teachers remembered him. So, along with the invite for the reception in Trivandrum, he sent a one-page letter explaining where he was, and how he was grateful to his Loyola teachers. On groom’s day, outside the reception hall, there was a battalion of teachers. As they strode into the hall and blessed him, it was difficult to say who was more happy  — the old boy, his parents, his teachers, or other invitees.

In the coming weeks, I’ll try to get Loyola teachers’ addresses again, and upload them here at loyolites.com. (Update: Teacher addresses uploaded.) Please contact at least one teacher, preferably someone you haven’t seen or heard for years.

This September 5, let us play the game and watch the teachers win.

A few years ago, in the feedback forum of the Old Boys’ Association website, students from the 1970s and 1980s posted comments recalling their teachers, at times naming a few. What struck me was that some of the lady teachers who earned the praise, would have to beg for such expressions from later students. Simply put, they did not enjoy a healthy reputation by the 1990s.

Lady teachers who were good and popular when I was in junior school had turned bad and unpopular by the time I was in high school. Their counterparts in senior school too were good and popular, but invariably lost sheen by the time I left Loyola, or within a few years.

What do I mean by a “good” teacher? A good teacher is one who treats students like her own, tries to innovate in class, or encourages students to realise their potential in extra-curricular activities. A bad and unpopular teacher is conservative in the classroom, spends little time with students, hurts students through harsh methods of punishment, and appears to hate students than love them.

If we plot a teacher’s age on the x-axis and a teacher’s “good”ness on the y-axis, the career graph of a lady school-teacher would be a downward-sloping curve from left to right.

What could be the explanation for this? Is it that people grow tired over the years and prefer to go over the motions? Is it that the salary is not attractive for constant innovation?

My pet reason is as outlandish as the observation: the lady teacher’s son grew old.

Let me explain. A lady teacher enjoys solid reputation when she teaches students who are older than her own child. She is at her best when her students are roughly the same age as her child. As her child outgrows her students (remember, a teacher remains in Std IV while her son or daughter moves up), the teacher gradually turns indifferent, impatient, and generally less-liked. The lady teacher grows with her own child. So, typically a retiring lady teacher is likely to be less popular than in the past because her son or daughter would have entered college by then. That seems to have been the case of teacher X in senior school, who was popular in the 1970s and early 1980s, but less so by the 1990s. Teacher Y in junior school was popular when I was her student, but less so ten years later, because her child was by then studying in the senior school.

(The internet’s permanence endows it with an ability to be damaging and nasty. I also recognise that my article is based on anecdotal evidence, not a scientific survey. So, in all fairness, I desist from naming teachers.)

I do not see such an unhappy coincidence in the case of male teachers, though. Indeed, the opposite seems to hold true in their case. A male teacher is at his best when he approaches retirement (or teaches after retirement).

If we plot a teacher’s age on the x-axis and a teacher’s “good”ness on the y-axis, the career graph of a male school-teacher would be a wavy curve that initially rises, then falls, and finally rises.

Let me guess what’s happening. As a new broom, he is adventurous and popular. After a few years, as he is reined in by “realistic” colleagues and withdraws, his career curve starts falling. In this phase, he is a bad teacher: shunning innovation, strict, inward-looking, and apparently hurting students in words and deeds. Somewhere along the way (I haven’t found an inflection point like the lady teacher’s son’s age) the male teacher matures, turns accommodating, becomes open to students’ ideas, is less spiteful, and is most knowledgeable in the subject as well as pedagogy.

I repeat, I do not know why this happens. Probably, he has reflected on his career and is trying to avoid the mistakes of the past. Like the lady teachers, the male teacher’s children too may have grown older than his students, but that does not seem to have adversely affected the male teacher’s performance in school.

The male teacher seems to be career-driven while the female teacher is family-driven.

There are two reasons why I share my outlandish observation and theory publicly.

1. If what I have sketched is true, then it has an implication for hiring teachers, and training them at appropriate stages in their careers. An “experienced” lady teacher, not the “pretty, young thing”, might be the one who badly requires a refresher course in education. Similarly, the middle-aged male teacher needs help and should be encouraged to reflect actively. A combined refresher session — male and female teachers of all ages sitting together — may not be the best course for Loyola to adopt.
2. I seek validation or repudiation. Is my observation true? What has been your experience at Loyola or any other school? Is my explanation correct? What could be happening here? (Please do not identify teachers by names, especially if you are portraying them as “bad” teachers.)

Post your comments

by G. MAHADEVAN

A bearing that evoked respect, a beard that brooked no insolence, a laughter that was infectious and a twinkle in the eye that was unmatched. Those of us who were fortunate enough to have known Father Mathew Pulickal can well be excused for talking about him in superlatives. After all he was one who taught us that life is as often about the superlative, as it is about the positive and the comparative.

