Commencement Address

When I came to Woodstock in the 1930s as an eight-year-old, it was an American school, and that's why my two sisters and I were sent here. It was a time when Indian nationalists were fighting to overthrow British rule by taking part in civil disobedience under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi, and Gandhiji had called for a boycott of British institutions - schools, colleges, courts of law, and, of course, British goods. So my parents who, like thousands of Gandhiji's followers, were rebels against the Raj, took us out of the school we were in in Allahabad and sent us to boarding school here.

At Woodstock, arithmetic became a little less dreadful for us. In my earlier school I had done arithmetic in English money, which in those days meant pounds, shillings, and pence, and also guineas and florins. Indian money was a headache too, because a rupee consisted of annas and pies and also pice. I still had to cope with Indian money here, but at least a dollar had 100 cents, and that was that! As well as arithmetic becoming a little less complicated, it was comforting to know that some of the American missionaries who were working in India in those days were sympathetic to India's struggle for freedom and were admirers of Mahatma Gandhi. One of them, E. Stanley Jones, had written a book about Gandhi called The Christ of the Indian Road, which we had in our library at home. Another sympathizer was a wise and wonderful man called Allen Parker, who was then Principal of Woodstock and after whom Parker Hall is named. I remember that my younger sister and I had joined the junior Girl Guides known as the 'Bluebirds', and we were required to take an oath of loyalty to "God, King and Country". We were very upset about taking a pledge to a king we didn't recognize, but Mr. Parker solved that problem by saying it would be perfectly all right to leave out the king, and we could pledge ourselves to "God and country", which is what we did. I want to pay tribute to the Christianity I saw in action in people like Mr. Parker who came out here, often to work in rural areas, who learned the language of the countryside and worked at finding solutions for local needs and problems. For me, Mr. Parker looked like a new kind of white man in Asia. I hadn't seen his kind before.

I was born a Hindu, and Uttar Pradesh, where I grew up, was - and is - the cultural and religious crossroads of Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam, so I consider myself a product of all these three cultures. Woodstock added a fourth, a Christian dimension to my heritage. The words of the hymns we sang in Parker Hall are still with me. The language of the Bible has influenced my writing, and the story and character of Jesus made a great impression on me. His message of love and non-violence sounded very contemporary because it was the language Gandhiji was speaking and putting into practice, both in his life and in politics. My older sister, who is here today, graduated from Woodstock, but I never did - again for political reasons. The Second World War was on, and the national movement for independence was about to enter its grimmest chapter. My parents didn't know what lay ahead for the country or for us as a family. They knew they would be imprisoned again but no one knew for how long. We didn't realize that two years after graduating from here, my sister would also be put in jail and locked up for seven months. She may well be the only Woodstock graduate to have been jailed during India's fight for freedom. Nor did we know at the time that my father was to die of his last imprisonment in 1944. My parents only knew that the future was uncertain, so it was best to bring me and my younger sister home. But the five years I spent here were the longest I had spent at any school, and the most rewarding. Some of the teachers who made it so were Miss Francis, Mr. Fleming and Miss Marley. I have a special place in my heart for my class teacher in Standard Three, a beautiful lady called Miss Menzies whose very presence did much to console me for being far from home.

Woodstock has grown since my time into an international school and a meeting place for different nationalities. In this respect it has much in common with India, which we think of as a meeting place for the human race, since we Indians are so many racial types, speak so many different languages, and belong to different religions. When you take part in this diversity, it makes you realize that no single culture has all the answers, and that wisdom is not the monopoly of one race. I am sure that you who are graduating today will always think of civilization as something much bigger than your own little corner of it. Your schooling here has already prepared you to be citizens of the world and not of just one country. But wherever you go when you leave here, whether to some other part of India or abroad, somewhere deep down you will stay connected with this particular stretch of the Himalaya, and I hope the bonds and friends and memories that tie you to these hills will remain with you all your lives.

I wish I could tell you that the world you are stepping out into is a lovely world and all you have to do is enjoy it. We know that isn't true, and that there's a lot wrong with it that young men and women like yourselves can help to put right by the choices you make. To give you just one example, you can say no to war, as millions of people in Europe and America said no to the war on Iraq. There will be times when you will need to say "no", even if everyone around you is saying "yes". When I was a little girl my father said to me, "If you see everybody rushing in the same direction, you go the other way. It's bound to be more interesting." And years later, I came across the lines of an American poet, Robert Frost, which said much the same thing: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one less traveled by And that has made all the difference.

So let me wish all of you the very best of everything, and, above all, a big share in building a better and more caring world.