It is not easy for me to express in words how I feel about my college. Its memories have stayed fresh in my mind as if it was just yesterday that I left its hallowed portals. These memories of St Stephen’s are vivid, untouched by the “Big Bad World” I stepped into after leaving the “Safe Haven” college was to me.
In fact, I have never gone back to visit my college deliberately so as to keep my memories unspoilt and absolutely pure. Any subsequent visit may have tampered with the scenes which I hold so dear in my mind’s eye. Having gone to Stephen’s from a girls’ convent school from the Doon valley to join the English Honours course, I was pleasantly surprised when I saw that my class was not too different from my school’s class. There were around twenty girls, most of them from various girls’ convents of Delhi, and six boys, one of whom was from The Doon School itself.
My thoughts go back today to the day when I went nervously into Rev WS Rajpal’s office for being interviewed during the admission process. When I told him that I had studied “Elective English” in Class 12, he asked me who my favourite author was. I promptly replied, “Thomas Hardy”. Pat came the question, “And where did Hardy take his title ‘Far From the Madding Crowd’ fromIJ” I thanked my stars that I knew the answer. “Gray’s elegy”, I said and was happy to see the smile of satisfaction on the principal’s face.
College to me was like a symbol of perfection. The professors were extremely wonderful, all of them. I can never forget what they taught me. They opened up a magical world of literature which I had never imagined while I had studied the subject in school. Dr Rao, Dr Harish Trivedi, Valson Thampu, Philip Welsh and Paul Smith were the names which were to become etched in my memory forever. Even today, when I read a Jane Austen novel, for old time’s sake, I can hear Dr Trivedi’s soft, cultured voice giving his comments on a particular theme or scene of the novel.
How fortunate I was to have studied my favourite subject in a college which is beyond compare! Some people may feel that I am prejudiced but then that is how I feel, that is what I believe. Whenever I have looked back on my days at Stephen’s, what has emerged in my imagination is an “Idyllic place, a temple of learning and a symbol of grace and sobriety”.
Things I remember college for include the winter tutorials out in the sun, the morning assembly during the first year (which always made me remember my school, Convent of Jesus and Mary), the girls gossiping in the ladies Common Room, the play practice, the long hours I spent in the beautiful library, making notes while my friends never tired of calling me a “bookworm”, the white pigeons flying over the chapel, the long discussions at the cosy cafeteria over tea, toast and scrambled eggs (which were the USP there), and the atmosphere of warmth and affection that surrounded me as I walked through the imposing corridors. I cannot also forget the little stall where one could eat white barfi or steaming samosas and drink nimbu paani that tasted like heaven.
I have never had nimbu paani like that after I left college. Friends from other colleges used to come to our college for the scrambled eggs or the nimbu paani. The values which our teachers inculcated in us have remained strongly ingrained in our personalities. The importance of hard work, originality, clear-headedness and intellectual activity was always stressed upon, in a subtle manner. And before one realised, these became part of one’s life, very naturally.
I can easily say that the three years I spent at St Stephen’s were the most beautiful years of my life…my “golden years”. Perhaps I did not realise this at that time. But in retrospect, I believe that those were indeed magical times….full of possibilities, promises and dreams. Perhaps I have not been able to fulfill all the dreams I saw then. But those years have become my most beautiful memory which has sustained me and given me strength down the decades, even in the most difficult times. Stephen’s is an ethos which has been handed down from one generation of students to the next. It is a rich value-system which lays the foundations of a student’s life afresh.