FROM: Ronan Blaze
TO: The CHS-JCCSS body—ON THE 70TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATIONS
On June 1, 2008, I talked with Rishi about this document I had written sometime ago. He read the piece and suggested I break it out into two parts for convenient reading. Frankly, I was reluctant to have it posted on the site for a variety of reasons, none of which seems that compelling now. Rishi thought it was very good—so here goes. If the stuff hits the fan, he is to blame! LOL.
PART I
With the 70th anniversary celebration of CHS-JCCSS towering ahead, I take the liberty to communicate with you directly so that I may express appreciation for the contributions of our illustrious Principal/Founder, and our noteworthy teachers, as embodied in the essence and existence of CHS-JCCSS.
Is nostalgia a bad thing? I should think not. The past fuels the future and concretizes the present in many ways, all mysterious, far beyond human ken. By so doing, it adds dimensions of meaning and relevance to our lives that might otherwise be rather vacuous, even in the midst of plenty. I hope this is a notion that is neither declivitous in some way nor invidious in any way whatever.
“…
The old order changeth, yielding place to new,
And God fulfils Himself in many ways,
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.
…” Tennyson, Morte D’Arthur
It is appropriate that, in placing personal value on something, we should pause from time to time to gild and polish that thing, with the dedication and reverence it deserves, and so elevate it to its rightful place, thereby making its place rightful.
It is equally appropriate that, as the years slip pass ghoulishly, leering at us in that knowing and deterministic way, we should focus diminishingly less on the flaws in a thing of such personal value and more on the intrinsic and abiding worth of the thing. Who is to deny us this, and wherefore the authority, appropriateness and justification? This is clearly a personal journey, with no desired destination.
For me, this holds true for the OLD SCHOOL, as I fondly refer to CHS in somber reflection, its TEACHERS, and its PRINCIPAL/FOUNDER. The more distant these become in time, the more they gleam and the more they become relevant. These are my sentiments, and yes, I am quite sentimental about it all. I am rather pleased to say this, actually, losing little objectivity in the process, for I take humble pride in the acuity and discernment I am told I am capable of from time to time. [At other times, I am the usual run-of-the-mill irrational creature, subject to a plethora of very human failings/shortcomings, I dare say.]
“…
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety….
….What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now forever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind;
…” Wordsworth, Ode: Intimations of Immortality From Recollections of Early Childhood
So let it be with our institution of yore: CHS. Let our praise rise and our songs ring. Let us pause to say THANK YOU to the OLD SCHOOL, OUR TEACHERS, and its legendary and looming PRINCIPAL/FOUNDER.
That the child should lift eyes upward in beholding its parent is a most natural phenomenon. That the child should keep eyes upward in looking at or recalling its parent across time, having grown older and world-worn, should come from inside the child of its own volition, because of the parent whose life story bespeaks of integrity and exemplary contribution, and from an appreciation of the fragility/fluidity of the human condition. “Flaws” are always there; yet, it is the brilliance of the “gems” that makes them so awfully, glaringly visible. And yet it is the very same emitted radiance that renders the “gems” worthy of the “flaws”.
Even if we are mere specks in the eyes of our Maker, it makes us worthy. If we are scintillating in the eyes of that most patient of beholders, it is because of the light—that bit of good that is God in us—that we carry in us, deep in our everlasting souls. As human beings, it is more than appropriate that we should pause from time to time in gratitude, remembrance, reverence and veneration of the things we hold precious and that add measures of meaning/dimensions to our lives. We can never be bigger than the smallness in us.
I recall JC clearly. I recall the times he would patiently sit at that tiny table outside his office door, a slim book of poetry in his bony, unsteady hand, with me sitting across from him but in close proximity. And I recall how beautifully and fervently he would read one-on-one to me, with me being there but not really—not really, really, quite lost in his ruminations.
[ In Fifth form, a few of us got to be a bit cocky and daringly comedic toward the end, causing disruptions at the back row. Whenever I would get ejected from class and sent to the Principal’s office, JC would sit with me and read poetry! He used to teach us English and knew I liked the stuff. If he had seen that as a form of punishment for me, one would have been hard-pressed to tell!]
And when he was done, he would glare at me rather severely, while reminding me that his own illustrious son was named RAJENDRA too! It was as if that in itself had placed me in a lofty position in his eyes . . . or so I thought . . . so I would like to think. What greater flattery can there be to burning youth than to be conspicuous in the eyes of the illustrious, however flawed in afterthought?
From his wide range of such readings that had never failed to hold me, a most willing captive of the moment, in rapt attention, I distinctly recall two things:
1) He would pause to ask me why “….The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair….”?
2) And he would whisper wistfully and reflectively: “… and gathered flowers are dead, Yasmin!…” at the end of another verse, a wondrous Ghazal, that I still recall. . [ I would be more than happy to share the full verses with anyone. They are stunning. ]
Like the perpetual child clinging to childish things, I have spent literally a lifetime seeking truth and meaning in seemingly trivial and inconsequential things, including those breath-taking lines of thought. Then I got to thinking about that frozen, desiccated leopard corpse on the slopes of Kilimanjaro and how important it is to be true to our true selves and to understand that the only limits we have are the limitations we impose on ourselves. I will keep trying to understand even more, and see even more in those lines—certainly, there is no futility in an individual’s effort
I also recall the time the THREE cleaning women came to him with a major discontent over the sharing of soap in their chores, quite like the women seeking Solomon’s wisdom and justice. They demanded that the soap be cut EQUALLY into THREE parts and EACH be given “quata . . . quata”. And the laugher that came from JC! Ah, yes.
