Sex Ed: Nuns, Knees and Unknowables (short story)
This is a work of AUTO-FICTION (but which is which?)
Sex Ed: Nuns, Knees and Unknowables
Early 1970s, India. I’m six. I start in first grade at the Sacred Heart Convent School. That’s our school, the premier school in town, not that that means much. Teeny fish in a tinier pond. This is a small town in northern India. Even smaller back then. Everything about it is small. Its expanse, its concerns, its imagination.
I don’t like the school, my teachers even less so, but am comforted by an increasing awareness that all of this is temporary. My father, a doctor in the Army Medical Corps, will be transferred out long before I suffocate from the incessant instructions, strictures or any osmosis. Little do I know that this is how I’ll suffer all schools I attend. But that’s a different story.
Sacred Heart is a “convent” school, which I discover much later means it's a Catholic school. All I know is it’s Christian, and that means they—the nuns who run the place—pray to Jesus. I assume he’s one of their Gods. Wrong on two counts. None of my friends know what happened to their other gods. And I discover he’s not even god, but the son of god; and the nuns don’t like it when anyone says “a” god because they insist there’s only one. I’m embarrassed for them. Because we all know for a fact there are so many more. By “we” I mean Hindus, which is what most of us kids are.
Sacred Heart, along with the other convent schools I’ll attend later, as my father is transferred from city to town and back and more all over India, imparts an “English medium” education. This is prized. I overhear my parents talking about the fees and how it’s “worth it”. It’s well understood among all the parents that this is the “best education to be had”.
Somewhere I learn that the nuns, and Mother Superior and Father Superior who head the school, can’t marry and that “they’re not allowed to love anyone,” one of my classmates explains, nodding. I’m not exactly clear on what that means especially because we hear them say “Jesus loves you” all the time. But it’s useless to ask my classmate. She’s just parroting what some adult told her. I don’t want to risk asking an adult. I surmise from adult conversations I overhear that it means “no funny business”, “no hanky-panky”, “no handy-touchy” for them with other humans. Not that any of that is clear either but I know that adults frown upon enquiries in that direction. So mum’s the word. For now.
I assume Mother Superior is called “Mother” because she’s old like my grandmother who people often address as Mataji (or mother) but I don’t understand “Father” because he doesn't look old, and he’s definitely not her husband. And why’re they both “superior”? I ask my father what “superior” means. He explains but then I wonder if that implies the rest of us are lesser? Except for these strange titles, the long, flowing maxis that even Father Superior wears, and the Christian part, the nuns are not too different from us. They’re brown like us, eat the same daal-chawal, sometimes mutton, and love the mithai our mothers bring for them on Diwali and Holi.
All the nuns, Father and Mother live on the premises. And they all pray in the church, also on the school premises. The church is quiet, mostly windowless and somber unlike the noisy, messy, airy temples I’m familiar with; especially in this town, self-consciously prideful of its holy Lord Krishna sites. Inside the church is a tall, rather disturbing statue of a nearly naked Jesus Christ on a cross. They pray to this statue even though he’s not god or a god or any god. I like going into the church’s dark, cool interior during the blazing days of summer of the north Indian plains. But we’re only allowed in when escorted by the nuns, and that’s usually when they want us to sing songs. Carols and hymns. Especially in December before Christmas which is when Jesus Christ was born. His mother was Mary who was the wife of Joseph, who was not really Jesus’ father because his father was God. I try to keep it all straight.
Adults are often not competent at providing good reasons or explaining things logically. Whether they can’t or won’t, it’s best to simply pretend you get what’s being said. That’s the path of least resistance, greater resistance being kept in reserve for bigger battles such as avoiding school work. But that’s also another story.
So I memorize the facts about Jesus and his family and when asked I regurgitate them. One day I try to explain it all to my father who guffaws at my conscientiousness. But I parrot on demand. This seems to please the nuns. Most of my friends are like me—Army kids and mostly Hindu. The only Christian kid I know is Georgina in my class but she’s useless. She can’t account for any of the missing links in the Jesus story.
