13/12/2014
You Know You Have Studied in a Convent
School in India When…
1. You automatically pull your socks up and tug your skirts
down.
2. Those hymns you learnt at school still haunt you. Whenever
you hear “As the Deer” play, your lips move almost
voluntarily to the lyrics of the hymn.
3. The only type of handwriting you have is cursive ’cause
you were made to fill up bucket-loads of cursive writing
books in junior school!
4. The sight of nuns still scares the crap out of you.
5. You might not be Christian, but a prayer in your head
always begins with “Our Father in Heaven…”
6. You feel morally distraught and pangs of guilt rush
through your body every time you don those “sinful” short
dresses !
7. People who don’t know you think you are too well-
mannered.
8. Your classmate spots you outside school with a boy, and
responds with an over-the-top “Hawwww!”
9. You are a complete grammar N**i.
10. You are often confused by a query about your “Father”
or your “Sister”. “Which sister and which father? The blood
relatives or the ones I see at school?”
11. You dreaded your moral science lessons , but had this
niggling feeling they were far more important than any
other subject.
12. You’ve had Catholic holidays for Holy Thursday, Good
Friday, Easter Sunday.
13. You are transported back to your school days every time
you look at plaid fabric!
14. You had school tournaments named after nuns. Remember
Mother Veronica Inter Carmel Basketball Tournament?
15. Christmas celebrations were the high point of the school
year , with carol singing and play practice starting almost
two weeks prior to Christmas!
16. You involuntarily begin all your meals with “Thank you,
God, for the food we eat, thank you, God, for the birds
that sing…” Yada yada yada.
17. Your s*x ed class was…non-existent. Because they’d much
rather you didn’t have s*x at all, unless you really needed to
procreate (within the sacred bonds of marriage, of course).
18. You loved the Sister Act films. Especially how subversive
they were.
19. What’s a convent school without its set of dead saints ,
ghost stories and haunted rooms?
20. You know how to respond when someone says: “Peace be
with you”. “And also with you!” you quip promptly.
21. Your gender notions are slightly warped and the first few
years out in the real (read “co-ed”) world were difficult for
you.
22. At some point in your life, you have dressed up as an
angel, sheep, or shepherd.
23. At least once in your life you’ve referred to your
underpants as “bloomers”. (And gotten really weird looks
from your girlfriends who went to schools that were, uh, not
convents.)
24. Your introduction to the concept of menstruation was a
mystifying experience involving ladies from a sanitary napkin
company showing you an incomprehensible video and giving
you free pads.
25. You might complain about all the restrictions and
conservatism, but you’re still best friends with everyone you
went to school with, and they are your closest confidants.
And sometimes, when you all get together, you talk about
how much you miss your good old carol-singing, perpetual-
praying convent school days!