It is difficult to define such a man: he was not just a priest, he was not just another of those jolly old men…do you get my drift? You can only go on saying he was not this, not that, and yet never lay your finger on what he was — in its entirety. Of one thing I am sure. Mathew Pulickal, the man, was never ashamed of his human frailties (Oh boy, was he fond of jalebis…and was he a diabetic!). He was also fond of a ‘good un’ as much as any of us imps around him. In short, he loved life as it is.

I can go on like this. But in one sense it is wrong to speak of Fr. Pulickal in the past tense. Yes, the man is gone. But, whatever he stood for, lives through all of us, doesn’t it? It must be fun having him up there.

G. Mahadevan (1987) is Principal Correspondent and Deputy City Editor of The Hindu newspaper in Trivandrum. At Loyola, he was Assistant School Leader.

(c) G. Mahadevan, 2002. Reprinted here with the permission of the copyright holder.

Fr Pulickal taught me history in high school, and on every question paper he set for us, he inscribed “A.M.D.G.” in the end. There it was: centre-aligned, in Courier typeface, on the cyclostyled paper. (The typeface would vary on the odd occasion that Fr Pulickal keyed in the question paper on butter paper by using his own typewriter in the Residence.) I thought of celebrating his anniversary by doing what he might approve of — go beyond the question paper, explore the history of the abbreviation he introduced to us, and in the process combine the twin axes of this blog — history and Loyola.

AMDG is mentioned in dictionaries and encyclopaediae, but even in specialist works like encyclopaedia of Christianity, the explanation is almost always limited to “Abbreviation of ad maiorem dei gloriam, Latin phrase meaning ‘to the greater glory of God’. Motto of the Society of Jesus.”

Wikipedia has the longest explanation of AMDG I have come across. In contrast, Encyclopaedia Britannica does not even have an entry on AMDG. A blogger tells us that the phrase and the abbreviation were not created by Ignatius of Loyola. Another tells us that “for hundreds of years, this esoteric acronym [sic] has been used by many Catholics as either a prefix or suffix to practically any written work and, in it’s colloquialism, has stood for ‘All My Duties to God’ (AMDG).” Judging the state of AMDG today in popular and authoritative reference works, I would argue that the decision of St Ignatius to make it the motto of Jesuits explains AMDG’s survival into the 21st century.

The usage of AMDG has changed over time, noted Walter Ong S.J. in his 1952 article in the Catholic journal Review for Religious. A note on Ong’s article informs

In the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, A.M.D.G. means the moment of decision after one has searched one’s soul trying to make a difficult choice. When faced with these difficult choices, St. Ignatius directs his readers, one should make one’s decision based on which option will be ‘for the greater glory of God’. To use this expression as a dedication in a book or on a building, Ong asserted, is inappropriate, for no particular decision has been made. It is sufficient to pronounce that the book or building exists simply ‘for the glory of God’, without the addition of the word ‘greater’.

Ong seems to have argued that the use of AMDG in dedicatory fashion was not wrong, but that the essence of AMDG was soul-searching.

In Loyola, if Fr Pulickal was the most celebrated user of AMDG, outside the school it was Pope John Paul II. When Time magazine awarded the Man of the Year title to the Pope in 1994, it reported,

Every morning, before his private and general audiences, John Paul devotes an hour or so to writing or – increasingly, as age and injuries have taken their toll – to dictation. When he can, he composes quickly, in Polish, with a neat, flowing hand, using a black felt-tipped pen. On the top left of every page he prints the letters AMDG.

Other well-known names associated with AMDG, the Wikipedia tells us, have been the music composer Bach, and the novelist James Joyce. From that tip-off, I set off on the trail of the latter.

James Joyce studied at a Jesuit school, which is the backdrop for much of his semi-autobigraphical novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, published in 1916.

In Chapter 2 of the novel, a para begins,

The next day he sat at his table in the bare upper room for many hours. Before him lay a new pen, a new bottle of ink and a new emerald exercise. From force of habit he had written at the top of the first page the initial letters of the jesuit motto: A.M.D.G.

We know from an autographed manuscript at the Cornell University Library that Joyce himself wrote “AMDG” at the top of each page in one of the weekly compositions for his English class at Belvedere College in Dublin, the Jesuit school he attended.

Around the same time that Joyce wrote A Portrait…, another novel appeared, this time with the title AMDG. Published in 1910, and written by the Spanish novelist, poet and critic Ramon Perez de Ayala, AMDG is a “bitter satire about the author’s unhappy education at a Jesuit school”, says Encyclopaedia Britannica. Here again, I am struck by the close association of AMDG with Jesuits, and the probable death of the phrase and its abbreviation, but for its use across centuries by Jesuits.

