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How I remember Mr. J. C. Chandisingh, M.S., MBE

By Paris Singh

I

Last summer, I shared my memories about Mr. Cyril A. Parkinson and Mr. Haroun Samad, who with the Principal Mr. J. C. Chandisingh, arguably constituted  the “pedagogical trinity” of the old C. H. S.  My brother Rishi has persuaded me to complete my impressionistic pen portraits of the “pedagogical trinity” by sharing my memories of Mr. J. C. Chandisingh.  I still remember most vividly that first Monday in September, 1957 when my father escorted me to the old Corentyne High School.  We had recently moved from Nuclear Yard, Rose Hall Estate, Canje, to Albion Estate.  I was to begin my studies for the Senior Cambridge School Certificate examinations to be taken in November and December, 1961.  Mr. Chandisingh stood out in his signature white suit and immediately reminded me of this film I had seen earlier that year: The Man in the White Suit (1951) with Alec Guinness.  Little did I realize that my association with the school and with the Principal would last for the next sixteen years.  Like the myriads of C. H. S. graduates before and after me, I can still say without the least equivocation that Mr. Chandisingh more than anyone else has been such a decisive influence in my life and career.

 

Having been raised in Canje and finding myself for the first time in a completely different milieu, I felt like an alien among the thirty other new students, most of whom, I was sure, knew one another.  I still remember some of the new faces near me as we assembled on the upper floor in a classroom adjacent to the Principal’s desk and apprehensively awaited the Principal’s greeting.  The truth of his words has always resonated in my memory over the decades.  In his welcome, he said, “If you study two and a half hours every night, from 7:00 to 9:30, you will do well in high school.”  After a disastrous first year, I began to stick adhesively to this advice, and the dividends I have henceforth reaped have been inestimable.

 

For as long as I had associated with Mr. Chandisingh, I cannot truly say  that I knew the man that he was.  In many ways he remained an inscrutable mystery, for he never let anyone get too close to him.  To borrow an image from Joseph Conrad’s novel Lord Jim, the views I had of the Principal were like “those glimpses through the shifting rents in a thick fog”.  His thin, slender frame belied the fearsome giant lurking beneath when he bedecked himself with the mantle of authority at school.  He was revered and feared by the students and teachers alike, to all of whom he seemed, armed with his cane and stentorian voice, as invincible in school as the vaunting Achilles prancing in full panoply on the windy plains outside the walls of Troy.

 

The Principal always referred to the rules of the school, which to me, were like the British Constitution in that both were unwritten.  But rules would manifest themselves according to the exigency of the situation.  The Principal, however, indefatigably promoted the paramountcy of three cardinal rules:

·         No physical contact between students

·         No fraternizing between boys and girls

·         No talking in the classroom.

In watching over the students as a vigilant parent would, and in ceaselessly trying to motivate them to learn, he would repeatedly say, “The classroom is  a place for learning.  It must always provide an atmosphere conducive to studying.”  To ensure compliance with his policy, he would pay unexpected  visits to the first floor during recess or the lunch break.  Whenever he appeared, cane in hand, the tumultuous students, abruptly ending their horse-play, would fly in panic-stricken haste to their seats or to a safe distance.  A hapless victim, too late to make good his escape, would easily fall into the grasp of the Principal, who, while administering a full measure of six with the stinging cane, would intermittingly exclaim, “No one will be allowed to sabotage the rules of this school!  Let this be an example to the others!”

 

We always looked forward to the Principal’s announcement of the Cambridge, and later, of the London “O” Level results, to the students assembled on the upper floor of the old building, or a few years later in the field near the auditorium of the new school.  It was a welcome break from the laborious routine, and it was an unbroken tradition to have the rest of the day off.  It was a pleasure to see the Principal in a different role and to listen to him declaiming in his impeccable command of the language and in his unrivalled lucidity and brevity.  On such an occasion he would announce the names of the outstanding students.  This was a kind of ritual of anointing them to a lofty eminence  so that they might join the ranks of the immortal scholars.  Who can ever forget such illustrious names as Hakikat, Miss Hababil, Herman Adams (Jupiter), Edmund Karpen, Rajendra Chandisingh, Routie Keshrelall, and Loretta Young, to name a few.

II

Mr. Chandisingh was a consummate craftsman of the old school brand in his capacious, awe-inspiring knowledge of the Byzantine grammar of the  English Language.   As a teacher of English in the Fifth Forms, he belonged to the classical era when the examining Boards in England, both Cambridge and London,  would set questions not only on composition, précis, and comprehension, but also on punctuation, vocabulary and clause analysis.  The Principal was adept at elucidating the multitudinous uses of the comma and the arcane, esoteric intricacies of the five noun clauses (subject, object, complement, in apposition, and governed by a preposition), the adjectival clauses (defining and non-defining), and the baffling adverbial clauses (time, place, manner, condition, purpose, result, concession, and degree).  Is it any wonder that we used to be inextricably trapped in the labyrinth of clauses?

 

Some of the things the Principal hammered home or did will always stay perennially fresh in my mind.  When he taught my class, Form VB, précis writing, he would say,  referring to an extract from Precis Writing by Black and Lawley, “What is the solid literal fact, the S. L. F., of this paragraph?”  He always insisted  that we write as simply as possible and never encumber our style with words of polysyllabic pomposity.  Whenever he assigned in-class writing, he would hover over our backs to assess to what extent we were “murdering” the language, but our stylistic infelicities and barbarous violations of the grammar would so speed up the crescendo of his gathering wrath that he would sometimes storm out of the classroom in quest of his cane.  The tyrannous cane whizzing through the air, the thunderous thwacking on the backs of the students and the resultant groans which the victims could not suppress used to remind me of Hercules cracking the skull of the giant Cacus, who, in his impudent folly, thought that he could outwit Hercules by dragging the choicest of the demigod’s cattle backwards by their tails into his own cave.

 

Although in teaching us, the Principal was reticent about his personal life, he inevitably gave us fleeting glimpses of his past.  His irrepressible habit of quoting from the great poets was irrefutable evidence that he was well-read in English and world literature.  He liked to quote from Robert Burns’s witty narrative poem “Tam O’Shanter” to impress upon us how transitory happiness is:

 

                        But pleasures are like poppies spread,

                        You seize the flow’r, its bloom is shed;

                        Or like snow falls in the river,

                        A moment white—then gone forever.

