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A Trip Down Memory Lane: My Alma Mater, St Xavier's |
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St Xavier's, founded in 1875 by the Christian brotherhood belonging to the La
Sallian order, is a legendary school in Malaysia. Despite being severely damaged
during the Japanese occupation, the school was rebuilt and continued to thrive.
My father had attended this school, and so I was proud to carry on the
tradition.
The school was an imposing structure with a huge hall that had curtains that
seemed to be a hundred feet high, and a balcony within the hall, reminiscent of
an opera house. The dressing rooms behind the stage and the trapdoors beneath it
added to the mystique of the place. Large, colored-pane doors opened up on
either side, providing a bright and sunny atmosphere during the day and kept out
the rain during monsoon seasons. It was where I took my final exams. The chapel
was a serene place where Catholic children went to pray, but I was never asked
to convert or made to feel inferior in any way.
There were five blocks of classrooms, each three stories high. The canteen was
at the back next to a huge yard where I used to play with my friends when I was
younger. Ten years later, it was where my friends and I had serious discussions
about physics and girls. The basketball courts were on the far right near the
brothers' quarters. The brothers were the white-robed pillars of the school,
fine examples of selfless men who were knowledgeable and exemplary. We never
went near their quarters as it was forbidden.
The workshops, hidden behind the canteen, were where we learnt industrial arts,
as it was known at that time. The Science laboratories overlooked the yard just
below the library, where we spent countless hours reading tales of faraway
cities and people, did our homework, or tried to impress a sixth form girl—the
only girls there were in the sixth form—as St Xavier's was a boys' school. The
girls were usually transfer students from the Convent school across St Xavier's,
as that school did not offer a sixth form.
The lack of space meant that the school field was across the road adjacent to
the Convent. We enjoyed playing sports there or marching with the school band,
with an audience of girls in braids watching from the balconies of their school
next door. There was very little interaction between the sexes those days except
for the occasional debate or carnival. This made the boys do silly things in the
field to catch the girls' attention, and these incidents made for excellent and
entertaining stories for years to come.
However, the most important feature of St Xavier's was the culture imbued in us
by the teachers, brothers, and staff. We loved our school more than anything in
the world. The traditions and the culture of hard work, honesty, humility, and
selflessness will live on in every boy and girl who passed through its hallowed
halls. Looking back, I am grateful for the opportunity to have been a part of
such a wonderful institution. |
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