Where it all began ~Zenana Tales 2~

I used to stay in Blandford. No, that’s neither an American high profile neighborhood nor any picturesque countryside in Europe....It’s the name of the building I had my room in, the one I was sharing with my five friends while doing Entrance coaching. I think, among all the other buildings of the Zenana hostel, Blandford was the only Anglicized one. It is a common thing for institutions and buildings under the administration of our church to be named after Anglican missionaries who once lived in India, in our case, Kerala, and helped build the church.

Blandford was quite an old building with a typical mid-century style construction. It had a tiled roof with a wooden ‘thattu’(panelled ceiling) but no accessible ‘thattinpuram’ (attic). Why would they want young ladies-in-the-making climb up to the attic anyway!! The outer borders or rather, the outline of the building, if you look at it from a birds-eye perspective would give you more or less a perfect rectangle, but the collective layout of the rooms inside this rectangle, was like a disjointed ‘T' with a dot at the bottom. The top part of the ‘T' ,the horizontal part, which was at the far end of Blandford comprised of 3 or 4 rooms max. After a short gap was the long vertical part of the ‘T' that had 2 rooms on either side all the way down. In between the horizontal row of rooms and the vertical column of rooms, in that little gap, towards one side was the toilet and bathroom area with around 6 to 8 cubicles.

Like I said, Zenana Hostel sat comfortably on Fern Hill, so the terrain is not plain. The mess hall and the office building were on the highest ground with the chapel and study hall, a good distance away on either side, slightly lower. The next layer, which you have to access by going down around 8-10 steps was Blandford. To the right of Blandford again another 5-6 steps down was ‘New Building'. In between Blandford and New Building, steps descended more towards the bottom of the hill. These steps would take you to another old building where many senior chechis stayed. I forgot the name of that building. For now let’s call it ‘Seniors’. Seniors was right behind Blandford if you look at it ‘positionally’, just that it was way below. What was below Seniors?..... nothing but the slope covered with some plants and weeds gently tapering off into the Bakery Jn-Vazhuthacaud road, guarded by a massive and sturdy wall.

Now, back to Blandford! Why am I giving you so much detail?....because it will come handy in the following story, so do go back and read if you must. You have to get the geography and civil engineering right.

Remember I said that the building had a rectangular outline? It was a half wall (aramathil) running down all the way from the far end of Blandford, on either side. On top of the half wall was a mesh running all the way up to the ceiling. So, a person standing outside the building could see into the corridors running around the rooms in the vertical part of the ‘T’. This half wall had a door in almost the central part of the front aspect of long side of the 'T'. I think that was a swing-in grill door/mesh door on a wooden frame (not very clear). On the exact opposite side of the door across the rooms was a large sink area with 3 to 4 taps. That was where we would brush our teeth. Looking straight ahead from the sink area, we could see the ‘Seniors’ below and further below, tiny cars running up the road to Vazhuthacaud junction.

From the base of the ‘T' was a narrow path, which was also bordered by the half wall and mesh covering, leading to a stand alone room....My room. This room was the largest in Blandford. The door opens right into the middle of the room looking straight ahead into a wall. There was a clothes stand there. From the door to my right were 3 single cots arranged along each wall (imagine a U shape design)and had a big table in the middle with 2 chairs on the free side and a stool under. This was pretty much the same scene on the left. A table with 2 or 3 chairs and 3 single cots along each wall.

My bed was on the right hand side of the room, the base part of the U. There was a window above my bed with a sill wide enough to put all my fat books. It was again a mesh, like in the corridors outside, with a curtain. I think it was a wooden window which almost always stayed open. My immediate neighbors were Krupa, another entrance student like me, and Yamuna, a student of BA Music at the Women’s College.

Now when I say ‘music’ and ‘Yamuna’, the picture that comes your mind would be that of a sweet singing, innocent girl with long hair, pattu pavada, chandana kuri, oiled hair with probably a string of jasmine flowers, glass bangles, and what not. Yamuna was the opposite to my shock. Jeans, T shirt, short hair, stylish earrings, a fancy watch, high heeled footwear, loud talking and laughing. Yup, that was Yamuna Mathew, from Pala!! The only thing I got right was the singing....Oh she sang like a nightingale.

Krupa was originally from Trivandrum, but her father was a priest so her parents lived elsewhere while she and her sisters did their schooling from Trivandrum while staying at the school hostel. We had common interests...entrance of course which was the first binding factor, and then also our love for music and choral singing. We were both choristers in our home churches. We soon became friends.

There was only one bed occupied on the other side of the room. It was Roshna’s bed. She was doing her degree from Mar Ivanios. A short and pretty girl who would laugh like a baby, a very homesick girl who would run like bullet from a gun whenever she heard the loud voices from as far as the mess hall, rippling over other inmates till it reached her ears, “Roshna.....Phone!!!!”

I loved this room and the girls....I was ready, ready for my brand new hostel life!

Attaching a google map of Zenana Mission Hostel, just for nostalgia's sake, mainly for the ones who once lived there. See if you can spot Blandford.

...And another one of our room.....me, Krupa, Roshna, and Sheena (yet to be introduced)

~priya~