“Many Jesuit schools ask students to write the initialism at the top of their papers, to remind the students that their schoolwork is ‘For the Greater Glory of God’,” the Wikipedia tells us. This is consistent with Joyce writing AMDG in his English class, and later describing the act as a “force of habit” in one of his novels.

The Jesuits in our school did not follow this practice. Fr Pulickal was the only priest, in my years there, who wrote AMDG in public documents like question papers of exams. Nor did the priests advise or insist students to inscribe AMDG in notebooks or answer sheets. The priests probably felt it better to promote and project cosmopolitanism, rather than invite allegations of Christianisation. After all, in modern Kerala, despite the Malayala Manorama, and the extensive network of Christian educational institutions, any recommendation like inscribing AMDG on every page or notebook would have provoked the ever-suspicious Malayali and invited bad press.

It could also be that the use of AMDG is not the norm among Jesuits in Kerala. In the letters and e-mails I have received from Jesuits over the years, I have not seen AMDG in every correspondence, but only in a few.

There is some evidence, however, that a few smart Loyolites wrote AMDG at the end of answer papers, to score brownie points with Fr Pulickal for they were “hoping against hope that those 4 letters would compensate for an almost blank history answer paper coupled with the strictest valuation possible and save us from sure failure.” Jiby’s collection of Loyola anecdotes, where this is mentioned, fittingly ends in nostalgia with an AMDG inscription.

Tailpiece: At times, Fr Pulickal used to have quizzes in his classes. He would come with his pink or yellow scroll of notes, and shoot one question after the other. Here’s a question he never fired at us. Who is the patron saint of Jesuit students?

Fr Pulickal passed away in his sleep on 2 November 1998, at Calicut.

In the past, Loyolites have discussed him on the Web, in their blogs as well as on Orkut. To complement such efforts, here is a double-post tribute to him, in the week of his anniversary.

1. Fr Pulickal’s Four-letter Word by me
2. Defining Father Pulickal by G. Mahadevan (1987)

K.T. John joined Loyola in 1986 to teach maths in high school. Within two years, by the time he became my class teacher, he had earned a reputation on two counts—the first as a brilliant teacher, the second as an efficient organiser of events.

In 1989, P.A. Mathews passed Fr Pulickal’s tests to become a teacher at Loyola. I have heard that Fr Pulickal asked him to spot three mistakes in an English passage, and he identified four. “PAMs” was a teacher whose diction and gait conveyed that English was as much to be learnt as to be lived.

“PAMs” was followed by “JAMs” (Jacob Mathew) who taught at Loyola from 1991 to 2001. Jacob Mathew, with his charming smile and inventive ability to teach chemistry, was a popular teacher in not just Loyola, but in the whole city. Students thronged to his private tuition classes but his integrity was such that we never heard charges of favouritism levelled against him.

Back in the late 1970s, B.O. Sebastian too came from, I think, Nigeria. As his students would attest, “BOS” (pronounced “boss”) was a very friendly and popular teacher. Unlike K.T. John, PAMs and JAMs, he was young when he joined Loyola. With his cloud-burst smile, he spread cheer and was always among the students—whether playing in the basketball court, directing a play on the youth festival stage, coaching us in mass PT for Sports Day, or strengthening alumni relations at an old boys’ meet. He too was a good organiser of student and staff activities.

Each generation of Loyolites, thus, would have their favourite “teacher from Nigeria”. It prompted me to find out more about this African country 8,150 km from Loyola.

In 1960, thirteen years after India gained freedom, Nigeria gained independence from Britain. Till then, most schools in Nigeria were run by missionaries, with grants-in-aid from the colonial government. After independence, the Nigerian government set up several schools. This is strikingly similar to the history of school education in Kerala: during British rule, there were numerous schools run by missionaries in Kerala, the grants-in-aid system was popular, and it was only after Independence that the large-scale expansion of government-run schools happened, especially in Malabar.

In the 1970s, Nigeria experienced an oil boom thanks to discovery of oil in the Niger delta, and the government set up several schools and colleges. Several people from Kerala and Tamil Nadu migrated to Nigeria and a few other African countries to take up teaching positions.

Britannica tells us

Nigeria’s educational system declined significantly in the 1980s and ’90s. There was a shortage of qualified teachers, and the government was sometimes unable to pay them in a timely manner. Moreover, the number of schools did not increase proportionally with the population, and existing schools were not always properly maintained.

The collapse of the system probably prompted (and was fuelled by) Keralite teachers returning home. An article in The Week magazine mentioned that “a change in governmental policies and xenophobic outbreaks forced them to leave” African countries. Such scattered bits of evidence fit well into what we experienced—it was in the 1980s and 1990s that teachers from Nigeria took up positions in Loyola.

While this potted history of education in Nigeria sheds light on why we had teachers from there in the 1980s, there are other questions which remain to be answered.

