The school was formally established on July 1, 1951 when students began arriving at the school.[break]
It is quite appropriate that the school that began 60 years ago should have inducted just over 60 students when it began in Nepal. I happened to be one of the 60-plus students who were reluctantly taken to the school that day.
July in Godavari is not among the best months, and it was raining when I got there with my parents.
They paid some 15 Rupees in taxi fare to get me there. There were no taxis in those days, and the few that plied on the almost deserted streets of Kathmandu had to be hired well in advance. There were some private vehicles owned by aristocratic Ranas and Shahs, and by a very few businessmen.
I was full of tears when my parents returned home in the same taxi, leaving me at the school along with the other 60 or so boys.
For a boy used to city life, the deadly quiet that pervaded the Godavari atmosphere when the night fell was really frightening to a child like me. It seemed to me to be unreal.
One almost felt that the high hills that surrounded the school would come crumbling down and bury all of us.
The nightmarish thoughts flooded me till I went to sleep.
Pre-Godavari years
For a naughty kid who played more than he spent time with books, Godavari was a sea change. As a child, I was more interested in playing than studying. I failed my class III exams three times.
First, I went to JP High School, located then at what used to be stables next to the present-day main building of Nepal Bank Limited.
The stables previously used to serve as “Tarkari Bazar” (Vegetable Market). I was there in class III – a class I was destined to repeat at least three times.
Right in front of the school was the Kathmandu Town Hall where Nepali plays used to be staged. On the occasion of the birthday (I don’t know which) of the then Prime Minister Mohan Shumsher, the Town Hall was converted into a cinema hall and named Kathmandu Cinema Bhavan (it was rechristened after the advent of democracy in 1951 to Janasewa Cinema).
That was the first cinema hall in the capital. Not to be outdone, Patan also had its own “Lalitpur Cinema Bhavan.” I mention the cinema hall because it was there that I went to pass away my time when I was supposed to be at JP School. The first movie screened in Kathmandu Cinema Bhavan was “Ram Rajya” and my parents took me with them to see it.
The cinema then had a number of class categories, with the cheapest ticket costing just 25 paisas.
A few months after cinema came to the city, I was admitted to JP High School, then still in New Road, in class three. But my heart was far from the classroom.
Children were not issued cinema tickets for matinee shows at Kathmandu Cinema Bhavan, and a policeman was always on duty to ensure that cinema tickets were not sold to children.
In order to get around the rule, I used to give five paisas to one or the other adult visitor so that he could get me a fourth-class (25 paisas) matinee show ticket.
In this way, instead of attentively listening to the teachers in the classroom, I used to spend my time watching the make-believe world of the cinema.
I remember that I went to a movie called “Chandralekha” more than 26 times; rebel soldiers coming out with massive drumbeats immediately after a dance performance by the heroine always excited me, as also when the rebels got the better of the evil person who had seized power.
JP High School later changed its location and was shifted elsewhere.
My next school – in the same old class III – was Sita Ram School at Jaisi Dewal. One of the students there, but in a much higher class, was a boy from my locality. But I never went to the school with him. I was escorted by a domestic helper in our home.
But even before he could return home after dropping me at the school, I was back at home, proving just how fast I was in skipping classes.
But I vividly remember that I used to like the school environment there: the large garden that was home to different varieties of flowers, all well-tended, and the garden itself meticulously kept.
My next school was Shanti Nikunj where my admission was also in class III.
The school was then located at a building just behind the Shiva-Parvati Mandir in Maru Tole, that is just in front of the Gaddi Baithak. My escapade there was usually sitting on the Taleju Bhavani Temple steps and viewing the Hanuman Dhoka area and the city landscape.
Unlike today, the temple allowed people to climb up to the main entrance but no one was allowed to enter the temple itself, and the door to the inner sanctum was always closed.
I spent most of my time there and returned home later in the afternoon, giving my parents the impression that I was, like any good boy, attending my classes.
My performance at Shanti Nikunj was slightly better, but just slightly so, and nothing more.
The school, established in the mid-1940s, was then rumored in the capital city to be manned by teachers sympathetic to the cause of democracy. The democracy movement in the country began towards the end of the 1940s, and it finally dawned in Nepal in 1951.
At Godavari
With the advent of democracy, what could be Nepal’s first missionary school also came into being. Jesuit priests from the United States, mostly from the Chicago area who had set up St. Xavier’s High School in Patna, were also responsible for establishing St. Xavier’s School in Godavari.
