THOSE SPECIAL PRE-UNIVERSITY CLASSES

by Goolbai Gunesekere

Parents today are hell bent on getting their children into the best University they can afford. Unless one’s offspring is a total airhead, parental ambitions can run high. But there is that six months limbo period between the time exam results are announced and actually departing for Colleges although academic qualifications take top priority nowadays.

So, let us discuss how parents occupied daughters at a time when technology went no further than ceiling fans and radios. There were no TVs, no air conditioners, no mobile phones, no videos: pretty much nothing. Not in Sri Lanka anway. And yet our parents occupied us as gainfully as they knew how.

The mania to go to the USA, the UK or Australia was not in vogue. Most of the girls in my class were between school and marriage. Not many had ambitions in the study department. But they all had ambitions of a sort. Parents like mine were educationists and so options for me were nil. I was going to College whether or not I wanted to.

Many of my contemporaries were not going to University but they were being prepared for a life of usefulness. Eventually marriage was on the cards, but they had a few years to occupy their time unless (as in the case of my friend, Punyakanthi) they were married straight out of school. This happened extremely rarely.

In my case I had six months to kill before setting off abroad and my mother, in common with all mothers of teenage daughters, did not have the slightest intention of letting those six months remain idle. It pained them no end to see us idle away a morning reading the latest pot boilers. They looked around at what we could learn before undertaking four years of study for a Degree and eventually running our own homes.

There was plenty to choose from. Dressmaking classes at the famous Kathleen School of Dressmaking was high on the popularity list. Next came cake making and decoration classes with (the also famous) sisters Alagi and Yoga. Then there were Art classes, Dancing classes, Origami classes, Tapestry classes and other gentle pursuits which were used to fill in the hours ensuring that our minds were occupied gainfully and were not filled with romantic ideas for which we were considered barely ready.

I had company. Three other friends – all school leavers –started these various time-consuming lessons with me.

“Have you heard of sponge cakes? “inquired Alagi “We all did Home Science for our OLs Auntie.”

“HM, hm.” Alagi was not impressed. She knew well enough that kitchens were not places in which we spent much time.

Our bi-weekly classes proceeded apace. To Alagis’s unflattering surprise we were reasonably deft, and those first cakes were good enough for us to take home and show off to our mothers who carried on as if we were future World Chefs. The poor darlings had very low expectations to start with, so these tiny triumphs presaged future greatness! The cake decor part was not so easy.

As was the custom of the day we brought our own ingredients and took home whatever we made so that mothers could keep a beady eye on our progress.

“Why is the icing so crooked?” inquired my mother. “So Mother, it’s the first time.”

“And since when did flowers turn green?”

“Really Mother, those were just practice roses. Auntie Alagi did not want to waste icing sugar or colouring.”

Eventually we improved and certainly we did not deny that the first time we made a cake for our mothers- in –law, we could do so with reasonable confidence. Alas, I had a sister-in-law who had done cake making courses in the UK. But she was tact itself and beyond a “One can see you were Alagi’s pupil,” my Dearly Beloved’s family were non- critical.

I must not forget to mention those flower arrangement classes all of which, combined with the above, were supposed to prepare us for wedded bliss. I can truthfully say that what we learnt had their uses. Our husbands were quite enchanted with those regularly made cakes and puddings which delighted them during the first year of marriage. Of course, they were totally forgotten as their waistlines started to expand during the years that followed.

Girls of today are far more practical. They learn to make rice and curry.

“How about learning cake making?” I asked granddaughter KitKat, just after her AL exams.

“What on earth for? I can buy one,” “Flower arranging then.”

“A useless skill Achchi. I’m not going to waste my time, and when did you last arrange a vase may I ask?”

She is right of course. The dainty skills we learnt with considerable effort have no place in rushed modern times. Who can deny that the modern young woman is well equipped to deal with her world? But we mourn, with nostalgia, the passing of the gentler times of 60 years ago.

In her modern world I feel calming exercises would be a good idea. Yoga for instance. Granddaughter KitKat, has anticipated me. She is already quite a Yoga expert. But I can make an iced cake!