What lies behind the success of B.O. Sebastian, K.T. John, P.A. Mathews and Jacob Mathew? (How) did Nigeria prepare them to be stars at Loyola? And also, why Christian teachers?

Nigeria is four-and-a-half hours behind Indian time. But it appears that it was years ahead of Kerala in school education. Or perhaps these teachers were moulded in Cambridge’s IGCSE system in Nigeria, and it helped them fit well and shine in the ICSE system later at Loyola. One day, when I meet these teachers again, these are stories that I would like to hear in detail.

It was the first school Assembly of the academic year 1991-92. A new teacher walked in late and joined her colleagues on the teachers’ benches. When the Principal, Fr Philip Thayyil, introduced Deepa Pillai to the students and officially welcomed her to Loyola (to a round of applause), I suspect that a few Loyolites amusedly asked themselves: a Late Kate in this paradise of punctuality?

Today, when Deepa Madam put in her papers, she had three more years to go at Loyola before retirement. Sixteen years ago, she had walked in late, but today, she was leaving early. And in contrast to her public entry into Loyola, it was a very private affair as she went to the Principal’s room to hand over the letter to Fr Varghese Anikuzhy.

Loyola’s loss is All Saints’ gain. Deepa Madam had come to the school after a few years’ stint at All Saints’ College in Trivandrum. And it is to there that she will return in the morning of 4 June.

* * *

I’ve often told Deepa Madam that when I write the history of the school, I will write about “The Age of Deepa Pillai”. For Deepa Madam democratised Loyola and made it more egalitarian. She wanted every student in her class to join in organising La Fest — was there ever a platform where every Loyolite in a group had a role? Unlike the Loyola I knew (of Fr Pulickal and others), where “the best” got to the School Day stage, Deepa Madam seemed to believe that “the best” is when everybody gets on to the School Day stage.

She joined Loyola three months after I had left the school, which means, I was not her student. But we collaborated on the school magazine of 2004 and thereafter on a couple of other projects. So, if I am not her student, perhaps that makes me her friend. Interestingly, while all her students call her “DP” as if she is their friend, I call her “Deepa Madam”, as if she is my teacher.

My explanation for this is simple: I grew up in a less egalitarian era of Loyola. The Age of Deepa Pillai is was the Age of Equality: students wishing to talk to her yelled “DP”, from one corner of the basketball court to another. (Imagine shouting “Puli” in the Age of Fr Pulickal!). The response? Deepa Madam acknowledged them, and made them feel important. In the Age of Deepa Pillai, democracy was no longer confined to the election of the School Leader; democracy spilled on to the streets and climbed on to the stage.

* * *

For years, Loyolites have debated: “Will DP leave next year as she keeps saying? What will happen to La Fest if DP goes?” and so on. Well folks, the time has come. Loyola’s finest teacher has left the school.

I am happy. For she’s now on our side. Deepa Madam, welcome to the Loyola alumni movement.

Last month, on a Saturday afternoon, I drove to St Paul’s in Connaught Place, which stocks Christian literature, and has published Fr Varkey under their imprint Better Yourself Books. That day, the shop had in stock a few of his books, but I was instantly drawn to Gently and Firmly, which describes Loyola School’s transformation between 1978 and 1983.

The second chapter — ‘A School Transforms Itself’ — awoke me to a Loyola that I never knew.

“There was a time when it was not uncommon to see students smoking on the terrace of the school building. Drinking was not something unusual during excursions. Toilets had the usual lascivious pictures that are often found in the toilets of boys’ schools. Several attendance registers have been found torn…A few times the tyres of the school buses were found deflated. Once a motor was pushed into the well. Discipline in classrooms was far from exemplary. Though four or five students were detained in each class every year, the results in the School Leaving exams were around 85%. This, in spite of the fact that most students had private tuition.”

Fr Varkey, the legendary former Principal of the school, then writes, “A few years after the introduction of the new approach, the situation changed dramatically.” Not only did campus discipline take a positive turn, but also the academic results improved, to 100 per cent (and thereafter to 100 per cent first class). This, despite the school’s emphasis, in the new approach, on co-curricular activities over studies.

Chapter 6 describes ‘How the School Did It’. It talks of the school assembly, the squads, the doing away with ties and shoes, smarter use of library and games periods, and several things which we have taken for granted at Loyola. “Some of these practices were in the school already,” writes Fr Varkey. “The difference was that a concerted effort was made to introduce as many elements of it as possible.”

Gently and Firmly has several anecdotes and is an interesting read. But as a chronicle of the transformation of Loyola, it is weak; it is at best, a starting point for serious historical inquiry.

I wish that in the coming years:

• Loyolites of the 1970s and 1980s will explain how they saw and felt the transformation; and
• Priests, parents and teachers of that era will tell us how they were agents of change.

Such jottings will help us craft a good and critical history of Loyola, in time for the school’s golden jubilee in 2011.