To Sacred Heart, My Alma Mater

Congratulations on the big 50!

A couple weeks back I was approached by my English teacher from school, to write a post for this year’s school yearbook for what would be the school’s Golden Jubilee year. I was pleasantly surprised to hear from her, and I was glad she thought I was worthy of contributing an article to the yearbook, especially what is such a momentous year for Sacred Heart School.

The quick Facebook chat with my teacher took me back to the years that I spent in Sacred Heart School two decades ago. For that fleeting moment, I time-traveled to the little dusty town of Daltonganj, home for the first 16 years of my life. I saw myself running around the dusty school playground, with my first friends, playing cricket and games we often invented on the fly. It was a beautiful time, and we lived those times with wanton abandon. Not a care in the world about life and the infinite curveballs it’ll throw at you as you grow up.

It is funny how the grass is always greener on the other side. Back in school all of us couldn’t wait to grow up, be financially independent and do great things in life. Today after 2 decades of having graduated from SHS, many of us have done exactly that — worked our way up to respectable lives, lived in different countries and across time zones, married and with happy families , but I think I can say this on behalf of all my peers- that we’d love to get back to the wonderful times spent in Sacred Heart School and relive the memories that spring up only in the rare reunions today.

As you grow up and reflect on the things that have the most impact on you through your life, your Family & Friends and your first school will often jump to the top of that list. Family and friends are the ones that shape your personal experiences and interpersonal skills in relatively familiar environments. On the other hand, the school you attended, and your first teachers shape your professional abilities, impart the importance of discipline, teamwork and prepare you to successfully navigate the outside and mostly unfamiliar world.

I have a lot to thank Sacred Heart School and my teachers for. Every day that I navigate through the intertwined and complex world of personal, business and social interactions, I subliminally employ methods that we learned during our time in school, and I believe this to be true for most of my peers. Of course, back then all this learning was packaged as daily classroom lectures, course syllabus and recurring examination schedules which would keep us busy all year round, but now those lessons are powerful tools etched into our subconscious, helping us tackle difficult problems and think through them.

Take English as an example, the language of the modern world. Sacred Heart school 20 years ago, was the only ‘truly’ ‘English medium’ school in a district where literacy rates often hovered around the low 50s. What a privilege it was then, to not only be fortunate enough to receive the gift of education, but also to be attending arguably the best school in the district.

Sending their kids to Sacred Heart was a matter of pride for parents in Daltonganj, and I am sure it still is. For not only will their kids learn the Sciences, Arts and World history, but they’ll do so entirely in English, preparing them to navigate different worlds and cultures with a common

unifying language. I remember my own parents swell with pride when I was able to hold a conversation with a distant English speaking relative, entirely on my own. Twenty years later, when I get on a stage for corporate presentations, or at public speaking events — English comes to me naturally. I almost never think about it, but now that I am its because I first learned the language in Sacred Heart.

While “Speak in English” was the norm in Sacred Heart, Hindi was invariably what made me feel at home. The beautiful prose and poetry textbooks were my favorite past times and writing an essay in Hindi made me connect to my inner self. The beautiful thing about Hindi poetry was we always started a new poem with an introduction of the poet herself, and that made the
connection real. One could suddenly decipher the deeper meanings behind the meandering and often rhyming Devnagri script. When hopping flights between airports today, I always look for Hindi classics so I can re-read them, unfortunately most bookstores at airports rarely have Hindi books on their shelves these days.

Learning the Arts and Sciences together is a unique opportunity that only a school offers. It propels us to become well-rounded individuals, connected to our rich human history but simultaneously armed with the scientific knowledge necessary to build a better future for mankind. Mathematics teaches us the importance of quantifying and organizing elements that are seemingly abstract. Many fear mathematics, I did at one point as well — but then one day I realized how beautiful Maths can be. Isn’t it amazing that you can describe almost anything that happens around you simply with numbers between 0 to 9?

Here’s a fun fact about Math — if you write 0 to 1000 in words, the only number that has the letter “a” in it is “one thousand”! The sciences captured my imagination in school and were instrumental in my decision to later pursue Engineering for my professional studies. The first lessons in Arts, Maths and the Sciences in Sacred Heart also became the bedrock of what I’ve built my career upon.

Sports & Games sessions in Sacred Heart were invariably everyone’s favorite times in school and remain committed to my long-term memory even to this day. We’d all eagerly wait for the games sessions so we could run to the little ‘games room’ and claim first rights on the best cricket bats and balls available. These were times where we learnt the first life lessons on the importance of competing when the resources were limited, the virtues of sharing as well as building teams

I have lost count of the number cricket matches I’ve played in the school grounds, but I remember we lost more games than we won. Losing was always distressing, but a loss taught us more than a win ever could. There were times when we suffered humiliating defeats at the hands of an opponent or were pinned to the ground — but we dusted ourselves off again, learnt from our mistakes and improved until we were back to winning ways. Of course successes are celebrated aplenty, and they should be — but one should also celebrate failures, for it is often the best teacher. People who never give up in the face of challenges, failures and adversities are a special lot. Sacred Heart school certainly instilled in us the ability to take a punch and get back on our feet over and over again , and for that I will forever be grateful.

Writing this essay has been journey through time, and once again I am deeply honored to be able to share my experiences about Sacred Heart with you. If you are a current student reading this, explore the opportunities and treasured knowledge that exist within the SHS premises. Try out a lot of things and figure out what you love doing and are truly passionate about. create a goal and do not stop until you’ve reached it. To all the teachers in Sacred Heart, thank you for everything that you have done and continue to do for the students of this school. I want you to know that no matter where we are in the world, we think and talk fondly of you and our times spent learning from you.

To Sacred Heart, my alma mater, Although many of us alums will not be there in person to celebrate with you, know that we will be raising a toast to celebrate this momentous year from lands far away. Happy 50th birthday! Here’s to another 50 years!