 

He was fond of reciting snatches from The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, one of which was:

 

                        The moving finger writes; and having writ,                    

Moves on: nor all thy piety nor wit

                        Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,

                        Nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.

 

He told another Fifth Form the manner in which  a woman rejected a suitor:

 

                        “Go to my father,” she said.

                        But she knew that he knew that

                        Her Father was dead;

                        And she knew that he knew

                        What she meant when she said:

                        “Go to my father.”

 

The Principal told us that he enjoyed reading the novels of Sir Walter Scott.  He was going to choose Scott’s long narrative poem Marmion as one of the three set books for the 1961 Cambridge Examination in English Literature, but unfortunately it was out of print.  In telling us about Scott, he added, and I will never forget what he said, “One night, with the aid of my hand-lamp, I was reading the novel Guy Mannering by Sir Walter Scott.  I was so carried away that I lost track of time.  After many hours I was distracted by the rumbling of the wheels of a dray cart on the public road.  When I drew aside the curtain to look outside, I saw a new day breaking!”

 

During the year Mr. Chandisingh prepared us for the Cambridge Examination in English, he made us read an extraordinary book called From Pillar to Post, which chronicled the history of the British postal service.  Cambridge University had stated that the  extract for the précis question would be taken from this book.  Most of the students found this book very uninspiring, but as an ardent philatelist, as I still am, I found it very informative and absorbing.

 

While most of us in the English class were intimidated by the Principal’s presence, we nevertheless found his illustrations, anecdotes, and digressions most entertaining.  A fifth former told me that once when they were doing a vocabulary exercise, the Principal said, “When you are giving the meaning of a word, don’t substitute another word that is as difficult as the original word you are explaining.  If you do, we would want to know what that substituted word now means.  For example, at a wake I attended, a farmer who would not shut up was boasting about his cow Bringle.  He said, ‘Bringle is my best cow.  Bringle give two gallons a milk maning and afternoon.  Bringle come home from pastcha on ee own.  Bringle . . .’  I then tried to stop him by asking, ‘How old is Bringle?’  He replied, ‘Bringle old like Buddha (another member of his herd).’  So I unwittingly gave him an invitation to begin an unending biography of Buddha.”

 

The Principal admired simple speech and found pretentiousness absolutely revolting.  He told us about an incident in a restaurant in Georgetown.  Whenever he said anything to the waitress, she would say “Q”, instead of “Thank you”.  Once when he was in a rural “cake shop”, a female  student entered, and recognizing him and endeavoring to impress him, said to the shop assistant, “Give me a penny mauby and a penny breakmouth.”  He added, “Why couldn’t she say ‘bruckmouth’?”  I was, however, immensely amused by one of his rib-tickling stories, and I shall try to reconstruct his words as far as I can.  He said, “Many years ago I accompanied a friend who wanted to meet the parents of a girl he was thinking of marrying.  It was a long walk, but a farmer gave us a two-mile  ride on his donkey cart.  When the girl’s parents were serving us refreshments, the father said to my friend: ‘Dis house a you house.  Dis tracta a you wan. You see all dem cow yanda, all a dem a you wan.  And if ayouh (you two) live happy, every Sunday me goh bring you watamilla.’  My conversation with the girl was a follows: ‘Have you lived here long?’  She said: ‘Oh yes.’  ‘Do you like it here?’  She said: ‘Oh yes.’  ‘Will you miss this place?’  She said: ‘Oh yes.’  I then gave up after that.”

 

As our English teacher, Mr. Chandisingh tried to guide us in appreciating the performing arts, for he himself was very knowledgeable about classical music, the cinema and the theatre.  I used to regard films as an ephemeral diversion, but the Principal made us realize that cinematography is a complex art.  Using Charlie Chaplin and Alfred Hitchcock as his references, he explained that one who is interested in films must be aware of the different genres of films, and of the  famous directors, screen-play writers and the composers of the music.  He added that one should always be conscious of how the camera is being used.  All of this was an astonishing revelation to me.  The Principal admired Charlie Chaplin; often he spoke about Chaplin’s slap-stick comedies and feature films such as Monsieur Verdeux, Gold Rush, City Lights, and Limelight; he even arranged for the entire school to see Limelight at the Apollo.  Moreover, he knew a great deal about classical music, jazz, and the musicals of Rogers and Hammerstein, Sigmond Romberg, and Lerner and Low.  He told us that a friend once played him a recording of Chopin’s “Raindrops Prelude” and asked: “Can you hear the raindrops falling?”

 

If the Principal was subject to tempestuous outbursts, the thunder of his anger was transient, and there was velvet under the lightning.  I recall that, as we were approaching the Cambridge Examinations, I unwittingly launched him into unimaginable fury.  I did not do the Mathematics homework one morning and, when pressed for an explanation, I put my faith upon honesty and said to the teacher: “Miss, since the exams are near, I decided to concentrate on my weak subjects.”  She misconstrued this as the zenith of insolence and dramatically stormed out of the classroom.  Before I could appraise the rising drama, the Principal flew into the room, exclaiming, “Who is P. Singh?”  I said rising, “I am, sir.”   “Have you been impertinent to Miss Seepersaud?”  Realizing in a nano-second that the interrogator was not seeking enlightenment to his peremptory enquiry but rather discharging an accusatory bolt from his cross-bow, I had no other option than to confirm the charge.  Thereupon he bellowed, “Take your books and get out!  No longer are you a student of this school!”  I naturally had to leave when I finally became conscious of what was really happening.  Some time later when I thought that his wrath had subsided, I returned to school, and everything was back to normal.        

III

Mr. Chandisingh  had the most decisive influence  on my choice of a career.  I vividly recall the last week of August, 1962, when he summoned me to his office and asked me to begin teaching in September.  I had no notion that I would endure in such a career for more than four decades.  Within the very first year he began to rely on me very heavily and would rapidly increase my non-pedagogical responsibilities.  He quickly took me into his confidence, and we developed a somewhat close professional rapport as he opened up more and more to me, and as he told me over the years interesting episodes of his life.

