In this essay, Cherian Philipose takes a walk down memory lane as he captures a beautiful memory of studying English in Mumbai, India with an inspiring teacher.
Setting: Bombay Scottish School, Mahim Bay, Mumbai, 1986.
A Year 9 class.
The subject: English Literature.
There were about forty of us, in that classroom, on the ground floor, studying ‘The Merchant of Venice.’ We listened to our teacher; annotated our textbooks, and made our notes. Outside, to our right, a short distance away, was an old spreading banyan tree, with thick creepers that hung all the way to the ground. Many birds sat in this tree, and, in our classroom, their chirps, trills, and caws mingled with the sounds we ourselves made; the rustle of paper as we turned the pages, the scratch of our nibs, as we made our notes. When the teacher, Miss Bose, asked a question, several hands shot up with cries of ‘Miss!’ The teacher would pick a student, who would then stand up and answer the question.
Miss Bose dressed in cotton sarees, wore her hair in a ponytail and taught literature with marvellous self-assurance. I liked listening to her speak, even when she wasn’t teaching. She had fine diction, and her sentences were well-constructed and precise. I wanted to speak like her.
‘The Merchant of Venice’ is not an overtly English play; that was one of the things I liked about it. I was attracted to the Italian setting, and the mellifluous names: Antonio, Salarino, and Gratiano. The language of the play, however, was another matter; it was a journey into the English past. There were words like ‘ergo’ and ‘withal’ and expressions like ‘If I can catch him once upon the hip.’ Reading the play, we got a sense of how the English language had changed over time. Miss Bose was our guide on this journey. She gave us context, just the right amount of explanation, and never spoke down to us. With her help, we were able to savour the beauty of Shakespeare’s language, to appreciate his powers of characterisation. The society we lived in encouraged us to believe, that the reason we needed to learn ‘good’ English, was to get a ‘good’ job. Miss Bose gave us a different kind of training; she adjusted our minds to think of language as an object of beauty; not just a path to professional advancement.
‘The Merchant of Venice’ is about Antonio, a merchant who trades in different parts of the world. In the play, he borrows three thousand ducats from Shylock and signs a bond, in which he states that he will give his creditor a pound of his flesh if he cannot repay the money. He forfeits. Shylock takes him to court and demands his pound of flesh ‘I will have my bond.’ he says over and over. At that moment, Portia, enters the court, dressed as a male lawyer, Balthasar. When Shylock cries that he wants revenge for all the insults that Antonio has heaped on him, Portia delivers her famous soliloquy. Miss Bose recited the words for us:-
‘The quality of mercy is not strained;
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
‘Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown:
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthronèd in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God’s
When mercy seasons justice…’
Miss Bose read these words, in a clear, well-modulated voice that conveyed the feeling in Shakespeare’s words. We sat quietly for a few seconds after she finished; The sound of her voice, lingered in my mind for some time after that, and I felt certain emotions swirl deep within me.
I finished school a year later, went to college; became an adult. Adulthood, however, did not bring any wisdom. Instead, it brought uncertainty, responsibility, and confusion.
I had a simple question. What was my relationship with English literature going to be from now on? I had noticed that people with mediocre English, who read no books at all, did very well, financially. They could earn a good living. I struggled to do that. If this was the case, what was the advantage of caring deeply about the aesthetic qualities of the language? I often thought back to that day in Year 9, when Miss Bose had recited Portia’s speech. In those days, she had encouraged us to think deeply about the meaning of what we read; all of life, then, had seemed like a feast of language. Often, we go through life without fully grasping the meaning of a particular event. It may have an obvious meaning, but, like a verse from Shakespeare, it may also have several implicit meanings that reveal themselves only over time. Recently, I spoke to some friends who had been in that classroom with me, on that day, when Miss Bose had read Portia’s speech. Memories and emotions came flooding back, and suddenly, after thirty-six years, I realised the full meaning of what Miss Bose had taught us that day.
It is this. The aesthetic response to language is the fundamental response; it is beyond the economic motive; it transcends culture; and, the English language can belong to a Bengali, Gujarati, or Maharashtrian and can be used with wit and elegance and power; and, a language relatively new to our culture can be as robust, and as beautiful, as our mother tongue. When it came to the English language, our class, with its Parsis and Odias and Keralites had as much potential as any class in Britain or America. When Miss Bose taught us, she made us equal citizens in a Republic of Letters.
We are still grateful citizens today.
Author’s Bio
Cherian Philipose is an Adelaide writer, originally from Mumbai, India. He has a B.A in English Literature from St. Xavier’s College, University of Mumbai, and a Graduate Diploma in Creative Writing from the University of Adelaide.
He has published an essay in Liminal Mag as part of the OzAsia Festival