1966 - rome was not built in a day!

( Click on picture for enlarged view).

My 14 year old son does not enjoy school. Dammit, that is a crying shame!! In my VI days, I spent more time in school than at home.

My daughter on the other hand, has managed to find a circle of friends and get herself into the school volleyball and cheerleading teams. Girls do mature faster and seem to adjust to school better than most boys.

But the current school system does not seem to actively encourage students to partake in extra-curricular activities. Paper chase is the end all and be all of it. They get there completely through personal initiative or prodding from parents. And that is THE damning indictment of the current schooling system in that it fails to produce enough thinking and all round students.

I was reminded recently by my old VI classmate and buddy Dr.Chew Yoong Foong about a ‘hilarious’ incident involving 1972 Lewis Scholar, Lim Theam Siew. In the ’60’s The Headmaster, Mr.V.Murugasu, would appear in class and personally hand out the Report Cards (RC) to each student at the end of each term. When it came to Theam Siew’s turn, Muru asked, “First in class, first in Form, first in Maths. What games or societies are you involved in, young genius?”

Theam Siew, by now reduced to a quivering mass of jelly croaked, “Nnnone, sssssir!”

To which Muru predictably responded with, “Well, bend down, that’ll be three strokes then!”

I am glad to record that Theam Siew, a lovely fellow, ended his tenure in VI as Co-Editor of the school magazine ‘The Victorian’ and as Secretary of Sultan Abdul Samad House and the Automotive Society. If I am not mistaken, he participated in inter-house debates and science & maths quiz and exhibitions as well.

So, the VI system was very clear. Exam results were of course the main priority. But, you had to be a member of at least one ‘uniform’ group and one society, and if you were not good enough to make it into the School 1st 11 and reserves games’ teams, you had to turn out for the inter-house games. Weekly swimming and twice-a-week PE (Physical Excise) classes and the Annual Cross Country Run (3 1/2 miles) were compulsory for all. If one really had a medical condition, one could get exempted from games, but not from participating in societies, debates, school plays/dramas and exhibitions. Hence, there was no discrimination against those who were physically not suited for sports. At the very least, you had to turn up regularly to cheer and support, the school teams when playing at home or away or your house team or even your Form team in games and debates.

The proof of the pudding was that you had to get your participation acknowledged and signed off by the respective teacher in-charge, in the Report Card BEFORE the RC went to the HM. God forbid the RC should go to Muru with a blank page!

What did all this mean?

Students were compelled to mix. Rarely did anyone remain isolated without a friend or two in school with whom they shared common interests and built up lasting camaraderie and friendship that would surpass school days to the grave. And that is important. When interviewing young applicants for management positions, I have frequently come across many with stellar 3.80 GPA and nothing else. They tend to get defensive when asked whether they participated in any extra-curricular activities while in school or Uni. “What’s so great about sports or scouting?” they would counter, mistaking my line of inquiry. Organizations look for team players, leadership qualities and out-of-the box lateral thinkers and problem solvers. A 3.80 GPA alone will not reveal an interviewee’s ability to fit into corporate culture.

And so it was that we were introduced in 1966 to Debating, by Mrs. Chong. The first topic for the inter-Form 1 debate was ‘Money Is the Root of All Evil’. And she deliberately curtailed the title, leaving some width for the proposers and opposers to take the debate to another level, for Alexander Pope had actually said, 'For the Love of Money is the Root of All Evil' which is a completely different proposition!

Each team comprised 6 students. Speaker 1 (who also did the rebuttal) was allowed 3 minutes since his speech would include the preamble, while Speakers 2 and 3 spoke for 2 minutes each with an 3 additional minutes allowed for the rebuttal. Speakers 4-6, who were there to learn about public speaking, spoke for 1 minute each but their oratory earned no marks for their team. While the 3 teacher-judges totted up the marks, anyone from the audience could step forward and present his views on the topic for the day. There was one over-riding rule and that was no one was allowed to read their speech. They could jot down the main points on a scrap of paper to refer to, but wholesale recital was not permitted. The debate would be presided over by a student Chairman and a time-keeper with wrist-watch and bell. Speakers lost points for exceeding the time limits.

While English was my forte, standing in front of an audience of 90 students and arguing about the pros and cons of money and evil was decidedly not; more so, since students and teachers from other Forms and seniors too would attend for the fun of it. As we were novices, we were fully capable of making ourselves look like the southern view of a northern bound ass, because we had to utter pompous phrases like ‘My honourable speakers from across the floor shed heat, but not light!’ or ‘The Honourable 1st Speaker has a point. That’s all. A point! For 3 whole minutes of verbal diarrhoea?’ You could not dismiss the opposition by saying “You are lying!” or “You are talking through your hat!” or “You are stupid!” with which you often won arguments at home with your younger brother. Here, you had to be logical and/or witty.