The school began formally on July 1, 1951, exactly 60 years ago, becoming one of the first boarding schools to be set up in the country, apart from the Sanskrit Pathshalas where students lived and learnt at the school.
Perched at the foot of the massive Phulchowki Hills and near the Godavari Spring, the school was housed in what, we were told, used to be the summer retreat of the Rana Prime Ministers, particularly Juddha Shumsher who was said to have constructed the palatial building.
Before my enrollment in the school, my father, perhaps tired of the antics of his son, took me to Singha Durbar, then newly opened to the public and housing various Ministries and Departments.
The Education Ministry was also located there, and Father Moran, the Principal of St. Xavier’s in Patna, sat behind a massive desk to interview those who sought admission.
I was asked to read one single sentence from an English textbook, which I managed to do. And he asked me what “side” – which appeared in the sentence I had just read – meant. I told him the meaning in Nepali, and that was the end of the admission test.
I was admitted to the school in Standard IV. So so were the others who sought admission. This was probably because there were so few boys who sought admission in the school.
The lack of enthusiasm on the part of parents might have been due to the fact that the school was being run by Christian missionaries, and there were fears among some people that the school would be used to convert us all to Christianity.
We were told later by one of the Jesuit priests that one of the conditions set by the then government to permit the opening of the school were that they would not deliberately indoctrinate the boys and then convert them to Christianity.
The first day at the boarding school was rather dismal for me, as it probably was for others. But there were some boys who were used to life in a boarding school.
They included the Nepali boys from St. Xavier’s School and other Christian missionary schools in Patna and Darjeeling.
About two years later, some boys from schools in Dehradun and Nainital also came to our school.
They were used to boarding school life and were full of life, unlike many of us for whom it was the first time in a boarding school, away from the familiar life at home where most of us were pampered in most ways.
The experienced boys naturally showed off and sometimes resorted to bullying the naïve ones.
The school, which was just opened, had all its dormitories in the main building at the backside facing the tall hills.
Our class, Standard IV, was on the ground floor just below our dorm.
The school began with just five classes, Standards I to V. There were about 16 students in our class and about six or seven in Standard V. One of the more dense classes was Standard III which had over 20 students.
Among them were Chiran Shumsher Thapa, a class topper, Bharat Dutta Koirala, Vidya Man Shakya and Khadga Bikram Shah. Our class did not have many names worth mentioning except, maybe, Dharam Pal Bar Singh Thapa who later went on to become Chief of the Army Staff.
He came to our school from St. Xavier’s in Patna and was in my class.
The first few months in school were a testing time as far as I was concerned. Brought up in a middle-class household in the capital, I knew virtually no English.
But the medium of instruction in Godavari then was English. To add to my woes was the fact that in my previous schools, I was more fond of running away from classes than in attending them. The result was that I hardly understood what was being taught, and at one point, I was on the verge of being demoted to Standard III.
Fr. Saxon, one of the three Jesuit priests at the start of the school – the other two being Fr. Moran who was the Principal, and Fr. Murphy, the Father Superior – was our class teacher.
Fr. Murphy was the class teacher for Standard V and Fr. Moran for Standard III.
There were two other Nepali teachers, both of them teaching Nepali to different classes.
It was during Fr. Saxon’s English class that I was made to read a paragraph, and in that para, there was the word “kick” whose meaning I did not know. I asked him what it meant. He asked me to come to the front of the class, and when I did so, he told me to turn around and a kick landed in my pants.
“Now you know what kick means,” he said.
Fr. Saxon left the school for India at the end of the school term in December 1951 in order to be ordained as a full priest, but I was in contact with him by mail till a few years later.
School regimen
After our rather lonely and to some of us dreadful first school day at Godavari on July 1, 1951, we were to wake up the next day to strict school discipline and regimen.
The day began at seven in the morning, and the first thing we had to do was to rush to the bathroom, brush our teeth, wash our face and get ready for the compulsory half an hour or so of school drills.
The drill consisted of all the students assembling on the open space in front of the main school building and doing physical exercises in unison, followed by marching.
Later on, as the number of students in the school increased significantly, we were divided into different teams labeled Red, Blue, Green, and Yellow, and so on.
It was only after our physical exertion at the open space that we were taken to the dining hall for our first daily meal: breakfast.
This was followed by ten minutes or so of free time after which all of us had to go to our classrooms for study, that is, the time to do our homework or read.
Regular classes began after this and went on till lunchtime, followed by half an hour of free time. Classes resumed after the break and went on till teatime.
After tea, there were games, and everyone had to take part except those who were sick. Godavari School in 1951 did not have a playground worth the name.
