Back to School: Maa in Mussoorie

“Oh yes, there was a school by that name. But it is not there anymore. The building is still there. But it has now been taken over by Indo-Tibetan Border Police. You won't be allowed inside,” said the white-haired gentleman at one of the photography studios in Library Bazaar in Mussoorie, the popular hill station of Uttarakhand. “The school has shifted elsewhere, probably in Dehra Dun,” he said.

It was 2007. I was in Mussoorie with my mom and sister for a three-day trip. I had been there twice earlier and during those visits had fallen in love with the mysterious layers of mist, the cloud-capped Himalayan ranges, the roofs of the old-world British-style bungalows, the beautiful Kempty Falls (before it turned into a dirty swimming pool full of loud tourists) and the serenity of Camel's Back Road. I also carried out the north Indian ritual of shopping from the Mall Road of Mussoorie (a long sweater with which I parted ways after realizing that it is making me look even shorter).

But this time it was different. It was a quest for the memories. It was a pilgrimage of sorts for mom. It was a trip to find out the boarding school in which she taught for a year from 1955 to 1956, when she was a youngster just out of university. A large part of our childhood was filled with stories from that quaint town, of the journey from Dehradun to Mussoorie on a rickshaw carried up the slopes by four bearers (Ruskin Bond describes these as “jhampanies, a crude sort of palanquin adopted to hill travel”), of the experiences of mom (her maiden name was Dipti Sengupta) and that of her younger sister, our mejo mashi, (both of them joined as teachers, along with a family friend who convinced their parents to allow them to go) at a new place so far away from their house in Guwahati, of the residential school and the mostly Sikh students who loved them, and the Mussoorie of the 50s, an abode of peace and quiet before tourists like me invaded in large numbers and turned parts of it into Karol Bagh (Ok, I am not anti-Karol Bagh, just used it to convey the feeling of a congested road).

I travelled there with different groups of friends in 2002 and 2005, and shared the experiences with mom. Every time. She expressed a keen desire to see her school again. Finally, we could arrange the trip and there we were, asking every local person who looked over 70 whether they remember anything about “Shishu Niketan” Cambridge School.

No one seemed to know, until we went into that studio.

Shishu Niketan was founded in Cainville Estate, Mussoorie, by Shri Alok Chandra Deb, a Bengali educationist from Dehra Dun and an alumni of the University of Calcutta. The “our founder” section in the websites of Cambridge Schools in Noida and Indirapuram say the first Cambridge School was founded by him in 1931 in Qutub Road, Delhi. “It moved soon after to 21 Daryaganj and — as it grew – to 2 Daryaganj. By the nineteen forties it had already established itself as one of the foremost schools in the city. A boarding school by the name of Shishu Niketan was set up in Mussoorie in 1950, moving subsequently to Dehra Dun under the name Raja Ram Mohan Roy Academy,” it said. The same A. C. Deb had signed my mom's appointment letter, which is still with her, preserved with care.

Anyway, the comment that we won't be allowed in the building had made me disheartened, but mom was not the one to give up. Armed with photographs of herself and her students, she was confident that she will be able to procure a permission. Our taxi driver, who had by then become personally involved in the her search for a lost world, suggested that “chalo ekbar koshish karke dekha jaye".

As we reached near the entrance of the ITBP academy, we could see a check-post manned by sentries. Mom went ahead and showed them her identification documents and the (then) 52-year-old sepia-tinted photographs. They looked quite surprised to see the pics and the saree-wearing ex-teacher who came so far to look for a slice of her youth, but keeping a non-personal demeanour, spoke to someone senior over phone, and asked us to wait.

After five minutes, we were told that we will be allowed in. Mom was super-excited.
As we entered through the gate, it was a sort of Deja vu for me too, because she goes on and on, speaking about the school, her room, the assembly hall, the kitchen. We did not see all of these, only the courtyard. But what we saw was enough to set my mom's pulses racing. “This was where outdoor games were played, on that side were our rooms...see...this was my classroom (a small cabin beside the courtyard)...standard three...I was in charge of that class...I don't believe it, I am touching this door after 52 years...,” she was so overwhelmed with emotion that the kind and helpful officer who came out of an office room and was accompanying us in our short tour also started smiling. Mom showed him the old photographs and told him how it was in her time. It appears that the school had shifted even before the ITBP took over the Estate, but I don't know what happened in between.

On the way back to our hotel, we were in a daze, while mom went on and on reminiscing... which student was quiet and shy, who was a troublemaker, who used to jump from one desk to another... .

We had no camera, and even if we had, I don't think photography would have been allowed. Mom's collection had photo of the courtyard with students either playing or doing P.T., I don't exactly know. I saw the same place in an ITBP docu-film in  YouTube. However, I am not sharing them as I am not sure if that should be done. Here are a few 1955 and 2007 photos of the old lady (Don't  tell her, she gets really upset when I call her that).

We did the routine touristy things too, but I don't remember any details. Everything else faded out in comparison to that trip to the erstwhile Shishu Niketan. Oh yes, when we were taking a rickshaw ride in the beautiful Camel's Back Road, mom whisked out (again) the photo of the famous rock formation (it looks like a camel and the road got its name from it) taken by her with her box camera and started ruing the fact that the rock is showing signs of erosion. The rickshaw puller was quite amused.

The only regret of that tour; mom wanted to meet Ruskin Bond, the most famous resident of the town and her favourite author. But he was out of station.

(Pics by my mom and by my sister. I don't know who took the photo of my mom with her students. Probably her younger sister. One photo shows both of them with the family friend).