Mother Superior runs the school with her band of nuns. She’s a skinny, gentle soul, bustling about the school all day long. She’s older than our parents but I cannot tell how old, and fairer skinned than the rest of the nuns. I overhear the adults say, “...anglo-indian blood, probably.” When I ask I’m told it means that one of her parents or grandparents was British.
I have little memory of the other nuns or what they were like. Unlike the many nun-horrors future schools will bring, Mother Superior doesn’t believe in being mean or in corporal punishment for us kids. That alone sets her apart. If she catches us red handed, she doesn't raise her voice but corrects us by asking questions, gently shaking her head the whole time. If the problem persists she calls our parents and lets them deal with their wayward offspring.
I feel sorry for Mother Superior as she goes about the school in a harried, perpetually upset manner. I assume it's because she has to deal with us kids. But then I come to suspect it’s Father Superior who’s behind her furrowed brow. Father Superior is a short, broad man and a very different creature. He sometimes stops to talk to us kids, laughs at anything we say and walks about with the swagger of a rascal in a Hindi movie. He’s bearded like a brown Jesus, and always in full convent gear. We make fun of how even he wears a maxi. The perpetual grin on his face seems to suggest he owns the place. Maybe he does. I wonder if he’s more superior or Mother Superior. He sure looks like he doesn't care about what she has to say. Especially when things get interesting with Miss Saraswat. But I’ll get to that.
Our school borders the poor part of town. The kids in that part of town don’t attend our school. They go to the local, free government school. Our school compound is only partially walled off from town, and townspeople often wander in without notice. They’re curious about the “English medium” school even though this particular one is a modest enterprise. It comprises two low slung buildings in an L-shape, housing first through sixth grades, and includes an open elevated stage that doubles as a classroom all year; except when we have our “Annual Day” just before Christmas, which is when we kids are made to put up a talent show.
The talent show always includes a Nativity scene and act. Even the townspeople gather at the edge of school to watch in fascination year after year. One year I’m appointed to recite the nativity scene while other kids play out the drama. None of us really understands nor asks what “immaculate” or “conception” means. Baby Jesus appears without a fuss. This is where my rote knowledge of Christian facts comes in handy. It’s the best education to be had.
One day a representative of the townspeople comes by the school to object to us school girls wearing skirts. He glares at our exposed knees. Mother Superior sends him away. The nuns scold us—especially the girls—if we talk to the townspeople across the school boundary.
The nuns also intersperse all such mysterious instructions with insisting that we girls keep our legs crossed whenever we’re seated on chairs. “Like proper ladies,” they say, smacking our legs if they see us sitting uncrossed on our chairs. Inside, outside, no matter what we’re wearing. “That’s what good girls do!” They emphasize this then stare at us long as if to make sure the words sink into our heads. None of us ask why. The fear that our mothers will be brought into any such discussion is a great deterrent. We all comply, even monitor our friends, giggling while pressing each others’ knees together.
The townspeople have their own way of exacting revenge though. This includes writing nasty things on the school walls. One morning I find a gathering around the school’s barely functional iron gate. It comprises two flat metal sheets—crudely painted in black paint and hung in parallel with a narrow strip of metal soldered on for a border—that fan open and shut. Someone has scrawled a message in Hindi on it, in white chalk. “Gupta’s lund is rotting like a kelaa…” All we understand is that something belonging to Gupta is rotting like a banana. Someone has tried to erase the sentence.
Gupta (“Gupta Sir” to us) is the rotund, bespectacled school accountant. He waddles in daily at our first school break about mid-morning and ignores us kids. I’ve never seen him scold or shout at any of the kids, mostly because he doesn't see us. He’s in charge of collecting the school fees at the start of every month so his is a job fraught with unpleasant possibilities.
Possibly a townsperson who felt snubbed or a disgruntled parent who didn’t cough up the fees on time and was fined or an aspiring parent who couldn’t afford the fees at all? No one knows. A school peon shoos us all off and tries to erase the scrawl with a dry rag. But it’s written in wet chalk so it doesn’t budge under his rag. The peon runs off and comes back with a bucket of water and a large broom made of thin, sharp sticks bound together crudely with a rough string. He starts to erase the scrawl more effectively this time.