 

Looking at the Principal from a new perspective, I saw that he was fair and fearless in his stewardship over the school and that the decisions he had made were always tempered with what was beneficial and salubrious for the school and the community it served.  For instance, at a plenary staff meeting, he openly reprimanded a Biology teacher because his class had broken dozens of test tubes during an ill-supervised experiment.  On a few occasions, he summarily dismissed teachers for their lack of discretion in their relationships with students.  The Principal did not balk from instantly firing a Religious Knowledge teacher, fondly known as Zechariah among his students and marveled at for his prodigious rotundity, for peddling insurance after school. He explained to the teacher in question that teaching is a full-time job and that he could  be either a teacher or a peripatetic insurance agent, but not both.  To cite one more example of fair play and courage, the Principal saw that it was his clear duty to terminate the services of a very senior teacher for his indecorous hanky-panky with a student of the school.

 

Sometimes Mr. Chandisingh could not restrain his penchant for melodrama.  But first, let me backtrack a little.  He always insisted on unequivocal compliance with these two pivotal directives:

1.      A teacher must be attached and detached.  (That is, teachers should forbear from becoming intimately attached to students.)

2.      No teacher, other than the Principal himself or the Deputy Principal, is authorized to administer corporal punishment.

The second directive was more often honored in the breach than in the observance, but nothing was done unless someone raised a red flag.  This was exactly what once occurred.  A teacher severely whipped a male student on the palms of his hands.  The student was taken by his father to see a doctor, who bandaged the palms most exuberantly.  It was not clear to what extent the injuries, if any, were exaggerated, but when the father took his son to the Principal’s residence to protest most vehemently against the teacher’s alleged brutality, the Principal was enraged beyond measure, not the least because  one of his most fundamental directives was flagrantly breached.  The next morning, his temper unabated, he summoned the staff to a meeting and began thus: “Ladies and gentlemen, a married couple had once resolved never to have any children. . . .”  There followed a knocking at the door.  The Principal rose, opened the door, and saw a late-comer, Mr. Trim, who, at the time, was also the Mayor of Rose Hall.  He said: “Mr. Trim, we are having a meeting and would not like to be disturbed.”  Said Mr. Trim: “You mean you don’t want me at the meeting?”  “Yes,” replied the Principal.  Mr. Trim left forthwith, heading for his classroom.  The Principal resumed, “In spite of their resolution, the woman conceived and bore a son, whom they called Max.  After they had reassured themselves that their error would not recur, the woman conceived again and bore another son.  The father called him Climax.  Now, ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the climax of a crisis.”  The upshot on this occasion was that after the Principal had vented his spleen, he calmed down, gave the teacher a second chance and asked him to visit the father and make his apologies.

 

One of the Principal’s wonted habits was to sit with his hat on at a student desk in the gallery before  his office door, smoking in a leisurely way and brooding.  He had a pair of high-powered, army-surplus  binoculars with which he would scan the distant woodlands and rice fields.  At such times he was disposed to be more sociable than usual.  I would sometimes in passing linger to chat with him and invite him to talk about his earlier days.  That was how I learned that he believed in ghosts, and he had many illustrative stories on the supernatural lore.  This was the gist of one of his intriguing narratives:  “One afternoon I went up the creek by balahoo to visit a friend.  (I believe it was the Abary Creek.)  A balahoo is a very small boat to accommodate one person only.  You have to sit still and paddle with half strokes; otherwise you will easily lose your balance, and the boat will capsize. Darkness was already descending when I was returning, this time down stream.  I saw passing very near me another balahoo, completely deserted, with no one obviously in it, going up-stream against the tide!”

 

Mr. Chandisingh had a sense of humor, and although he bore a serious, business-line countenance, he was funny in spite of himself.  In grave situations his spontaneous remarks were  bitterly incisive, and although their barbs stuck deep, they were refreshingly funny and never lost their potency in precipitating boisterous laughter no matter how many times they were retold to regale others.   A few examples should suffice.  The first case was told by a student.  When he was in the Fourth Form, the fourth formers were for the first time allowed to take up to four subjects at the “O” Level examination.  Since only fifth formers were permitted to wear long pants, the fourth formers, now examination candidates,  thought that this time they had a strong case.  Some of the high-profiled students therefore decided to submit a signed petition to the Principal for permission to wear long pants. The Principal summoned the petitioners to a conference.  He presently scanned the letter and then quoted this sentence: “Although we are fourth formers, we should be permitted to wear long pants because we are long and large.”  Looking up, he asked: “Who wrote this letter?”  They all did.  He then said:  “As far as I know, only snakes are long!”  He imperiously denied their request and immediately dismissed them.  Another case concerned Mr. Khilawan.  When he asked for a leave of absence so that he could take the three papers of the Geography “A” Level examination, the Principal responded: “Mr. Khilawan, why don’t we just close down the school?”  Third, a teacher who was incurably late every morning, as an act of retaliation indicated in red in the time book each time  the Principal himself was late.   Seeing that, the Principal turned to me and said: “Mr. Singh, if I find out who did this, I will not chase that teacher out of the school.  I will let the students to chase him out!”

 

Ever since the first year I was appointed to the CHS staff, I had worked very closely with the Principal.  I assisted him with the school’s banking business.  I represented the school at various school conferences.  Every year I graded all the Entrance Examination  papers in Arithmetic.  One afternoon during the August school holidays (1970), the Principal surprised me with a visit to my home in Williamsburg.  He said that he had come to tell me personally that he was appointing me Senior Master.  From then on, whenever he had urgent business with the Ministry of Education in Brickdam, Georgetown, he would dispatch me to the capital.

 

As the years went by, the Principal to some extent was able to confide in me, discussing  confidential matters about the school.  One morning he told me how deeply affected and hurt he was by the CHS staff strike (1965).  He was very sad when his last son Rohan left in 1967 to begin studies at Lakehead University in Manitoba, Canada.  After a meeting of the school’s Consultative  Committee,  shortly after his son had left, he detained me and said:  “Mr. Singh, as I always say, I am a stoic at heart and  I keep my thoughts and my emotions locked up  inside.  I am not demonstrative, and you may say I lack that tactile inclination.  Now that my last son has left, I do feel his absence so much.  I have really missed him. Anyway,  I know you like classical music.  Can you lend me some of your records which you think may bring me some consolation?”  I recall lending him some Rogers and Hammerstein’s soundtracks and some symphonies by Beethoven and Dvorak.  Without my asking, he lent me an album called “Concert Encores” performed by the renowned virtuoso violinist, Jascha Heifetz.

