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
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)
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