Sunday 7 August 2016

"To strive, to seek, to find and not to yield."

Muddling my way up the marble stairs to a quiet, dimly dappled room by the office, to illegally direct some seniors working on a production of a female version of Neil Simon's The Odd Couple, I was all a-tremble. Being a knee high to a grasshopper junior college student, I had been told candidly by my seniors to be an invisible director. Under no circumstances was this clandestine directorial debut to be leaked. So there I was a week into rehearsal, playing a fly on the wall director meekly offering suggestion

It was all going very well. But then, on what seemed like a tranquil afternoon where nothing possibly could disturb the creative flow, Sister Ananda glided into the room unexpectedly. She had come to see how things were shaping up. I felt a queasy sense of doom. Just as I was trying to disappear into the wall, facing up to the possibility that perhaps this would be my last day as a director and maybe even a student of the college, Sister Ananda calmly interrupted the violent hiccups in my brain. "What is your name, child?" Here it comes I thought. "My name is Roo". The words fumbled out of my mouth apologetically. "It's from Winnie the Pooh" I justified, immediately feeling profoundly dim. "Have you had anything to do with the rehearsals, child?" A benevolent senior came to my rescue and explained that I had merely been helping out a little. "There has been a marked improvement. I hope you will be at rehearsal tomorrow" she said to me, and elegantly disappeared into one of the corridors with a mountain of papers in her arms. And at that moment I knew, that things could only get better for me from that point onwards.

“A teacher is one who makes himself/herself progressively unnecessary.” We were lucky to be inspired by forces like Dr. Colaço, Mrs. Stevens, Mrs. Canteenwala, Sr. Ananda, Ms. Vakil, Mrs. Nivedita Iyer, Mrs. Bhujwala, Miss Pocha, Miss Kamath and Miss Mathias to mention a few, who gave us something to take home to think about besides homework. They gave us free rein, responsibility, and ownership of the work.

I started to cavort up and down those marble stairs with agility and confidence. Wilde said "Be yourself; everyone else is already taken." Amidst the conversations in the canteen and eating 'Anda pao', slowly but surely we all began to discover who we were and found more courage to express ourselves.

The Shed, the Den and the Basement doubled up as our playground. The syllabus jumped off the pages at us, as we sailed through afternoons of dramatized poetry, screenings of films and documentaries and play readings. College never finished. No bells deterred us.

I made friends along the way that I could write ballads about. Even though we may appear as faded faces in an old dog-eared college year book today, we felt unstoppable.

I had the privilege of becoming the S.C.E.D.A. secretary and enjoyed directing plays like Jean Genet's The Maids, Arthur Miller's The Crucible and devising a tableau called Shakespeare's Women which was a montage of monologues.

The experience of directing an adaptation of Dead Poets Society with an incredible cast and crew is something I will always treasure and celebrate. We were like motley of paints on a palette that had been given an enormous canvas to play on. Aviva Dharmaraj who played Cameron, wrote "Dead Poets Society was not about maintaining or seeking to establish an Annual Play tradition what it was and will continue to be about, is believing in a dream and having the clarity of vision, thought and courage to pursue it." These words eloquently describe the spirit of Sophia, what we took away from the place and what we carry with us.

I remember on a particularly bleary morning, as a Third year student, entering Ms. Colaço's lecture with my eyes near my knees. I had been burning the candle at both ends, as I endeavored prepare for the final examinations that loomed before me while directing the annual play. It was all getting a bit too Herculean. Dr. Colaço promptly banished me to the canteen for a rejuvenating cup of coffee. She inspired me to drink life to the lees without choking on the dregs!

My time at Sophia gave me the wings to fly, from the marble stairs to the cobbled stones of The Oxford School of Drama. It pushed me to pursue my passion.

I returned to India in 2004 and founded the Tambourine Theatre Company with my husband, with a vision to make theatre accessible to amateurs and professionals, as well as to students and teachers in the context of theatre in education. Needless to say, that over the years, it has truly been a delight and an honor to revisit the home turf of my alma mater, to facilitate workshops and be refueled by all the faces that spurred me on.

"To strive, to seek, to find and not to yield."