I’m glued to the spot with my friends reading the words over and over, trying to guess what the rest of it might have been. Most of us don’t fully understand the offense but giggle anyway. The older girls of our school stand around in groups at a safe distance from the gate.
“What’s a lund?” one of us dares to venture loudly. We’ve never heard this Hindi word before.
An older girl marches up to us. “It’s his su-su, you idiots! Get away from the gate.”
We burst out laughing to more glares. Su-su’s—in this case his penis—are dirty business. OK, but why Gupta? Just then one of the nuns arrives and shoos us further away, as if the words themselves could smear our innocence. This becomes another entry in my long ledger of unknowables. As usual the adults—including the regular, non-nun teachers—continue to treat us like we can’t be trusted. We try asking but there’s no satisfactory answer.
“What’s a lund?”
“What?!!! Who’s telling you all this?”
“It’s written on our school gate that Gupta Sir....”
“What? Why would it be on the school gate?”
“I don’t know.”
“Go finish your work!”
So we keep our questions to ourselves. While we’re at the mercy of the adults, we learn it’s best to notice everything but keep mum. So much amusement from so little.
That’s until Miss Saraswat grabs our attention. By now we’re in second grade and all of seven or eight depending. We call all our teachers Miss, regardless of marital status. Miss Saraswat breezes in daily to teach us social studies. She’s the one with large breasts and a lazy eye. She wears sarees like all our other non-nun teachers. Her saree pallu often wanders off her chest revealing her low-cut blouses. She lets it flow freely for a bit, eventually getting it back into place in slow motion, just like in Hindi movies. We make fun of her, copying her slow moves and glances when there’s no adult in the vicinity. She scowls if she catches us doing it but doesn’t punish us. We also know who makes her happy. She’s all smiles when Father Superior is making the rounds.
Mother Superior looks unhappy anytime Miss Saraswat is around Father. One day at lunch break, we see Mother Superior furiously marching out of Father's small house on the premises. We’ve never seen her like this. She’s red in the face. Her lips are contorted. She’s followed by Miss Saraswat who’s smiling in sham embarrassment. She holds one end of her pallu in her finger and keeps pulling it around her shoulders coyly. Hindi movie heroine! Father Superior follows behind them but stops at the door and stands there leaning against it, smiling. Miss Saraswat turns around to look at him and he winks at her! We can’t believe our eyes. Something naughty is afoot.
My friends and I nudge each other. “Look at how crumpled her saree is…” We all giggle.
We know a lot from Hindi movies: how the hero tugs at the saree and the heroine tugs it back pretending to be annoyed. And that the villain wants to take the heroine’s saree off. He wants to see the girl naked. But if anyone—hero or villain—sees the girl naked it’s a great shame on her and her family. If that happens the girl gets pregnant. Then she’s yelled at by everyone and thrown out of the house. And she hangs herself or jumps in the river and dies. I wondered why having a baby is such a bad thing. I love babies. I suspect it’s somehow related to keeping our legs crossed but I can’t be sure.
Despite the incident, Mother Superior’s disapproval amounts to nothing. Every so often we watch Miss Saraswat and Father emerge from his house. She’s always giggling with the end of her pallu in her hand pulling her sari together. The rest of the staff turn away. I wonder if Father is the hero or the villain in this movie.
The year goes by like this. Poor Mother Superior continues exasperated, yet avoidant of direct unpleasantness. Then one day we’re sitting in Miss Saraswat’s class and we hear a commotion outside. A man is shouting and there are other muffled protests. Miss Saraswat pales. She grabs her purse, quickly fishes out her Mangalsutra and puts it on: black and gold beads that signify she’s a married woman. A thick man strides into the classroom. He’s shouting.
“You bitch!” He comes for Miss Saraswat, punches her in her face. Miss Saraswat is on the floor, bleeding in the face with her saree pallu fallen, when he grabs her by the hair and starts dragging her out. By now Gupta Sir, the peon and Mother Superior have rushed in. They try to free the man’s grip from Miss Saraswat’s hair but he shoves them all away. He drags a bleeding and sobbing Miss Saraswat out of the room. She’s screaming the whole time.
