FROM 13 TO 1,100 STUDENTS
150 yrs on, girls’ school looks back and ahead ….Yolande D’mello
Alexandra High School in Fort, one of Mumbai’s oldest institutions for girls, is gearing up to mark its 150 years
150 yrs on, girls’ school looks back and ahead ….Yolande D’mello
Alexandra High School in Fort, one of Mumbai’s oldest institutions for girls, is gearing up to mark its 150 years
In 1863, when women were barely allowed to step outside, Parsi educationist Manockjee Cursetjee felt that they too should be given education and opened a girls’ school in Fort. On Friday, the institution, Alexandra Girls High School, was reviewing and redrawing plans to celebrate its 150 years.
In little over a month, it will kick off a series of events marking its inception and long journey; the celebrations will continue till September 2013.
Alexandra, one of Mumbai’s oldest schools for girls, started out with just 13 pupils, but today it boasts 1,100 students and countless alumnae. Many of the proud former students — some of whom passed out way back in 1939 — were on its campus for a reunion on Friday evening.
Dressed in a peach knee-length dress, 82-year-old Dhum Khandalavala sat in the principal’s office and recounted how she used to stick around after school hours to play — a confession that was met with laughs, and not a reprimand.
“We had school from 11 am to 5 pm, and after that we would play badminton. Two teachers were appointed to make sure everyone left the premises, but we used to hide behind the pillars to stay longer and play,” said Khandalavala, who finished her schooling in 1947.
Sheroo Bilimoria, who passed out from the school in 1939, revealed that her class of 15 never had to wear a uniform. “You can say we were lucky,” she said. Bilimoria was not the first one from her family to study at the school. “It has been a family tradition – my maasi and bua also studied here and so did three of my nieces.”
Bilimoria and Khandalavala were joined by Rita Hakim (90), Dolly Kavarana (89) and Putli Pavri (77), some of the most senior members of the Alexandra alumni.
Founder Cursetjee first ran the school at his Byculla home. He appointed two British ‘madams’ to teach 13 girls from the neighbourhood, apparently, 22 had applied.
Cursetjee, the first Indian to be appointed Sheriff of Bombay in 1956, then set up a fund to build a two-storey school building at Fort, and even contributed Rs 4,000 to it.
The building was later pulled down as it could not accommodate the growing number of students, and a new four-storey school was constructed on the plot.
“The area was known as Hornby Road at the time. If the building had not been demolished, it would have been a heritage structure by now,” Freny Mehta, who has been the principal of the school since 1995, told Mirror. “Three arches at the front of the school are from the original structure, and if you dig beneath them, you will find the foundation stone.”
Former student Hakim recalled that there used to be seven arched windows on the second floor of the old building. “We could see the main road from the windows. Whenever we saw our two male teachers coming from Churchgate, we would wave and shout out to them,” the 90-year-old said. “They would head straight to the principal’s office and scold us for behaving like ‘shabby girls’.”
Most of the early teachers of the school 1 which was known as Alexandra Native Girls School as it catered to Indians — were from Britain. “Those were simpler times,” said Pavri, adding that she paid Rs 6 for piano lessons at the school.
Today, the school, which runs classes from kindergarten to Std X, has LCD screens and projectors in its classrooms. Principal Mehta has her hands full with repairs and renovation in preparation for the upcoming celebrations that will begin on September 1.
Apart from organising events on the campus, it also plans to set up a website and release a postal cover envelope with an image of the school.
* Six of the most senior members of the alumni visited the campus on Friday. (L) The school in the late 1980s