 

I left Corentyne High in August, 1973 to begin my undergraduate studies overseas.  The dreaded moment of bidding the Principal farewell could not be dodged.  Many are the moments of my life that I do not want to remember, and this was one of them.  I will not tell how saddened I was leaving the school or how difficult it was to bid the  Principal adieu…

 

He was very pleased to see me in December two years later when I was visiting.  I saw him for the last time in July, 1977 in New Amsterdam on another visit from abroad.  We chatted warmly, and then he asked the question I was dreading: “I heard you were back.  You came to see me the last time.  Why didn’t you come this time.  I was so looking forward to seeing you.”  Clever as I am at my inventiveness in fashioning credible excuses, I could not lie to him and must have appeared very sheepish at that moment.  The truth of the matter was that I was reluctant to visit the school in view of the changes brought about by the prevailing political dynamics.

 

When he was addressing the students assembled  for the first time in front of the new building, the Principal said:  “Do not kick the ladder on which you have ascended.”  I suppose even if he had not said so, this idea is embedded in the minds of the CHS graduates, and this is partly why they become sentimental when they think of the school.  Over the years I always see in my mind’s eye what the school used to be.  I can still visualize  Mr. Chandisingh dressed in his suit, riding his large-framed bicycle, with his leather attaché dangling like a pendulum from his left handle-bar, as he headed for school.  I can still see him at work at his desk in his office while good, faithful Miss Bascom was collecting students’ school fees;  or sitting at the student desk in the front corridor near his office as he smoked or brooded.  Sometimes I see him still at Swambers’ Drug Store on a Saturday afternoon, occasionally  in the company of Mr. Samad, as he followed the horse races with avid interest. 

IV

It goes without saying that great deeds are accomplished, many a great victory is won, and history is decisively affected when there is the right man, in the right place, at the right time.  Such proved to be the case with Mr. Chandisingh.  As far back in 1957 when the prospect of independence to the crown colony of British Guiana was infinitely remote, when a meaningful secondary education was accessible to the privileged few, the Principal was visionary enough to foresee that Corentyne High School would become the flagship of a vibrant, relevant secondary education for the entire Corentyne coastline.  With the conviction that “if it can be imagined, it can be done”, he devoted himself with pioneering zeal and uncompromising commitment to building a new school.  How he has made Corentyne High such a pre-eminent institution has been permanently woven into the fabric  of the rural folklore and will occupy a permanent place in the history of the Corentyne.  To give credit where it is due, he witnessed in the mid-twentieth century the proliferation of technology and the scientific breakthroughs galloping apace and he appreciated the need to mould and fashion a new school to be consonant with, and relevant to, the burgeoning new age.  He was among the very few educators with the prescience and courage to revolutionize the curricula by phasing out Latin and Religious Knowledge, by introducing Spanish, by emphasizing the natural sciences, by giving the school a reputable library, and, sharing Wellington’s belief that “the Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton”, by promoting physical education via after-school sports and recreation.

 

If I may borrow what Prospero says in The Tempest, Mr. J. C. Chandisingh had “such stuff/As dreams are made on.”  Those who give more than is given to them; those who dedicate their lives to a good cause without hankering after gold or glory; those who keep the furrows straight, holding the plough with  steady hands and never looking back; those who change the world without being changed themselves; they, like Mr. Chandisingh, are prized above all others as the true benefactors of mankind.  Mr. Chandisingh’s achievements are priceless.  His transcendent legendary stature has made him larger than life.  The generations of students, whom he has nurtured and who render him honor in so many parts of the world, will in their hearts always regard him as the one and only Principal of Corentyne High and grant him his rightful place in the pantheon of the superheroes of the Corentyne.

Paris Singh

New York

February 20, 2009

 

***   ***   ***

 

 

Remembering Mr. Haroun Samad

 

A Man of Resourcefulness, Wit, and Histrionics

 

By Paris Singh

 

Mr. J. C. Chandisingh was the driving force behind the building of the new Corentyne High School, but Mr. Haroun Samad  more than any other teacher helped to make that dream a reality.  In his resourcefulness, wit, histrionics, and protean personality, Mr. Samad might well have been a Shakespearean protagonist, catapulted  from the stage into the world of reality.  In essence, he was a rare fusion of intellect, humanity and earthiness, never losing his joie de vivre as he deeply immersed himself in such a plurality of activities.  He was a strict, fearless disciplinarian of the old school brand (but far from being a narrow-minded martinet), a very astute and capable administrator, a history teacher without parallel, a raconteur and humorist, a true lover of English literature, and an exemplary pillar of his community.

 

Mr. Samad had a rather privileged childhood.  (Since the close proximity of our desks in the staff room made us neighbors, he told me a great deal about his life amid his frequent light bantering.)  He graduated from Central High School in Georgetown, where he developed a life-long love for history and for Romantic and Renaissance literature.  He always spoke well of his father, who, he said, owned a fleet of cars, and who constantly exhorted  him  to shun life’s alluring snares and pitfalls  that quickly led to  the abyss of decadence and dissoluteness.  He absolutely loathed smoking  and said of a cigarette: “It has fire at one end and a fool at the other end.”  Since he knew about my own literary interests, he was in the habit of quoting from Marlow, Shakespeare and Keats.  He loved Doctor Faustus, from which he often recited these lines:

 

            Was this the face that launched a thousand ships,

                And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?

                Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.

 

His favorite lines from Keats were

 

            “A thing of beauty is a joy forever”,   Endymion

 

            And

 

            “Bright star!  Would  I were steadfast as thou art”. Sonnet: “Bright Star”

 

Whenever I attempted to curtail the excesses of his praises, he would say: “ ‘The eye sees not itself/But by reflection’ ; therefore let me be ‘such mirrors as will turn/Your hidden worthiness into your eyes’ ”.  Once in disciplining a disruptive student who saw himself as a class clown, he told the student, alluding to Twelfth Night, “You are not a witty fool or a foolish wit; you are a nitwit.”