We are all screaming too. No one cares about us. We remain rooted in the classroom even as we listen to the shouting outside. By now she’s calling desperately, “Father, father…!” Then she’s gone. Father Superior doesn’t emerge from his house. A shaking Mother Superior returns to our classroom to tell us to stay put quietly and wait for the next teacher. We don’t see Father Superior for three days. Then he’s back—smiling and swaggering as usual.
I tell my parents about what I witnessed. They look at each other concerned. I know my mother will talk to the school about the incident. I wait but they never bring it up again or tell us what happened. We never see Miss Sarswat again. A week later we have a new social studies teacher—a content woman who indulges only in snuff and has to clear out her nose frequently. You can tell she never indulges in Hindi movie romance dreams. I feel sad that I made fun of Miss Saraswat.
Within a year, my father is transferred to a new town. I’m now in third grade.
Soon I forget about Father Superior, Miss Saraswat and Sacred Heart. It’s only decades later that I remember the whole incident and ask my mother about it. She laughs, incredulous that we seven-year-olds were on to Father Superior and Miss Saraswat and her crumpled saree.
* * *
This new town is slightly larger. Equally repressed. Another convent school. Ditto. This one’s called Presentation Convent. A first cousin, who’s in her mid-twenties, arrives. She’s fair skinned—hence considered pretty—green eyed, large boned and on a mission to get married. All the adults in the extended family, including my parents, are united in the same mission to arrange it. My parents welcome her to stay with us for a few weeks. They talk about finding a “nice army bachelor” for her. A number of young officers are invited over for drinks. My mother is diligent. This project, if successful, could make her a veritable hero in the extended family.
I like to visit my cousin in the guest room to watch her get ready with lipstick and heavy kajal anytime a new bachelor is expected. I like how she smiles and sings to the mirror. Another Hindi movie heroine. One day she looks at me in the mirror.
“Do you know about periods?”
I nod. “We have seven every day…”
She laughs. “Not that silly! I mean the periods we girls get.” I look at her puzzled.
She continues nonchalantly, “It’s when you bleed from your su-su. It’ll hurt but it’s natural.”
I stare at her. She continues. “Every girl gets it. Some stupid girls think it’s cancer because no one talks to them. That’s why I’m telling you.”
I’m confused. “Can’t the doctor make it stop?”
She laughs again. “No, stupid. It’s normal. That’s how babies are made…” She stops to think. “Well… you have to bleed before babies can be made… I think.”
“I don’t want babies. Can’t I make it stop?” I insist.
“Everyone wants babies, dumbo! But don’t let a boy come near you when you start your periods. You’ll get pregnant! That would be a disaster.”
I am reminded of all the Hindi movies in which the woman gets pregnant and then her life is ruined. My cousin sees my expression and laughs.
“Don’t be scared. Just stay away from boys. Don’t let them put their dirty su-su near your su-su!” She giggles.
“Chheeeeeee!” I yell in disgust. “I would NEVER do that!”
She smiles slyly. Her expression reminds me of Miss Saraswat. I hope she’ll end up like her. I hate her and her stupid revelation. And how dare she call me stupid?
That night I decide I must enquire with my friends. But no one seems to know. I’m now terrified of going near boys. I wonder if it’s safe to swim in the pool at the Army club, since boys swim in the same pool!
The cousin continues her dressing up every week but no bachelor is hooked. After a month she leaves disappointed. I’m glad! I want to ask my mother about periods but I’m not sure. It sounds like the kind of thing that could get me in trouble. I decide to wait it out. I stop swimming entirely and I completely stop talking to boys. No benefit, only risk.
* * *
A year later we’re in another new town—a big city, this time. Even more repressive than the smaller towns I’ve been in. I’m almost ten. I'm starting to like boys a bit more. I even have a crush. Jonathan, the anglo-indian boy next door. He’s fourteen. His father is English and his mother is Indian. He declares he likes me too and wonders if I’d like to kiss him?
