She
writes about growing up in convents in the hill country decades ago. She must
be one of those delicately built, demure ladies in a nondescript sari, with
graying hair pulled neatly into a bun at the back of her head.
Not
so.
Bernie
Hay launched her second book, “Love, Learning and Laughter” on Saturday,
September 7. The title seems incongruous in a current context, but the book and
the author both surprise, and a meaningful book launch seemed to say there is
much hope for the future.
“Love,
Learning and Laughter” traces Hay’s experiences from childhood to her teenage
and early adult years spent primarily at St. Agnes’ Convent, Matale and Good
Shepherd Convent, Kandy. It is in fact a collection of articles previously
published in The Sunday Times and The Sunday Island, with some tweaking.
The
book is organized as a series of brief images into the life and thinking of a
shepherdess-in-the-making. Hay shows us a fressh seven-year-old boarder’s
sincere astonishment with the fact that nuns have toes and relates with
disbelieving laughter, a nine-year-old girl’s earnest prayer as regards
feminine lingerie. She writes simply, earnestly, enticingly.
But
a collection of this sort that is lucid and yet tongue-in-cheek does not come
by easily. It is mostly the product of what Rev. Mary Gertrude, Principal of
Good Shepherd Convent, Kandy (and guest of honour at the launch), called a
“bygone era” when love and laughter did in fact encompass learning. As Hay
demonstrates in her writing, the mischief of their childhood equipped her with
a full knowledge of the range of suitable punishments. But the deeper
understanding she is left with is that the sisters that punished her loved her,
and were ever ready to laugh at her escapades.
As
Chief Guest at the launch, Rev. Stephen Abraham, past principal of St.
Anthony’s College, Kandy pointed out, such a learning environment is rare in
the current context. “Tutories” have replaced traditional schools, and our
systems are producing “learned monsters” instead of educated human-beings, he
said. “Teachers are potters... lamps to help illuminate the darkness of
ignorance.”
Hay
is proof of the old-fashioned attitude to teaching as moulding life. She
enjoyed her “convent days” and then went on to the University of Peradeniya, received
a M. Phil in Education (Linguistics) from the University of Colombo, taught at
prestigious institutions around the country and abroad, and has been published
in the Asia Reader’s Digest.
The
sincerity and truth of Rev. Abraham’s address echoed that of the book and the
launching ceremony. “Love, Learning and Laughter” being about young
shepherdesses, it was fitting that it was in fact young shepherdesses that ran
the evening. Thurumi Rathnayake, Shehani Wijewardena and Karen Tennakoon,
students from the two convents, read and even sang excerpts from the two books
with skill and enthusiasm that held the gathering enrapt. Their voices rang of
a genuine relationship with the text which could only spring from an
understanding of the experiences it related. And that spoke volumes of the
school days they still have to grasp and make something of.
Principal
of St. Agnes’ Convent, Matale, Rev. Mary Dilrukshi expressed her hope that
“Love, Learning and Laughter” would be an inspiration to current and future generations
of shepherdesses. Hay is of the same mind.
Nothing
of what we imagined, she wears a loose leopard-print blouse over black slacks
and deep red lipstick, and sports a short crop of jet-black hair. The author
and her book are as surprising to us, as life was to her. Standing at the
podium at the Good Shepherd Convent Main Hall, Bernie Hay remembers the dreams
she dreamt in that very place, many many years ago.
“Some
of those dreams were realized, some sadly not. But amazingly, some things I
never dreamt of happened. So go on dreaming, girls...”
*“Love,
Learning and Laughter” and Bernie Hay’s first book, “Lives that Touched My Own”
are both available at Sarasavi Bookstores.
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