 

Despite its limited resources, Corentyne High ranked among the top schools in the country.  Much of the credit must also go to the teachers.  Though the overwhelming majority of them were not professionally trained, the teachers nevertheless ranked among the finest   because of the passion and commitment they brought to their mission.  However, while I was a student at CHS, I had never had a history teacher  as lively, witty, theatrical, knowledgeable, and effective as Mr. Samad.

 

It is difficult to do justice in trying to come to terms with why Mr. Samad  was a history teacher par excellence.  Apart from being who he was, he also had that indefinable,  that Je  ne sais quoi, quality about him.   As I was to hear him later in staff meetings, he argued fanatically and passionately that history was one of the most important subjects and that all students without exception must  take that subject in the culminating public examination.  At first I privately used to dismiss his reasoning for being tendentious, but later I began to appreciate  the cardinal importance of history.  It was Mr. Samad, as I eventually realized, who infused me with a lasting love for the subject. 

 

Mr. Samad’s classroom approach to the subject was absolutely phenomenal.  From start to finish in any lesson, he was a magnet, not merely because he was a figure of administrative power and authority , but also because  he had an imposing presence, and students loved his wit, his liveliness, and his drama.  He did not just make history come  alive;  he made us believe that we were living at that particular time.  Who can ever forget  Richard  III, the last Plantagenet; the Battle of Bosworth Field;  Perkin Warbeck; Lambert Simnel; Oliver Cromwell, the New Model Army, Marston Moor and Naseby;  James II  and the Glorious Revolution; the War of the Spanish Succession;  Marlborough’s victories at Ramillies, Malplaquet, Oudenarde, and Blenheim; the War of Jenkins’ Ear; or the truce of Aix-La-Chapelle?  These words will always resonate in my mind, redolent of  the nostalgic golden days of high school around such an unforgettable history mentor.  When I was in the third form, I overheard one of the finest compliments paid to Mr. Samad by a student named Bhola.  Bhola said to three other students, Sadhu, “Katax” (who later became a science teacher at Queen’s) and “Jupiter” (who later became a teacher at CHS): “Man, nobody knows Southgate better than Samad.” (He was referring to Southgate’s history of England under the Tudors and Stuarts).

 

We should not forget that Mr. Samad helped to build the new CHS with his own hands.   Bookers Sugar Estates in the former British Guiana had given the land for the new school building as well as the old Albion Sugar Estate Hospital.  When the hospital was dismantled in the summer of 1958,  Mr. Samad and another teacher, Mr. Salim Khan, assisted in transporting the materials to the new site.  They had rented a truck, which they themselves loaded, and Mr. Samad did the driving.  I witnessed all of this because I was living at the time in one of the three residential buildings in the hospital compound.  The demolished hospital was used for the construction of a new wing of the old school and also for the auditorium of the new school.  Mr. Samad  was the linchpin in fund raising events, notably the school bingo in the old building in 1958.

 

Mr. Samad’s quest for the Deputyship was a  rather long one but it culminated  in his success in 1962.  Until that time he was the unacknowledged de facto Deputy Principal.  This meant that he was always saddled with the strenuously demanding  responsibilities of devising the school’s time table, doing all the paper work in registering students for the Cambridge and London examinations, and handling all discipline problems.  In 1958, before the Principal left for a holiday in Trinidad, Mr. Samad collected money from the students and staff to present him with  a beautiful Bullova watch and some spending money for the trip.  He had also organized  in the Principal’s honor a concert in which two of the Sohan sisters sang the Harry Bellafonte hit song, “A Jamaican Farewell”.  That year also Mr. Claude Veira, a teacher from Central High School who had acquired national celebrity as a member of the Theatre Guild  in Georgetown and who was a household  name for his weekly quiz program on  Radio Demerara, joined the CHS staff and was made Deputy Principal.  Because of their effervescence, effusiveness and kindred  wit, Mr. Samad and Mr. Veira became friends.  Of course, another concert in 1958 in the new wing of the old school  was  memorable.   One of the events was a wrestling match between Mr. Samad and Mr. Veira.  The sheer incongruity of the scene, in which these two Titans of the teaching profession, having cast aside their mantles of authority, having girded their loins, and making surrealistic faces at each other in the fight, albeit in mime, led to seismic laughter from the audience.  At this concert, Mr. Samad sang one of his favorite songs, “Ol’ Man River”, a song made famous by Paul Robeson in the film version of  Jerome Kern’s musical Show Boat.  When he reached the climactic moment with:

 

            You an’ me, we sweat and strain

            Body all achin’ and racked with pain.

            “Tote that barge!  Lift that bale!”

            Git a little drunk,

            An’ you lands in jail!

 

the students’ drowning applause was an affirmation of his powerful vocal chords.

 

Mr. Veira’s sojourn at CHS was just under two years, and he left as mysteriously as he had arrived.  Shortly after his departure he was appointed to a high-profiled administrative post at the Ministry of Education in Brickdam, Georgetown.  In his  wake, Mr. Jain, a Mathematics and Science teacher from India, was appointed  Deputy in the new school in 1959.  The relationship between Mr. Jain and Mr. Samad  was not memorable for its milk of human concord.  In the acrimonious clashes between them in staff meetings, Mr. Jain was no match  for the dexterous parries, penetrating thrusts and  incisive slashes from his colleague’s well-stocked verbal arsenal.  Mr. Samad  once told me an incident that seemed to cast doubt on Mr. Jain’s suitability as a science teacher.  He said:

“Once Mr. Jain came to my home breathless, evidently from running.  With great difficulty he was able to say: ‘Mr. Samad!  Mr. Samad, somebody stole the engine of my car!  Come and see!’  He and I rushed to his home in the school compound.  He then opened the bonnet of the car  and lamented:  ‘Look!  The engine! It’s gone!’  I  led him to the back of the car and said: ‘No one stole your engine.  Look, it’s at the back of the car.  This is a Volkswagen.’ ”

 

Mr. Jain left after two years to join his wife in Georgetown, and then Mr. Samad was officially made the Deputy.