Now, so far removed in time from the actual event, it is with a considerable degree of levity that I do recall the instance in a particularly contentious staff meeting when JC had announced with stunning finality: “…Are there any MORE objections/suggestions to be overruled? …” [words to that effect]. Then he rose from his seat, picked up his hat and whisked out of the staff room, leaving behind dead silence . . . at least for a minute or so before the outraged eruptions.
[Sometimes, I am inclined to think that all relationships are love-hate relationships, with every dollop of love tinged, perhaps, with an imperceptible germ of “hate” that comes and goes by a mere word or gesture, even capriciously. The anti-matter in matter is always there.
It is natural for the negatives to loom large in our lives, especially if they had hurt us where/when we were most vulnerable or in ways we could have least anticipated. We all carry baggage of sorts, things that can anchor our perspective and stagnate our emotional/intellectual frame of reference, though we have changed co-ordinates physically. ]
I recall the time Haroon Samad, with a rather severe expression on his face, had returned my History test paper to me. Shaking his head from side to side, he pointed out the word “oftenly” he had circled in guilty red. He then asked me what part of speech “often” was. I answered him correctly. He then delivered four lashes in my palms, with the wild cane. As he said at the time, he would never have expected THAT from me. Am I angry about this now? No. Was I embarrassed at that time? Sure. Do I see him now as Draconian or had thought him so at the time? No. For to do so would be to bend or create reality and to force fit the reality of those olden days into the reality we have now come to embrace elsewhere, now that the world has “evolved” about us and within us. Here was a man I had respected, a man who had obviously thought higher of me than I had delivered, albeit seemingly “trivial” though the failure might have been. Later in life, the gentleman attended my wedding, as I recall. He knew my dad very well, and he knew my wife’s people well too.
In looking into our past and at our “heroes”, we might be tempted to try to identify greatness with perfection of sorts, to interchange one with the other, and to diminish contributions in afterthought by the degree of imperfection we can uncover in the place of our origins and the people who were there. I think this is a rocky road to nowhere, with us engaged in a kind of a pointless circum-ambulatory excursion. Wherefore the focus on perfection? Whatever happened to the humanity therein? And when has humanity not been saddled with its share of flaws, however well-accomplished? When I peer into our past, past the “noise”, I see people on the high waves of life, in the throes of human struggle, trying to break free of shackles imposed on them in a faraway place at a distant time. I see the victims of circumstance prevailing against jealous odds. And I see heroes. It’s all I see, and all I’d want to see to my dying day. The rest is of little import.
I recall our teachers and offer my gratitude to ALL of them, whether they had taught me or not, for they have set the GOOD example and have lighted what were once obscure footpaths that have since led to our blindingly lustrous seas of change and development. If I mention some specifically, it is because they stand out conspicuously on the shifting plain of my consciousness and intellectual development: SHIREEN SANKAR, CLIVE DREPAUL, PARSRAM SINGH, JC, DHANESSAR SUKHU, ALEC FARLEY, SOMDAT SUKHU, TERRIL DOMAN, ADJODAH, HAROON SAMAD, GUMPTIE, RAMPHAL, POLYANDY ARMOGAN, PAUL ERRIAH, HAROON GAFUR, WALDRON, DEONARINE, SEECHARRAN [Order is immaterial, nothing implied therein]
An echo comes down through the years:
“…O friend unseen, unborn, unknown,
Student of our sweet English tongue,
Read out my words at night, alone:
I was a poet, I was young.
…” Flecker
No doubt, those of us who have had the honor of being teachers at CHS might have had occasion to feel slight of some sort, even anger and frustration at times. Looking back, I can see where the goals and concerns of the teacher can be, and usually are at the time, seemingly diametrically opposed to those of the administration, and where the teacher could, in a sense, feel as though they had been “betrayed”. [I am in Academia currently and do feel that way sometimes, when the administration seems to be “losing it”!] And I can see that approaches to personnel could have been different at the time, more redeeming and flattering, more amenable to a higher level of inclusiveness by the administration. But much of it was idiosyncratic and defensive, I think, and not necessarily malicious.
From my point of view, I take those experiences as object lessons: Things I would hope I have learned from and have avoided; things that I hope I can teach from a positive perspective. If at times we have found feet of clay where we had expected to see enduring feet of gold, the fault might lie more in our lofty expectations than in the starkness that NEW reality can bring. I am reminded that at CHS there were ALWAYS two kinds of people: Those with an unshakable commitment, and those who direly needed that unshakable commitment. Now, the matter is crystal clear to me. It is that simple, rendered so by the smoothing effect of the intervening years, much like the wave-smoothing functions in Mathematics.
“…it’s time that we began to laugh and cry and cry and laugh about it all again …” Cohen
Best.
ronan blaze [pen name ]
Student of CHS
Teacher at CHS
Soul in endless search [ I think my Karma is to seek forever . . . but perhaps never ever to find. ]
Website: www.ronanblaze.com where you will find samples of writings and recitals.
EMAIL: ronan@ronanblaze.com
PS. Rishi, you may wish to blog this document. I will leave it to you to decide, but with one request: Except for corrections for typos/grammar etc, it ought to be posted in entirety, with no reduction—a suggestion. I know it is lengthy and grave—but gravity might be appropriate here. I am amused that I should think, perhaps arrogantly, that because I chose to take the “trouble” to write this, someone should want to take the onus of reading it! Please excuse any typos etc. Thanks. ronan. This guy ronan is too lazy to go blogging—Rishi does this for him! Hell-o.
TO BE CONTINUED… [ PART II TALKS ABOUT OUR FAMILY OF STUDENTS, OUR TEACHERS AND A BIT MORE]
[...] II – [PLEASE SEE PART I FOR [...]