“No!” I’m terrified of the idea, wondering how many steps to getting pregnant from there? Nope. Not getting anywhere near him. Still, it’s very confusing. Does no one else have all these questions I have? I wonder if I can get some answers from the girls at my new school. For the very first time I’m at an all girls school. Another convent, no less. Holy Angels Convent. The nuns are such miserable creatures my father refers to the school and to them only as the Holy Devils.
Somewhere I learn the nuns’ maxis are called habits. Designed to keep them covered from head to toe so they remain pure. Even if they forget to cross their legs, I suppose. Here too it’s the same old routine. Keep your legs crossed. Jesus Christ, it’s reiterated, is not God, but the son of God.
This and more comes also from Sharon, one of my new best friends who’s originally from Ceylon. She’s very modern, Christian and a little more forthcoming in explaining the mysteries of Christianity. And other esoteric topics. Like kissing boys. She’s kissed her older cousin, she says.
“But I stopped. He has braces and uses his tongue too much,” she says, full of giggles. I’m shocked and disgusted. Also impressed that she doesn’t worry about the risks. Maybe she doesn’t know.
I feel emboldened to ask if she knows about periods. One day, six of us girls are sitting under the Peepal tree in the school yard during lunch break. I boldly put forward my secret knowledge about periods and pregnancy. I ask the girls what they know. The girls look at me in disbelief. Even Sharon looks horrified. Only one of the girls nods. She says her older sister bleeds. “I saw her pad in the dustbin. My father slapped her for not wrapping it properly.”
But the rest stare at me aghast. I get it. No one wants to bleed. Then sophisticated Sharon stands up, shouting, “You’re making this up! I’m going to tell Miss Subu about your dirty words.”
I think she’s angry that I’m more knowledgeable about this than she is. But I pale at her threat. The punitive treatment the holy devils mete out regularly is much worse than any previous schools I’ve been at. At a recent morning assembly, two girls were called up front and publicly shamed.
“They were reading dirty letters from boys! Chee, Chee. Look at their faces carefully. So you all don’t forget.”
The girls were made to stand up front and we all walked by looking at their fallen faces. The next day they came to school with bruises. It was said their parents beat them too for bringing shame. No one spoke to them for many days after.
My hands are cold. I try to reach for Sharon. “You’re my best friend. This is a secret!”
Sharon spits on the ground and storms off. She and I are now enemies. For life.
I’m terrified. Miss Subu is a sour, scowling horror. I hope she’ll punish me in class, perhaps even send a note home, but not report me to the holy devils for further prosecution. I pray extra hard that night. And I plot.
I’ll deny it…but the five other witnesses?
I’ll say someone else told me…but who? No one cares about my stupid cousin.
I’ll feign illness and faint… but won’t work. They’ll wait to deal with me when I’m back.
Finally I decide that worst case, I’ll come clean with my mother and rat on the cousin who’s the source of this mess. Maybe my mother will talk some sense into the holy devils. But courage fails me. A few days go by. I don’t sleep, waiting in dread for all hell to break loose. I double down on prayers every night.
For a couple of days Sharon does nothing. I get angry. What the hell is she up to? I want it over with. Then one fine day she’s at Miss Subu’s desk. They both look over at me. I know the bloody beans are being spilled. I want to sink into the ground but I’m also angry at the betrayal and my days long suffering. So I stare right back at them.
Miss Subu will call me to her desk any minute now. My life is over. Then Sharon leaves Miss Subu’s desk. I wait and wait. And—nothing! Miss Subu continues with her listless class, finishes and leaves. The next day and the day after go by. Nothing. Traitor Sharon looks more and more disappointed. I breathe. My nighttime praying habit lapses a bit.
It would be years before I realize how idiotic the grand revelation probably sounded to Miss Subu. She had bigger things to get annoyed with us about, like getting us to turn in our home work.
* * *
A few more years pass. I’m thirteen. New city, new school. The nuns are gone. This new school is no longer a “convent”: St. Mary’s School. Girls only—again. Skirts please. Legs still crossed, if they notice, which most of the time they don’t. Thankfully.