 

There is indeed the perennial truth in this paradox: one cannot be too careful in choosing one’s enemies.  Since Mr. Samad was perceived as the lion at the Principal’s side, ready to see that all school policies were implemented, teachers by and large had an ambivalent attitude towards him.  On the one hand, they had to be very circumspect in dealing with him.  We must give Mr. Samad his due; he always made it clear publicly and unambiguously where he stood.  At staff meetings, referring, say,  to a particular infringement of a school regulation, he would often remark: “Chief,  many of our rules are frequently observed in the breach than in the observance.”  Or he might say, “Chief, some teachers who do not support a particular policy would not make any genuine effort to give it a try but would instead do everything possible to make it fail.”  Let me add another instance.  In 1963, when I was still new to the staff, the senior teachers formed a delegation and approached the Principal to petition for an immediate salary increase.  The petition was denied, and the next morning the Principal convened a staff meeting.  He came armed with his ledgers to explain that the school was still in debt and could ill-afford any salary increase then or in the foreseeable future.  Not to be outdone, Mr. Samad took the floor.  He said:  “Chief, I must remind my colleagues that even the government has turned us down.  Last month I joined the AMM leadership  (Association of Masters and Mistresses, the Union of teachers of Private and Secondary-Aided Schools) to put forward our case for a salary increase before the Minister of Education.  Sister Consulata of St. Rose’s High School very diligently and very scrupulously presented our position, but alas! the Government claimed it had no money.”  Since then no one could ever forget that disembodied name, “Sister Consulata”, which became a byword in comic exchanges. 

 

On the other hand, teachers quickly learned that Mr. Samad was an indispensable ally.  They found that he was amenable to good ideas and would make an earnest effort to try them out.  Moreover, if teachers had any problems with recalcitrant students, Mr. Samad’s assistance was very helpful.

 

I still like to flatter myself in believing that the relationship between Mr. Samad and myself was a special one, partly, I believe, because  he  had a love for the literature I taught and studied, and because  I had a consuming interest in his field of history.  He invited me a few times to his home, and I was able to  observe how exemplary a family man he was.  I admired his gusto and acumen, his spontaneous and devastating wit,  his  warmth and vivacity, and his inherent social graces.  His social accomplishments were many-faceted.  He was a very good dancer, and many were the trophies he and his wife  had won on the  dancing floors at special social events.  He loved to dance to the songs of Jim Reeves.  In addition, he was fanatical about horse racing, though, I suspect, he never struck it rich in that pastime.   He was a versatile singer  in both English and Hindi.  I once witnessed a competition between him and Rajendra Chandisingh in the middle classroom of the left wing (overlooking the playing field).  School was not in secession since the students had finished the terminal examinations and were on holiday. Teachers had to stay back to complete grading  examinations.   With theatrical flair and an incredible vocal virtuosity Mr. Samad sang an Indian song (whose name I had long forgotten)   and the song “Drink, Drink” from Sigmond Romberg’s operetta, The Student Prince. It was a performance I still  vividly recall  with absolute incredulity.  He loved the Hollywood classics of the 1940’s, the ’50’s, and the ’60’s and would always recommend films for me to see, films such as Green Dolphin Street (1947; with Lana Turner and Richard Hart) and The Seventh Veil  (1945; with James Mason and Ann Todd).

 

Mr. Samad’s  intellect and authority were  tempered with his earthiness, as evinced in his humor.  No one could tell a joke better than he because of his mastery of the spoken word and because of his histrionic skill in mimicking  such a wide range  of voices and characters.  Whence he obtained his inexhaustible stock of jokes remained a mystery, but to give him his due, the jokes were such unforgettable classics that they still make me laugh.  He once told me  this “history”  joke.  He said: “On one occasion at his home the British Foreign Secretary was entertaining the French Ambassador to London.  Taking him through his study and showing him the portraits of European statesmen, the Foreign Secretary commented: ‘This is Canning, a famous British Prime Minister during the Napoleonic era; this is Castlereagh, Britain’s War Minister during the Peninsula War, and this is Metternich, who ruled Austria with an iron fist after Napoleon’s defeat.’  The Ambassador at this point asked: ‘But where is Napoleon?’  The Foreign Minister then took him to the bathroom and said: ‘There is Napoleon.’  Shocked, the Ambassador said: ‘This is a disgrace.  Napoleon is France’s national hero.  Why his portrait in the bathroom?’  ‘Because’, said the Foreign Secretary, ‘we British were  so scared of him that whenever we saw him, you could well have imagined what he inspired us to do.’ ”

 

Mr. Samad never let his rank cut him off from the rest  of the staff, and he freely associated with his colleagues, provided that they refrained from unparliamentary language and conducted themselves with proper decorum.  He never wavered in his admiration for Bacchus. In fact, many were the times when, at Auntie Bettie’s Rum Shop, fortified with bunjal chicken and infused with good whiskey, he would preside at  Bacchic symposiums (or symposia) with his colleagues, amusing them with his diverting conversations on the week’s events and with his jovial comments.  This was also the time when teachers aired their views, discussed their problems, or sought his advice, and he was a good listener, who counselled with avuncular care.

 

When I visited Mr. Samad at him home in August, 1973 to bid him good-bye before going overseas, I could never have imagined that he would succumb to a fatal heart attack about two years later.  We were all saddened that he departed  at such a comparatively  young age.  He had enriched the minds and molded the character of more than a generation of students throughout the Corentyne , many of whom later distinguished themselves, and still continue to do so,  in diversified careers at home and abroad.  He would always be remembered as one who helped build the school and  enable it to stand proudly among the finest  educational institutions in Guyana.  Mr. Samad had given his very all to CHS, and his own life had exemplified and enshrined  the finest virtues of humanity.  The Principal, Mr. J. C. Chandisingh, wept profusely and inconsolably  at the funeral, perhaps realizing that he had lost his life-long friend and most trusted ally, and that what Mr. Samad received in return was sadly incommensurate with what he had given, for what he had given was beyond evaluation.