The main speakers were Raymond Hui Hoong Fai (perennial teacher’s pet), Mac Kean Boon and Ranjan Nitchingham. The Nitchingham brothers and sister shot to instant fame as the ‘Missing Links’ when they won 1st prize in the ‘Vocal Group’ section the 1970 Talentime competition with their melodious rendition of the Mamas and Papas hit ‘Leaving On A Jet Plane’. I was chosen as Speaker 5, with the 4th and 6th being Jaspal Singh (now Engineer and CEO Metroline London) and R.Mahendran (now doctor). That pleased me since even if I screwed up, the marks would not be affected. We had one practice session to polish up our speeches as Mrs. Chong vetted them, especially those of Speakers 1-3 and advised on the possible angles of attack in rebuttal.

The teams gathered for the 1st Olympian debate - 1 North vs 1 South- at the refectory room directly across the road and opposite the permanent tuck shop, at 2.00 p.m. There was much banging of tables and hooting and laughing as most speakers made mistakes in delivery and slip ups in pronunciations.

Then came my turn.

As I pulled out my referral scrap of paper, the audience went absolutely quiet. I was pleased with this respect which is not normally accorded to Speaker 5. Perhaps they knew something about my abilities that I was ignorant of. Anyway, I launched into a vociferous defence of the motion for the day as a proposer and was waffling on about how the evil Rothchilds brokered Word War 1 & 2 for profit (as tutored by my father) when suddenly I got a knuckle knock at the back of my head that stopped me dead in mid-sentence. I was about to shout ‘what the f...!’ as I turned around and immediately froze and gagged up. There was Muru standing right behind me!

“Don’t look at the paper, don’t slouch and speak up when debating,” warned Muru as he made his way to the exit. He had been standing behind me from the very second I had stood facing the silent audience!! How from that nadir, dpp emerged the 1st Speaker for the School Debating Team in 1972, must remain a mystery deeper than that of virgin birth! Oh, we would debate about ‘Country Living is Better than City Living’ or ‘Man Proposes, Woman Follows’ and ‘The United Nations is a failure’.

The School Exhibition was held in conjunction with Speech, Concert and Prize Giving Day. Every class had to audition for Speech Day with a presentation; it could be anything – a play, comic routine, solo magic show, song & dance, whatever. Mrs. Chong picked me to mouth the immortal line "Will you marry me?” on bended knee and holding a bouquet of plastic roses to a dolly made-up Chong Ket Chong, in 1 North’s bid for the Oscars. Suffice to say we did not make it to the finals and a promising Hollywood career was dashed at the starting block; for ‘the good is oft interred with the bones’!!

The teachers themselves, as related to me by Mr. Chung Chee Min (CCM ex-Victorian and teacher 1965-67), put up a surprise delightful comedy performance hit for Speech Day Concert 1966 (photo above). The ‘classroom’ sketch was conjured up by CCM with Vinayak Pradahan (1968 School Captain) presiding over as the Form teacher of non-existent class L6A3 whose students’ roles were played by members of VI’s teaching corps such as Edward Dorall, Bernard Koay (who always walked around the school on the balls of his feet as though looking for a fight with anyone, male or female!), Miss Siew Moo Lan and the ever-popular (and ooh, so sexy) Mrs.Lee (sigh!).

The teachers had to rehearse secretly in the staff room after school. There was nowhere else otherwise they would have been seen. Even Che Gu Othman was in the act!

The skit began when the curtain opened with the class seated with their backs towards the audience so they would not recognized. It was a typical scene before the "teacher" arrived: Boys fooling around - CCM was tossing a basketball about, being the school basketball master after all! Then Vinayak entered and they all stood up. And scowling, he gave the "pupils" a dressing down. A few recalcitrant students - Edward Dorall and Bernard Koay - got up to challenge the teacher. And here's every VI boy's (wet) dream: Vinayak gave Bernard a tongue lashing and stared him down. He had turned the tables on Bernard for once and only once ever! In the end, the "teacher" ordered everyone to stand up, line up and march away. This was when the audience got to see the faces and recognize the pupils as the teachers!!

That same concert had Vinayak's class 5B1 winning the senior trophy. They had abandoned their form teacher for advice and turned to CCM to coach them. The item was entitled : "An analysis of humour" a zany look at how we make people laugh using banana skins and cream pies. They had a mad scientist (Vinayak, who else?) supervising experiments on how people slipped on banana skins in the funniest way. The principal guinea pig was plump Radhakrishnan who actually had to fall on a real banana skin. Vinayak's helpers (which included the late human rights advocate Azmi Khalid) scribbled notes furiously with each thud on the floor. The cream pie experiments were hilarious. (The pies were actually shaving cream on paper plates). There was a serial pie throwing sequence and a surprise pie attack on Vinayak himself in the climax, etc. (See photo).

Radha was the younger brother of VI Biology teacher, 'Young Andy' (Anandhakrishnan).

The surprise act at the end of the 1967 concert was the Lion Tamer staff/pupil act (photo above). You will recognize Radha and Donald Lee as "lions" with CCM as the Lion Tamer. CCM was turning the tables on the famous act by using boys to behave as lions. CCM wore a fake beard, making him resemble a lion. It was pronounced the best item actually but they couldn't collect as it was not officially entered as an item.