Stables and cowsheds stretched on either side of the main entrance to the building, and the large open space between the main entrance flanked by stables and cowsheds and the main building was then used as an agricultural land to grow different varieties of crops, mainly maize and fruits. Within a few months, however, these fields were turned into playing fields, one larger and one small football fields, and a volleyball court.
The larger football field (it was much smaller than a standard football pitch) was meant for the seniors and the small one (which was really small) for the juniors.
The cowsheds and stables were later converted into classrooms and we had our classes there.
There was another small but attractive two-storied building within the main premises, and we later called it the “Bungalow.” This building was later converted into dorms on the top floor and study halls at the ground level.
A few years later, the “Bungalow” became our dorm and all of us in the senior classes used the study rooms on the ground floor to do our daily homework and to read our textbooks and assigned storybooks.
Reading novels and other books was compulsory, as we had to write book reports – really sorts of very simple book reviews – every month.
Most of these comprised novels by well-known English authors but condensed and rendered into simplified English.
In senior classes, we had to read the original books. I think this kind of practice of writing book reports goes a long way in instilling a reading habit among students, a habit that is direly needed today when even the very young seem to prefer television to books.
Outdoor activities
Extracurricular activities were an integral part of our school routine in those days. Everyone had to take part in all the games and sports activities.
In summer, football, the most popular game, was compulsory, as was field hockey. Softball, a baseball variant, was also a regular game in school.
Occasionally, we also played a game that was a mixture of American Football and Rugby Football. Cricket was played during the cold season, and it was a game I did not particularly like.
The Dixit brothers, Kumar Mani and Kalyan Mani, who were said to be good cricket players, visited our school and demonstrated to us just how cricket was played.
I still did not particularly like the game and was engaged in other activities when my full attention should have been on the games. This meant I had to pay a price. And I did in one of the games.
I was fielding in the mid-on area but my attention was on a Reader’s Digest story which I was trying to read in between the overs and during the time the bowler took to bowl the next ball.
It so happened that while my attention was on the Digest, the batsman swung his bat, and before anyone could warn me, the ball landed right on my face – my mouth, to be exact.
Fortunately, my teeth remained intact but I bled profusely. That was the price of inattention in a game.
Boxing was also a discipline we had to participate in but my heart was not in it.
Boxing matches were held each year shortly before the commencement of our winter vacation, and I was paired against Hira Kazi Shrestha, later a senior captain with the (Royal) Nepal Airlines until he retired.
He was one of my closest friends at school, and afterwards, too, and neither he nor I were willing to hit each, and as a result, we danced around the boxing ring instead of trying to punch each other.
The result was that our sports teacher ordered us out of the ring, and as punishment we had to run around the football field several times. Other games we had to play included volleyball and basketball.
Apart from athletics, we also had to go for walks every Wednesday and Sunday. Each of these walks lasted for about three hours, and we usually climbed the nearby hills. The big walk was on the Phulchowki day when most of the senior school students, not all, had to climb to the top of the hill. We started in the morning, and lunch would be waiting at the top when we arrived there hungry and tired.
Among other activities, we also had to take part was singing different songs, all of them Western.
Elocution and spelling contests were compulsory, with winners in each class taking part in the inter-class contests.
Debates were part of our extracurricular activities. Also, we had to take part in plays.
One such play was “Submerged” in which the submarine could not surface and all onboard were doomed.
The only way out was for one of the sailors to be tied to a torpedo which would then be released from the submarine.
I was to play the lead role of the one who sacrifices his life for others. But I was so stage-shy that when the actual performance was staged, it was a disaster.
As the school was in its initial stages, we also had to help in converting the fields, previously used for crop harvesting inside the school premises, into playgrounds.
Most of the work was done by hired hands but we students were also pulled in to help, which we did enthusiastically.
We also helped build a playing field outside the school premises, just off Nara Mahal, a building then used as a dorm for some of the senior students.
The spread and expansion of dorms was inevitable as those seeking admission to the school had increased by leaps and bounds.
It seemed to mean to us then that the four buildings with the school were not sufficient, and by 1954, there were plans to expand the school to Jawlakhel.
We were all very happy that the senior boys would be shifted there. But there was a deluge of rains that year, and the road linking Godavari with Patan and Kathmandu was washed out near Harisiddhi, and that meant some of the supplies that were being taken from Godavari to Jawlakhel by trucks could no longer be transported that way. But that did not deter us from doing all we could to help the Jawlakhel school to begin functioning.
We carried odd pieces of goods and equipment from Godavari to the point where the road was washed out.