                                   

Paris Singh

Richmond Hill, NY

 August  2008

                               

***   ***   ***

 

Reminiscences on Mr. Cecil A. Parkinson

 

Just as all English laws date back to the Conquest of 1066, in effect Corentyne High School dates back to J. C. Chandisingh, Haroun Samad, and C. A. Parkinson.  That is not to say that there were no other teachers before them, but they arguably made up what may be termed   the school’s pedagogical trinity.  Whereas all the other teachers came, served for a time and then left for one reason or another, these three served as the permanent bulwark of the staff, the mainstay, and the nucleus, displaying their true stoicism despite the vicissitudes of the political and economic climate, and despite the whirligig of quirky father time.  However, while Mr. Chandisingh remained  Principal and while Mr. Samad later became the permanent Deputy Principal, Mr. Parkinson stayed  an even course as French, Latin and English Master, always kept buoyant by his inextinguishable resourcefulness, lively wit, and irrepressible penchant for telling anecdotes.  He was also revered as the embodiment of refinement, affability, faultless eloquence and morality.

 

In essence and in appearance, Mr. Parkinson (or Parkie, as his students very fondly called him) was a gentleman and a scholar.  I first saw him in September, 1957, when I began attending CHS.  He then appeared in his late 50’s or early 60’s, and for the twenty years I had known him, age did not alter him in his physical appearance.  He was an old boy of Queen’s College, where he was a classicist, specializing in ancient Greek and Latin, as well as excelling in French and English. In September, 1962, when the Principal interviewed me, my father being present also, before appointing me to the staff, he said to us: “No one on my staff knows more Latin than Mr. Parkinson.”  Mr. Parkinson was always simply and neatly attired, appearing, I am sure, like his counterpart in an English private school.  But he stood out in his own characteristic fashion:  his tie never had the Sinatra knot, his trousers were baggy, he tied a handkerchief around his neck to prevent staining his collar, and a sheaf of students’ papers always protruded from his capacious, antiquated leather bag.

 

Every morning, Mr. Parkinson was late and usually the last teacher to arrive.  He would plod his way in, unperturbed and oblivious of the consequent inconvenience his unpunctuality occasioned.  But no one faulted him for his lateness because he lived in New Amsterdam, some twelve miles away.  In fact everyone marveled at such a  legendary distance he had to cover considering that public transportation was unreliable as well as primordial, and considering that the roads were subservient to the depredations of the torrential rain and the violent Trade Winds from the nearby Atlantic.   But he usually stayed back about an hour after school to compensate for being late.  Many years later, this problem was solved when three other teachers joined the staff, two from East Canje, and the third  from New Amsterdam.  These three teachers along with Mr. Parkinson arranged for a taxi to pick them up and take them on time to CHS.

 

In the classroom, Mr. Parkinson showed such indifference to time as might have been termed Epicurean by the ancient Romans.  For example, for each year of French, students had to cover a reading text with grammar and a supplementary literature text.  This meant that for each of the three terms of an academic year, they had to complete one-third of each of the two books.  However, Mr. Parkinson was so leisurely and thorough in his approach that he was lucky to complete one-third of the entire syllabus in one year.  Naturally, by virtue of the preponderance of the repetition alone, his students willy-nilly were always able to master the work covered but were unfortunately ill-prepared for the Cambridge  examinations in November and December or the London examinations in June.  This notwithstanding, it was always a pleasurable experience being in his class for two principal reasons.

 

First, his method of repetition was either poetic or funny.  For example, once he was teaching us to form the plural of French nouns ending in “ou”.  He would say: “Nouns ending in ‘ou’ form the plural by adding an ‘x’ ”.  Then he would list the examples thus:

 

                “Hibou, bijou, joujou, caillou, chu”

 

                “Hibou, bijou, joujou, caillou, chu”, and so on.

 

On another occasion, he was teaching us to pronounce “quand”.  Being carried away, he said:  “kand, kand, kand, kand, kong, kong, kong, kong, King Kong!”

 

Then there was the time he was reprimanding a girl who could not stop talking.  So he said, “Every morning, you babble, babble, babble, babble, babble, babble.  When I go home, I have to hear Mrs. Parkinson babble, babble, babble, babble, babble.  Dear me!  When is all this babbling going to end?”

 

Mr. Parkinson  was always well-informed about the world of cricket and soccer but was not himself active in any sport perhaps because of his age.   However, he possessed what may be termed a Wordsworthian sensitivity to life around him.  He was a perspicacious observer of human nature, and not the least of human foibles escaped his vigilant eye.  It was not surprising, therefore, that he was a veritable treasure house of stories, and in the classroom, anything out of the ordinary, say a student’s remark or a particular incident in the text, would trigger his memory.  Then holding the lesson in temporary abeyance, he would narrate some relevant anecdote, not in the least concerned about completing the syllabus for the term.  But it was the uniqueness of his narrative style—his mastery of the language, his multitudinous interpolations, his incisive wit, his selection of details and his dramatic voice –  all these elements collaborated in unison to hold his audience entertained and enthralled.  Some of his stories were unforgettable, and I shall give a few examples.

 

To illustrate how literature, like sports, can move us physically to jump out of our seats or howl execrations at evil characters and unscrupulous players, he told us of an incident in D’Urban Park.  He would characteristically hold the text in his left hand, caress the ears of the pages with the fingers of his right hand, and bounce on the his toes to add the weight of authority to what he would say:   “When I was a student at Queen’s, I once went to D’Urban Park to see the races.  At the climactic moment as the horses were careering neck-and-neck towards the finish, a  man standing behind me could not control his leaping and screaming.  So he grabbed me by the shoulders and began shouting: ‘Come on deh, jockey!  Come on deh jockey!  Come on deh jockey’,  ripping my shirt off my back.”

 

On another occasion, while he was teaching, he was frustrated by the incessant murmuring from back of the classroom.  When his coaxing and pleading bore no fruit, he decided to provide some diversion.  He said:  “You know, students, some time ago, my children would invite their friends over and they would make such a Babel of noise.  At my wit’s end, I came up with an idea.  I gave them all a test and threatened to give them another test should they come back again.   Naturally, I never saw their friends again.”

