PARENTS STILL WORRY!

by Goolbai Gunasekara

Although I am now an ex- Principal of an International School, I am still asked the same questions albeit in varied degrees of anxiety, “Did you have much trouble having boys and girls in the same class?” I interpret the question correctly as being, “Did you have trouble BETWEEN boys and girls in the same school?” What parents REALLY want to know is if I have nabbed ever any miscreants in the act of a hand squeeze and/or even heaven forbid – a kiss.

With absolute truth I can state that I did not. For one thing I was not in the habit of peeping behind doors or peering under desks looking for trouble and for another I trusted the good sense of my pupils. It was rarely misplaced. Boys and girls studying together destroys that sense of mystique that coloured my own days in an all-girls’ school. Boys are no longer the god-like beings they seemed when we had little to do with them and only saw them at a distance enveloped in a rosy haze of our own imaginings.

And what of our parents? Were they traumatized by fears for our continuing innocence? Did they drive themselves into early graves wondering what on earth we were up to during those few minutes we were sent to school in the family car? They employed Mossad agents to act as drivers unless they actually drove us to school themselves.

For those of us who rode bicycles parents still had means of checking. They simply phoned other parents whose drivers had given them the all clear and assured them we had been seen turning into the school gate with no lurking Romeos to be seen in the near vicinity. Believe me, the CIA had a lot to learn from methods employed by parents of yore like keeping track of those randy boys of the time.

In the meantime what about us? Refrigerated in purity we remained icily untouchable until defrosted at some later date by some equally inexperienced young man. However, the process was all very slow and rather exciting in fact. A young man usually phoned in secret when both sides were fairly sure the coasts was clear… Had parents known what was in store for young ladies in the 21st century they might have decided not to procreate at all.

Youngsters of today are so lucky. Parents worry of course. Worry was bred into the very brains of a father and panic into the bones of a mother 60 years ago. According to our mamas, boys were dastardly beings who were never to be trusted. How they eventually developed into being the kindly, benevolent fathers we knew was never clearly explained. We assumed boys were initiated early into mysteries of life and love. But all this was a closed book to us.

The phone would ring around 7 pm and conversations with parents went something like this: –

“Who is this idiot who keeps ringing every evening at this time and asking for the Lotteries Board” asks an irate father.

“So our number is different by only one-digit Daddy.”

“I find it positively remarkable that so many people make the same mistake at the same time every evening. Do telephone lines cross by any chance?”

Those were the days before telephone numbers of callers appeared on phones. Nonetheless Rima quaked. She well knew the origin of the call. 7 pm was when Romeo’s parents went upstairs to get ready to go out and a happy half hour ensued while Rima pretended to be answering an innocuous call. Rima and Romeo lived for those moments which came as rarely as a snowflake in Hades.

But one day, alas, Papa picked up the upstairs phone connection and overheard the billing and cooing. The ensuing drama was worthy of a Greek tragedy as Papa thundered and boomed that Rima’s future was doomed, doomed, doomed. Her Mother tore her hair and summoned aunts and cousins to a witches’ coven. Dire predictions were made by all and all the various close relatives had a perfectly wonderful time re-hashing the whole incident.

Principals were not informed in case they decided that suspension if not actual expulsion was on the cards. After all, such calls from boys (and without permission too) could only mean one thing. Rima was never to be trusted again. Her security was doubled which meant she could no longer cycle to school. Her grumbling father got up an hour earlier and ensured his errant daughter was transferred safely from home gate to school gate.

Modern communication systems have put an end to all this excitement. I am serenely neutral to who phones whom most of the time. Life can be so stressful otherwise. In any case who uses a home phone these days?

(Excerpted from the ‘Principal Factor’ first published in Lanka Market Digest)