Knee Length
It has been more than 4 years since I left my residential school, New Era Panchgani after spending my entire teenage there. For those who don't know, you might recognise it as the ‘Taare Zameen Par’ School or the one that Twinkle Khanna & Karan Johar attended. I wholeheartedly miss it and will continue to call it my second home for the rest of my life. However, what I will not do is use this nostalgia to justify the kind of misogynistic and oppressive methods that the staff employed for conditioning the girls to ‘not attract the wrong kind of attention’. I understand that some people who are blissfully unaware or haven’t experienced this treatment might call this thread an exaggeration or a ‘rant’. But all the people who know me personally know that I will not level false allegations that tend to have mental, emotional & other grave consequences for any individual. I am certain that majority of the girls (who have been a part of this school during the time I was) will relate with and testify to what I am writing below.
This letter was addressed to our parents signed by our Head Of Administration & Head Of Department.
For Girls:
“They need to be dressed in decent Kurtis and salwars or loose tops that reach mid thighs. Transparent, semi-transparent, body hugging attires including skin tight jeans & T-shirts are not allowed for girls. In case such items are found, they will be confiscated.”
As opposed to -
For Boys:
“Please ensure that boys return to school with decent, short haircuts. They are not allowed to wear hairstyles. Hair color is strictly not allowed. They are also not allowed to wear earrings & studs.”
The difference between the instructions issued to girls versus that for boys is mortifying.
Similar to a lot of other residential schools, we were allowed to wear our choice of clothes only on the weekends but they too were subject to the absurd restrictions mentioned above. Forget luxuries like wearing comfortable t-shirts, jeans and tops, we even had to be careful while selecting our kurtis. Every Sunday before heading for breakfast, Mrs. Puro rotated each one of us like a mannequin and checked our attire to see if our Kurtis reached our knees and covered our thighs or if our bra strap showed accidentally, if the fabric touched our body? We all were so troubled and traumatised a few months down the line that we actively chose to wear our weekday uniform instead of going through the top-to-bottom humiliation of our bodies. Readers of this post might find it trivial right now but imagine being subjected to this objectification for 7-12 years when children are going through mental, physical and emotional changes that are likely to shape their minds, beliefs and eventually, their lives. I firmly believe in rules & reasonable restrictions that are designed to maintain discipline & decorum of a school / college. What I do not believe is oppressing one section of the society hoping that everything else will fall into place. I am saying this about my own school with a very heavy heart but that is the exact definition of promoting a ‘rape culture’. Unlike day schools, we didn't have an option to return home. We went through it 24/7 for months on stretch.
Keeping girls in the dorms so that they don’t go up to ‘bat’. Make them wear stockings instead of socks in summer so that boys don’t peek up their skirts. “Don’t play where boys are playing because you’re trying to seek their attention.”
Let me also mention that we did not have sports shorts like the boys, we were not allowed to remove our sweaters even in 35 degree afternoons because the tunic (THAT WAS DESIGNED BY THE SCHOOL ITSELF) supposedly ‘hugged our body and accentuated our natural body shape’. Ms. Sheena and Ms. Zeena have literally gone to the extent of blaming me for the fact that one of the boys from their dormitory did not score well in his X Std. Board Examinations because he was involved with me. Let me add that I was one of the toppers of Class X when she said this to me.
And this is not even the half of what we were put through on a daily basis.
When we asked our dorm-parents why this preferential treatment existed, they said that they were just doing their jobs as asked by the management. But I seriously doubt that their job profile included scanning our bodies as we entered the dining hall AND with absolutely no subtlety whatsoever.
S0 this is an open letter for Ms. Zareen, Mrs. Sheena Wagh, Mrs. Zeena Nayak & Mrs. Latha Purushothaman. I want you to be aware of the repressive ways in which you body-shamed & humiliated the little girls that considered you their parent. You were called our dormparents because boarding school kids like us have spent more time of our lives with you than with our real parents. We looked up to you and required you to defend us whereas you made sure that we felt wary of our own bodies at every turn possible. I do not know the underlying reasons as to why you chose to do this. Perhaps you were brought up in a conservative background. But as educators and caretakers of 1000s of students every year, you have a greater responsibility. You owe it to all the kids (irrespective of their gender) to keep aside your own beliefs and create a healthy environment. This school is promoted as a co-educational institution that gives us equal opportunities. I will not deny that they have successfully done so in the academic aspect. But I regret to say that NEHS has come up short in providing a safe space for girls socially & emotionally. I am not sure if the higher authorities of the school are even aware of these discriminatory practices at the grassroots of their residential school. However, what I do know for sure is that they goddamn ought to be. The administration is vicariously liable for this breeding of toxic culture through their employees. I would genuinely like to thank and convey respect to our teachers in the academics department for being our emotional pillars through these times.
I sincerely hope that me penning down my thoughts in this post does not sever my ties with any of the NEHS teachers but instead, enables them to identify the sort of discriminatory culture that is being created right in front of them and correct it for the future batches of students. Having said that, I want to apologise to my immediate juniors for not speaking up sooner and actually following up, because if my batch had shown some resistance to this breeding of toxic culture, perhaps you would be encouraged to oppose it too. By the time we had the courage and the ability to speak up, it was the eleventh hour and we were about to graduate. We simply consoled ourselves by reminding each other that we would not have to deal with this ever again after a couple of months. I was wrong. So many years down the line and I still get riled up at the thought of this. What agitates me even more is that I pride myself on my outspoke nature but I did not speak up when it mattered the most. My parents have always taught me to stand up for what I believe in. However, when I told them that I was writing this, they said that I was simply ungrateful to the knowledge that NEHS & my Gurus imparted on me. I respectfully disagree with them because I do appreciate and am grateful for everything that the school has done for me but I refuse to support & perpetuate practices that are fundamentally wrong. This is not defamation, all of this is true. I wish I could fondly remember our boarding school the same way my male friends do, but it isn’t possible because the NEHS that they were a part of and the one that the girls attended was same only on paper.
Lastly, Kudos to all my girls who came out of this unscathed, Almost.
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