Madras Week | As Chennai’s Good Shepherd Convent turns 100 its alumni take a walk down memory lane

Good Shepherd Higher Secondary School's rich history and centennial celebrations, featuring notable alumni and events, on August 10.

As I turn into the gate on College Road, with a signboard that reads Good Shepherd Higher Secondary School, my adult life vanishes. Small, lucid details come to mind — the silver grille enclosure where girls used to lounge after school while a man sold purple hyacinths from a basket; the junior school helmed in by a barbed wire fence and oleander bushes; opposite, the ruins of an old tiled building flanking the auditorium. At the end of the drive stood a statue of the Good Shepherd painted silver – Christ as a shepherd with a staff, carrying a lamb on his shoulder. At its base, magenta table roses bloomed and set with the sun. Further, were the sports fields where many a student was taught that ‘she who sweats, wins’. Now, the school band keeps the beat as students (fondly called girlies) practise for the upcoming sports day. Some girls lie star-fished and exhausted under the copper-pod trees.

The high-pillared portico of the convent has changed. Superior and correspondent, Sister Aruna George, pulls out an old photo album. “The Congregation of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd that runs the school was founded by Saint Mary Euphrasia Pelletier in France around 1829 to provide shelter to marginalised women. By the late 19th Century, its nuns travelled across continents establishing schools and houses for girls. In India, they landed in Pondicherry and travelled by bullock cart to Bangalore to establish the Sacred Heart School in 1854. Later, a hospital was added. On November 21, 1924, six nuns came to Madras to start the school we know today, with a first-day enrollment of three students. The community here now has 20 nuns and 2,300 students. As part of the centennial, we have also started an ICSE school,” says Sr Aruna.

Other events include The Legacy Gala on August 10 with Member of Parliament MK Kanimozhi as the chief guest. It will also feature notable past students such as Carnatic vocalist Sudha Ragunathan, singer Shwetha Mohan, stand-up comic Anu Menon (ex-Lola Kutty), a video by filmmaker Latha Menon and entertainment, including a mystery trail across the 16-acre campus.

According to records, the school first began in Luz in a nondescript building before it shifted to The Cloisters in Teynampet in 1925. Later, it moved to Somerford in Adyar — a large property overlooking the river with ample accommodation for students and boarders. The school supported itself by opening a small laundry. Every Monday, a cart would bring 150 labelled bundles of boys’ clothes from St Bede’s and clean, mended clothes were sent back on Saturday. Private lessons in languages and music were given. In October 1929, the sisters occupied the present campus, part of Moorat’s Gardens, with no compound wall and only a large house dating from East India Company days. This became the convent. When the Second World War broke out, the convent shifted to Bears Cave in Yercaud. They returned to a new convent and chapel and by 1952 set up Marian Home for skill training, and the purchase of Eccleston house that is now among the oldest buildings on campus. Till 1973, boys were part of the junior classes. After a gap of 50 years they are back in the ICSE school.

Over the years, the school saw a cosmopolitan mix of students who excelled in academia, sport, medicine, law and civil service.

Says Sheeba Ninan, correspondent, Union Christian School, and president of the alumni association spearheading the centennial celebrations, “I was in Goodshe from 1970 to 1982. My favourite place was the music room with 12 pianos and the image of Sr Ligouri in her white habit and black shoes hurrying across the grounds to it, under an umbrella. Sr Teresa Grimes, an Irish nun, introduced us to the small touches that make things perfect.”

The Fatima Hall with its huge stained glass window, flagstone floor and ballet barre, where girls sang ‘A is for the alligator’ with Sr Ligouri striking a chord, now echoes to Justin Bieber’s ‘Baby baby’ as kids practise on its tiled floor.