 

Once he was trying to explain the meaning of “idiosyncrasy”, and the accompanying story was indeed remarkable.  “Our Fourth Form Latin Master,” he began, “would rank us in a class game whenever he gave us a vocabulary drill.  Saunders always ended at the top of the class, and one day we decided to trick him.  We noticed that Saunders had his own idiosyncrasy.  Before answering the question posed, he would run his left hand down the buttons of his blazer  and when he reached the third button, he would answer correctly.  One day we managed to cut off that button without his knowing it.  In the drill, when his turn came, he fumbled as he missed his button and was sent down  in ignominious exile to the bottom of the class.”

 

Mr. Parkinson would think of novel ways of encouraging his students to do their best.  One way was to brag about the virtues of his former students who had graduated.  He would tell his classes about a particular student who excelled in the Cambridge or London examinations.  He would, for example, say:  “Many of you perhaps remember Rupert or Roberta Smith.  He or she was very pleasant, very hard-working, and has worked with perseverance and conscientiousness.”  But as he enumerated the noble attributes of such a student, he would clap his hands in synchronization with every word uttered so as to drive home the impact of his message.

 

It is true that a little bit of Parkinson endures in many of his students.  High school being so many decades behind me, many of Mr. Parkinson’s truisms, maxims, and pet sayings  still reverberate in my mind and will continue to do so.  Any teacher will discover that there are always a few obdurate students he or she has to deal with, and in spite of the  persuasions and blandishments, those students will remain refractory.  Mr. Parkinson would say to them: “Such an attitude of ‘Wha come sa doh’ will not take you anywhere.  The expression in French is ‘Advienne que pourra’; in Italian, it is ‘Que sera sera’, as Doris Day has sung.”  Sometimes he would say: “You wait and see.  You will learn to shoulder your responsibilities only when you get married.  In fact, that’s the only thing that will cure you of your laissez faire attitude.”

 

Once I heard an expression of Mr. Parkinson’s that I had never before or since heard.  I was a teacher at the time, and on one occasion, when the Deputy Principal, Mr. Samad, relayed a directive allegedly from the Principal, Mr. Parkinson said to me: “When hassar says alligator is sick, you have to believe him.”  When I looked at him quizzically, he volunteered this explanation:  “Whenever you receive any information that you cannot verify, you have no other alternative but to credit it, as in the case of what the Deputy has just said.  We don’t know if the Principal actually gave such a directive.  If we challenge the Deputy, he would think we suspect he is lying.  If we ask the Principal to verify the directive, and if the directive is indeed from him, he will be annoyed.  So where does that leave us?”

 

During my eleven years on the CHS staff, I came to know Mr. Parkinson quite well.  My desk was in the penultimate row in the staff room with Haroon Samad, Alec Burton Farley and Mr. Parkinson in close proximity behind.  Such nearness led to a very warm rapport among us.  Alec humorously used to call me “the Bard of Avon”, Mr. Samad used to regale me regularly with off-color jokes, and Mr. Parkinson for some mysterious reason treated me with considerable deference, at which I was both amused and flattered.  I suppose it all began when he wanted to know the date when General Wolfe defeated General Montcalm in Quebec.  I readily told him that it was September 13, 1759.  I happened to know because at that time I was preparing for my “A” level in History and had chosen for the Second Paper the history of Europe from 1715 to 1830.

 

As neighbors in the staff room, we used to chat a great deal, and he would reveal little glimpses of his witty, vivacious personality.   He would tell me about the arthritis that kept on plaguing him and  about the many week-ends when he “fasted” on orange  juice.  Whenever he read about the high jinks of the wealthy, what with their Mediterranean cruises, their opulent life styles, and their sumptuous banquets “per multam noctem” (“far into the night”), as he was fond of quoting snatches from Caesar or Ovid or Horace, he would simultaneously be overwhelmed by a protracted paroxysm of laughter, slightly inclining his shoulders as he shook with merriment from his waist up.  Then he would  ask: “I wonder what, if anything really,  I am getting  out of life.”  One Saturday morning, I met him on the main road near Ganpatsingh Drugstore in New Amsterdam.  He was riding his daughter’s bicycle, and upon seeing me, he dismounted and said after exchanging salutations: “I have just seen my G.P.  You know, Mr. Parsram, at my age I have to go for my regular patches to get some more mileage out of the old machine!”  And then we laughed at his original  bit of witticism.

 

Mr. Parkinson seldom spoke about his wife, but whenever he did, he referred to her as Mrs. Parkinson.  We knew for some time about the frailty of her health, but her death (I believe it was in 1968 or 1969) was unexpected.  I attended the funeral, as did quite a few other CHS teachers.  There was the accustomed aura of quiet dignity and solemnity at the funeral, unmarked by any dramatic outburst of uncontrollable lamentation.  The funeral service was conducted by the Anglican Priest, Archibald Leonard Luker, renowned for his erudition in literature and his monumental memory, and for writing the lyrics of the national anthem of Guyana.  I witnessed the singularity of his memory as he effortlessly but poetically recited all the scriptural readings.  About an hour after the interment at the cemetery in Stanleytown, some of the other teachers and I visited Mr. Parkinson at his home in New Amsterdam.  Having gotten up from his dinner with his family , he came down to see us and with quiet thanks shook hands with each of us.  This formanity over, some embarrassing moments of silence ensued, whereupon we took our leave of him.

 

Mr. Parkinson will long remain a legend written in the hearts and minds of the thousands of students  along the entire Corentyne Coast who came under his aegis at CHS, where he taught for more than twenty-five years.  It was he who brought French, a modern European language, to the rural Corentyne during the early pioneering days of secondary education in colonial British Guiana.  In all likelihood he began his teaching career at Berbice High School, where he taught Mr. J. C. Chandisingh himself!  Even though age began to take its toll upon his health, Mr. Parkinson continued  teaching because, since CHS was a private school with limited financial resources, a pension was unforthcoming.  An era, however, came to an end when he retired in the late 1970’s  and when he passed away shortly afterwards.  I last saw him in 1973.  He knew that I was leaving to study overseas, and so we said our fond farewell.  I remember he shook my hand very warmly and for quite some time with his effusive good wishes.  I have come to realize that it is one of the bitter ironies of this temporal world of ours that the true heroes are those who steel themselves in their stoicism, who toil with unquestioning devotion, untiring patience and silent zeal, and who quietly fade away unrewarded, unnoticed, and unsung.

 Paris Singh

Richmond Hill, NY

July 2008