Things are a little different now. There’s a boys school next door. The teachers refer to it as our “brother school”. We laugh at their insistence. Because we all know about the myriad non-brotherly-love based exchanges of words, longing glances, love notes and stolen kisses that occur at the short wall that separates the two schools.
One day there’s much excitement when our school “head girl” is fired from her position. Rumor says she was “caught at the wall”—doing exactly what is not made clear. Nothing more reaches our eager seventh grader ears so we whisper about what it could have been, our imaginations ending with desperate kissing.
And one fine morning my period arrives!
It’s basically horrible. I tell my mother. She gives me a sympathetic hug and instructions on how to manage it. Soon it’s afflicting all my friends. One of them arrives at school bawling.
“I have cancer!”
I take her aside. “It isn’t cancer. It’s just your period. That’s how babies are made.”
She stares at me, incredulous. “From the blood?”
“Yes, I think so. But you have to get near a boy for that.”
She nods. I nod back. She goes home and tells her mother, “I have my period” and is given instructions for taking care of the mess.
She comes back and tells me, “My mother didn’t say anything about babies.”
“Did you ask her?” I enquire.
“No,” she says.
We both nod. Best to keep mum.
I soon realize that while this school, sans the nuns, also frowns on us showing any interest in boys—a function of 70’s India—it’s a tad more enlightened. That year a woman gynecologist, or a “lady doctor” as she’s called, is invited to the school to talk to us girls about the birds and the bees. Girls from grades seven and up are required to attend. We’re even allowed anonymous questions. I’ve never heard of such a thing. Shocked, enthralled, and thoroughly impressed by the questions the tenth graders ask, I sit in rapt attention. It will be a couple more years before I fully understand the baby-making part but some of it starts to make sense.
Soon after, my mother asks me if I have any questions about my periods or “anything else”.
“No. I know everything,” I declare, not missing a beat.
She stares at me, hesitates. Then she nods and moves on, never saying another word. I can’t remember if I tell her that I know how to avoid getting pregnant.
Later in life I wish I’d questioned her more. I don’t recall her ever using the word “sex”—only euphemisms such as “sleeping with…”, “getting intimate…”, etc. Yet in many ways, she’s ahead of her times. She rejects the double standard that shames unwed mothers. And despite having had an arranged marriage herself, pokes fun at the institution. “We tell girls not to mix with boys but OK to sleep with a perfect stranger after an arranged marriage!”
Even positing such formulations in those times, in India, is a radical act. In many parts, still is.
Still, I get very little of my sex education directly from her.
* * *
The 1980s arrive. Hindi movie heroines evolve. A bit less coy, still mysterious. We’re formally taught “the human reproductive system” in tenth grade from a teacher who looks deathly embarrassed the whole time. Like many of my peers, I start to make sense of it. We all get by.
* * *
Decades later in the US, I’m in my fifties. I go to a physical therapist for knee pain. “Tight hips,” he declares. “Are you in the habit of crossing your legs when you sit?”
I nod.
“Stop doing that,” he says, shaking his head in disapproval.
###
THE END
This short story is a work of auto-fiction, based on my experiences growing up as an army brat in India in the 1970s and ‘80s. Many aspects of the incidents, characters and storylines are fictional—modified, embellished and dramatized—mostly, to protect the guilty. The innocent run free. You can separate fact from fiction, if that’s important to you. But really it’s the emotional truths that matter.
Regardless, I welcome your comments and reactions.
Four years!!
As of Feb 1, this Substack is FOUR YEARS OLD!
Here’s the very first post I sent on Feb 1, 2021 announcing this arrival—
I started writing a long time ago but decided to start sharing my words as departures of precious ones—first my father, in the midst of the Covid madness, then within a month, our beloved pup Moxie—arrived. All of this demanded an accounting…so I started to write and share.
Since then much life has unfolded. The substack now have over 150 posts with poems, stories, essays and more!
So I just want to take a moment to THANK YOU for being here, for reading my words and for your words of encouragement.
loved the ending!
Loved this piece. How beautifully you have weaved in the stories. And spectacular ending. 😂