32 I Change Schools

It was 1963 and I was attending ANZAS, the school that I had joined, when I first came to the Colony in 1959. As mentioned earlier, I was obsessed with the Boarding Schools that I read about in the Billy Bunter Books at that time. Coincidentally, my friend Richie triggered this obsession further. Richie intended to join a boarding school in Kirkee, Poona in about 2 years’ time. This boarding school was affiliated to the Seventh-day Adventist School, which Richie and my siblings were attending next to our Colony. This Bombay School was only up to Class 7 and a natural progression was to go to the Poona boarding school from Class 8 onwards. Keeping this in mind, I promptly decided to leave ANZAS in 1964.

My decision to leave ANZAS was not just on an impulse, because my introduction to the Seventh-day Adventist Church, had exposed me to some wonderful people in the church and also the Seventh-day Adventist School. The Church Pastor at that time was an Englishman who loved India and Indians – Pastor K.G. Smith. Soon a young Canadian couple, the Hetkes came to Bombay and Mrs Eleanor Hetke joined the Bombay Seventh-day Adventist School as the Class Teacher for Class 7. Meeting the Hetkes spurred my decision making to leave ANZAS. Soon in January 1964, I joined the Bombay School in Class 7 – and a new era began in my life, at the ripe old age of 13!

Joining the Bombay Seventh-day Adventist School was a very different experience. For instance in Class 7 we had no school uniform, and we were totally about 8 students in all. Mrs Hetke was a wonderful teacher, and we all had a highly personalized attention since we were very small in number. We had interesting subjects like Music and Bible Studies, both of which were entirely new to me. I have always been tone deaf and unable to carry a tune but funnily, I scored an A+ in the theory of Music by reading the musical notes! We had weekly tests and followed the American semester system which had grades – and I managed to top all of them, soon becoming Mrs Hetke’s favourite student. And of course we had a five day week and every Saturday, I started attending church as the Seventh-day Adventists, believed in observing the Sabbath as the day of rest and held their church services on Saturdays.

The school year flew by and soon we were coming to the end of 1964. Before that we had a school picnic and retreat for which we went to a place called Malavli. This was a week long camp and jamboree and we were joined by Seventh-day Adventist School students from Poona. We left Bombay by train and it was my first experience travelling by Janta Class or 3rd Class as they called it in those days. I was always used to traveling 1st Class with my parents earlier. I had some trepidation but of course once I got into the crowded compartment, I was okay and in about 3 hours after traversing the ghats, we arrived at the little station of Malavli, where our campsite was located.

We returned from the November cold of Malavli and went back to a warm and sultry Bombay. Thereafter, we had our final exams and we all graduated and after a grand Christmas party – we all broke up having spent a wonderful year in close comradeship! Richie and I decided to go to Spicer High School in Kirkee, Poona; a boarding school set in a campus of over 70 acres. We looked forward to leaving Bombay in the first week of January 1965 – I had just completed 14 years of age!