Roo Jhala McLaughlin
(Class of 1999)

Well I was nothing, and then something

I couldn’t sleep the entire night prior to my first day of college. Being an outstation student and living far in terms of distance from the college, I had anxiety attacks about how am I going to travel to college. Whether I would make it to college on time or not? Whether or not will I board the right train? I have been in the same school since kindergarten so I didn’t have much of an idea about how to mingle in a new place. I asked my mother to come with me to the college and when she dropped me, I turned and looked at her the same way that I did on my first day of school. I felt uncomfortable, not being able to see her face daily. The good part was that I was going to stay with my sister.

The first day of college, I saw all new faces. Constant chattering, big smiles, a glimmer in their eyes. Exchanging numbers, asking names, continuous rotation of the face to gaze at the new faces. And let’s not lie, we all checked out the best dressed and style statements present in the class.

Then enters Lavanya Ma’am,  Like every other newcomer, we hoped some fancy words. However, our smiling faces turned numb. No wonder, every student loves her the most. She throws reality in your face. She made us realize that learning doesn’t stop once you are in college. Her most motivating statement to me was once when I was just five minutes late for the class and I wasn’t allowed to enter. That day the trains that were running late. I explained to her the situation and she said, “Well darling, life is unfair”. I have always cribbed about things not going my way but that statement came to me as a realization to accept things as they are and move on.

My first year in college was difficult. I saw people around me bonding, going out, becoming roommates and most importantly being opinionated about things that mattered.

Well, I was nothing.

Forcing myself to talk to people, losing my self-confidence, giving up on everything, wary of what I spoke because I had a fear of being judged by others. As the saying goes, “Misery loves company.‟ and before the beginning of my second year of college, I lost my mother to cancer. I was unable to overcome my loss. I asked Dr. Colaco to grant me permission to join college a month after it began. Though known for her strictness, she was generous enough to grant me leave. She also kept in touch with me.

When I joined the college after the break, I was expecting my day to be an ordinary one and was hoping for it to just pass uneventfully. I was taken aback with the welcoming I received. My classmates hugged me and asked me how I was, there was a genuine effort to make me laugh, an initiative to talk to me and I found support in a few of my friends which are intact to this day. When I met Dr. Colaco, she greeted me so well, she asked me to come to her if I needed any help. I think for all students, a favorite teacher is one that remembers their names. Managing to ace the responsibility of handling the BMM department as well as remembering the names of all her students, she clearly succeeded in winning everyone’s heart. 

From that time, my perspective about myself and my circumstances took a turn for the better. I felt a rage of confidence in me. Now, I knew I had to present myself confidently because this is the time. I had to amend myself in the areas where I was lagging. The change in me was evident. I didn’t wait for the opportunity instead I volunteered to gain one. I performed in street plays, I was a part of Kaleidoscope, enacted a teacher in the farewell, finally managed to dance at the stage of Bhabha Hall, and surprisingly managed to get my name off the black list!

Now, whenever I pass the college lane it reminds me of all those moments when I had managed to sneak in without the ID card (oops!), fighting with the cab driver when he says “Yahin utar jao andar nai lunga gaadi.”, cribbing about the 8am lecture, walking with a book in hand during exams (honestly, that was just me showing off).


I cannot get those days back but Sophia has changed me for the better and that change has stayed with me.


Anisha Kanungo 
BMM Dept- Advertising - 2016
 
 

Wednesday 3 August 2016

'Jalsa' - A Celebration

‘Jalsa’, the two-day inter-collegiate cultural festival came to a grand end on the 1st of August. What had started as a small initiative to promote folk art forms in Sophia College for Women has now become a huge hit with the staff and students. It is organised annually by the ‘Prism’ team, which is the cultural committee of the College.
The ‘Prism’ members worked relentlessly for weeks trying to get sponsors for the various stalls. They even managed to arrange the right people for excellent workshops through local networks.
In the end, the sleepless nights paid off. The singing workshop by Mr. Ameya of ‘Sa Re Ga Ma Pa’ fame was a huge success as seats were filled as soon as the workshop was announced. ‘Fly High Aviation Academy’ had put up an information kiosk offering knowledge about the wide variety of courses offered by them. Though stalls selling colourful dream catchers and trendy jewellery saw an immense crowd of people, the indisputable winner was the stall selling delicious homemade brownies. ‘Dot Merchandise’ and ‘Graphic Design’ had also set up their pop-up displaying an impressive array of fandom badges, journals, posters and bag tags.
‘Jalsa’ which means ‘celebration’ was indeed a fine celebration of the Sophia experience.