They were later picked up by trucks and taken to the new school. In our heart of hearts we were confident that we would all be transferred from Godavari to Jawlakhel when the school there began functioning later that year.
But alas, that was not to be. The Jawlakhel School was to be a junior school and we were already senior boys. Only later, Godavari became the junior school and Jawlakhel the senior school.
Fr. Edward Neisen, who took over as Principal and Superior at the start of the school year in 1954, oversaw most of the construction and improvement works in Godavari as well as Jawlakhel.
The reason we wanted to be at Jawlakhel was that we would be nearer home.
That was why we used to be so happy when Fr. Moran used to pack us all in the school Land Rover and its trailer and take us to the city.
This kind of town outing used to take place turn by turn among different classes; my class and the one above used to go together because the total number of boys in the two classes were just about fitted into the Land Rover and the trailer.
In those days, there was not a single road to bring cars into the Kathmandu Valley. I distinctly remember a National Geographic caption that read “Life goes reverse in Nepal” and the picture showed people carrying a vehicle into Kathmandu. Our school got a Jeep and it was flown from Patna to Kathmandu in a Dakota plane.
In 1953, when Mount Sagarmatha (Everest) was first conquered by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Sherpa, we were taken to town to see the new heroes arrive. Unlike these days, the mountain climbers had to walk most of the way to Sagarmatha and back.
They took a ride only from just outside Bhaktapur, and in 1953, the Sagarmatha heroes came to Kathmandu in a horse-drawn open carriage, acknowledging the greetings from thousands of Nepalis who had gathered to welcome them.
Our hearts filled up with pride; after all, “Hamro Tenzing Sherpale chadyo Himal chuchura.” Whatever nationality Tenzing might have chosen to adopt later, I firmly believed that he was a Nepali when he climbed the world’s tallest peak.
One memorable outing for most of us was a trip to New Delhi where an international industrial fair was being held in 1955. We flew to Simra – airfare around Rs 30 one way – and from there to Patna by train. We stayed at St. Xavier’s in Patna and were treated to sumptuous meals, including breakfasts.
Our teacher, Fr. Blanchard who was there, made each of us take more than two fried eggs.
It was during this trip that we came to know that the coronation of King Mahendra would be held the next year (1956). We all looked forward to the event, and our school participated in a number of sports activities, in most of them I was a member of my school team.
Another outing that we particularly looked forward to was when we were taken to see films. We went to the British Embassy in Lainchaur and we watched movies, mostly documentaries, at the official residence of the British Ambassador.
Later, we were treated to film shows in the school itself with the dining hall serving as our auditorium.
Visitors
During its early years, the school received a large number of visitors.
Among the very first to visit was the then Education Minister, Nripa Jung Rana, grandfather of my St. Xavier’s Patna-educated classmate Kabir Jung Rana.
Edmund Hillary, soon after his success on Mount Sagarmatha, also visited our school and told us of his adventures. He was a frequent visitor to Nepal, and to our school.
There were many other prominent visitors to the school as time went by, and most had something to say to the young students there.
By the mid-1950s, the school activities and atmosphere had begun to transform me.
I had begun to do relatively well in my class but I was never able to top it. The topper in my class was Rabindra Rana who later became associated with Nepal Television.
In late 1956, I had to leave school and so was unable to complete my Senior Cambridge O-Level exams. But I will always consider Godavari to be my school which made me, along with the support of my family, what I am today.
The first students to pass out of Godavari were those of the 1956 batch. Mine was the 1957 batch. By 1959, enough number of students had passed out of Godavari School and, with the support of Fr. Edward Neisen, a small batch of former Godavarians formed the Old Boys Association (OBA), the forerunner of the present-day Godavari Alumni Association (GAA).
The OBA had its office at Hitti Durbar and it took part in a number of sports activities in the city, including cricket and hockey.
In 1986, Fr. Donnely was the Principal at Godavari, and with the founding Jesuits priests at Godavari ageing, it was decided to observe the school’s 35th anniversary.
The year also marked founder Fr. Moran’s 80th birthday.
King Birendra and Queen Aishwarya were present at the anniversary function. We, old boys as well as the young students, sang a song at the top of our voice which went like this: “Our school is Godavari/The best on earth for you and me.”
Parting words
Our school need not necessarily be Godavari; it could be any school in Nepal.
But we also hope that the students who pass out of any school in the country will be able to take pride in their alma mater and contribute whatever they can to their society and the country.
A school teaches us nothing if it does not teach us to be good and honest citizens.
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