Murder, she wrote

Midnight feasts, stiffly starched uniforms, Scottish dancing, forbidden love and scandalous murders are the subject of first time novelist Nayana Currimbhoy's boarding school drama Miss Timmins' School for Girls

The imaginary world of Miss Timmins' School for Girls created by Nayana Currinbhoy, is not very far from facts, claims the first time novelist. Except the murder of a British teacher, life in an all-girls boarding school during the 70s, the drugs and rock n roll scenario and the all pervasive British influence on young impressionable Indian school girls are all drawn from Currimbhoy's own boarding school experiences in Panchgani.

It took Currinbhoy, almost pushing 60 now, a long time to finally get down to writing this novel which she had been planning to write forever. Based out of New York, this former journalist has based this novel's narrative on a boarding school set in Panchgani where Charulata Apte, a conservative Maharashtrian girl goes to become part ofu00a0 a largely British and Anglo Indian faculty.

Charulata soon befriends the errant Miss Moira Prince, who has a scandalous past. She becomes lovers with Moira and goes on a roller coaster ride of drugs, rock n roll and all things considered taboo in a conservative finishing school, for girls. But the seemingly peaceful environs and innocence of a girl's school harbours a dark, deep secret which comes forth when Moira gets thrown off a cliff one night and this is witnessed by some of the school girls.

The narrative not only gives Miss Apte a chance to tell her tale but also lets one of the schoolgirls Nandita share her version too. Currinbhoy cleverly mixes up the usual boarding school plot tropes like midnight feasts, ghosts, angry Hindi teachers, strict principals and a bit of sleuthing in her book and keeps the reader hooked to the novel. She does not shy away from the sleaze and slime beneath the pristine and innocent exterior of starched uniforms and pigtails. Currimbhoy borrows heavily from her own experiences in school and adds those little quirky details which only can be written about when experienced first hand. In an email interview from New York, Currimbhoy spoke to The Guide.u00a0u00a0

How did you think up a thriller style novel set against the backdrop of a boarding school for girls? Were you drawing from your own experiences at a boarding school?
I have drawn on my own experience in that I did go to a boarding school in Panchgani. I was there from the age of seven to 17, in the 60s and early 70s. Just as in Miss Timmins' School for Girls, the school too was run by British Missionaries, where little Indian girls were dancing Scottish reels wearing tartan kilts with green blue and red pom-poms in their berets.

And then you have Panchgani itself, this Anglo Indian hill station dominated by a plateau called Table-Land, with all these volcanic rock formations having actual names like Devil's Kitchen and Witches' Needle, and old houses on cliffs with names like Ivanhoe, Dingly Dell and Aeolia. In the monsoons, it is entirely shrouded in mist and rain. Put all this together and you have a natural born boarding school thriller. The setting is what I grew up with, the story is pure fiction.

Your book gives a perspective of the narrative both from Miss Apte the teacher and the girls? Please comment.
My novel's heroine and main narrator is Charulata Apte, a conventionally brought up middle class Maharashtrian girl who comes to teach at the school. It is her coming-of-age story. As her world opens up, she falls in love, and tragedy strikes, and she is forced out of her shell. You ask why I chose to have another narrator, a school girl. There is one section of the book narrated by Nandita, a 15 year-old girl in the school. I inserted Nandita's voice for three reasons. I wanted to show the inside of boarding school life, the day to day routines and dramas, the intensity of a sealed world, like a little ship on high seas and I wanted to look at Charu from another perspective, to make her more rounded. The advantage of a first person narrative is that you can have an intensity and depth to your character by being inside her head, but the disadvantage to it is that you cannot climb out. By having Nandita narrate a part of it, I was able to have the reader see Charu from another point of view.

Your novel does have light moments but it is essentially quite a dark book in narrative? Was that a conscious decision?
I must confess that all I wanted to do was to tell a good story. It was not about any issues. I have always loved the kind of novel that sucks you in and takes you into its own magic world and lets you dream there for a while. That is what I was trying to do. You ask me why I made it dark. Although I love a good farce, I wanted a more intense story with tragedy, love and laughter. That is life, the wellspring of fiction. I did deal with controversial issues such as pot smoking and lesbian love, but that was about a time and a place. My novel is a snapshot of the 70s, and it has a rock and roll soundtrack to it.

Tell us a bit about yourself.
I was born and grew up in Bombay and of course went to boarding school in Panchgani, I came to New York in the early eighties. Very soon after that, I met my husband Tarik Currimbhoy, an architect, in Central Park on a sunny morning, I went to interview him. I was working for an Indian Newspaper called News India. I live in New York, with my husband and teenaged daughter.
I wanted to write a novel since I was 14. I did rather random kinds of articles and books over the years, but somehow just did not get it together even to start a novel. Then when I was turning 50, I thought, it's now or never. It took me five years to write the novel, and the process of publishing took another two years, and so now, I am pushing 60.

Miss Timmins School For Girls by Nayana Currinbhoy is published by HarperCollins and is priced at R 399. Available at all leading bookstores.

Extract Chapter 12, The Vortex
That night, the rain had been angrier than usual. There was a high wind. The lights had gone out again, and I was in my room correcting exam papers after dinner, with the lantern turned so high it was smoking. I was bored. I was wondering whether to pass or fail Daksha Trivedi for a rather dim essay on Lady Macbeth when I heard a banging on the bathroom door. No one ever entered my room through the door except me and the servants. I opened the door to find her drenched on my doorstep. "I just couldn't wait another minute," she said as she stepped into the room, putting her wet hand under my blouse. "Hmm, you're toast," she said muzzling.u00a0She dropped her clothes in a damp heap on the floor. "Dry me up," she whispered. "Rub me till I am safe and warm." My lips were stiff, and my tongue refused to move against hers. I was angry. She knew I need to keep my two worlds apart. She did it to mock me, to mock my middle class morality. But I could not send her away. I locked the door, dimmed the lantern, and got out a fresh white towel. I sat her down on my only chair. I stood behind her and starting rubbing her hair. "I want to take you to the Witch's Needle. Let's go now," she whispered as we lay with jumbled legs. "Let's go naked. Just put on our raincoats and run." The Witch's Needle was a tall black rock on the table-land with a hole on its top like the eye of a needle. Extracted with permission from HarperCollins.

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