These were really grand, superb and spectacular affairs, ranging from Cadet Corps Guard of Honour, Band Tattoos, intriguing exhibits from the Arts and Science & Maths societies like paper-mache world maps and manufacturing banana and pineapple scents in the lab, a massive tree house constructed by the Scouts, Red Cross rescue demos and many more which had the crowds thronging the school. In 1972, the Automotive Society came up with ‘Motor Victoria’, an amazing motor scooter. (Whatever happened to Lian Liong Teck, the inventor?). The 1968 75th VI Anniversary celebrations were topped at Speech day with the arrival of the special guest of honour, the beloved ‘Tunku’, Malaysia’s first Prime Minister. The Tunku’s wife, Puan Sharifah Rodziah gave away the prizes which unlike the books and trophies of other years, consisted of a specially minted silver medal with the school logo on it. dpp was one of the lucky ones that year!

In 1966, one of the classrooms was converted by the Science & Maths Society into a lab for conducting IQ and Psychology tests, such as the curious Rorschach Inkblot Test. Just as I, who was in Form 1 and dwarfed by seniors, was plucking up enough courage to give the speed reading test a bash, one of the teachers stepped forward to go for it as well. The test consisted of two paragraphs of text typed backwards and your IQ would be graded according to the speed with which you completed the reading. This teacher completed the test and we all stared in awe at him as his score was read out – 150+. Genius level! The teacher was none other than Chung Chee Min. I quietly slunk away in case I turned out the score of Equus Asinus (donkey)!

They came from as far as Penang Fee School and Johor English College; the VI Exhibition Day was something to behold. The piece de resistance was the Fireworks Display put together by the Science & Maths Society. I never found out who started that tradition but the whole effort was awesome since it was all done in-house, from mixing the chemicals and propellants to sourcing bamboo to make strips for the rockets.

There were many other avenues for students to excel in - Basketball, Netball, Tennis (not so popular then), Philately, Photography, Persatuan Bahasa Kebangsaan, Chess, Cultural Society, Scientific Victorian and more. The school regularly produced plays directed by Mr.Edward Dorrall such as ‘Arise O Youth’, ‘Look Back in Anger’ and ‘A Tiger is Loose in Our Community’ with a cast comprising students and teachers with no prior professional experience whatsoever! These plays were also staged at the Town Hall for the general public.

You can take a horse to water but you cannot make it drink. So, they say. But, many in VI discovered and realised latent talents and dormant potential which they developed and honed because the system pushed you beyond the water’s edge, and sometimes just plain threw you in the deep end without a life-jacket. There were the shy ones, the laid back, the unadventurous and the ‘muggers’ types who needed to be told that as far back as the times of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle before 300 BC, scholars were encouraged to engage in oratory, wrestling, gymnastics, the odd drinking binge and a wanton orgy or two!! And that the Olympic Games (776 BC) predated the three philosophers supreme.

(If you have an interest in mythology, you would have read about the slayer of the Gorgon Medusa and the Kraken, Perseus, (son of Zeus and Danae), who the Oracle at Delphi predicted would be responsible for the death of his grandfather Acrisius at the precursor to the Olympic Games at Larissa).

For it is foolish, brave youth which needs to be prodded, dared and challenged to claim Excalibur, slay fire-breathing dragons, win gold fortunes and seduce sexy, golden haired '10' Bo Derek-like maidens fair sporting crazy tantalising rasta plaited hair !

Oh, and where were we? Ah, yes! Older and old men are too careful, hesitant and calculative!

More and more frequently, this education system produced those occasions and those students and those performances that justified all that pushing, pushing and pushing. There was a flurry of max 5A’s HSC, 8A’s Cambridge and 7A’s LCE students and winners of prized Full Colombo Plan Overseas Scholarships, some of whom had to qualify by attending a testing stint at the Outward Bound School Leadership Course.

After all these years, one incident stands out in my mind. That is the Annual VI vs Federal Military College (FMC, now Royal Military College or RMC) Athletics Meet held at the FMC grounds in Sungei Besi, KL, on 25th June 1966. After five long years, VI wrested the Dr.Lewis (VI HM 1956-62) Challenge Trophy back from the clutches of FMC at th end of a full day of rigorous, fair competition. The School Athletics Captain claimed the Trophy and then did not just rush back to do the conga with his team of heroes who had individually and collectively contributed points to the eventual victory. He spun around and walked over to HM, Murugasu, and presented him with the Trophy. Now that was a gesture of pure class and could not have been rehearsed. It was a simple act of spontaneity that had every Victorian there breaking out in applause and cheer.

That athletics captain was none other than the redoubtable and irrepressible Nah Seang Hoo. The older inspired the younger. The baton was passed successfully. We etched it into the ROM/RAM hard discs of our still untouched muggy brains!

Sadly, the VI-FMC Meet was discontinued after 1966. But the tradition to excel had its roots in as far back as 1955 when Mani Jegathesan (later Dr.M.Jegathesan, who, at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, became the 1st M’sian ever to qualify for the 200m semi-finals) joined VI for a year, and the legendary 1936 ‘Hitler Olympics’ Quadruple Gold Medallist and black sprinter Jesse Owens visited VI for a coaching clinic as did Olympian Parry O’Brien (shot putt and discus) in 1957.

Rome was not built in a day!!

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