The moral of moral science classes beyond Patiala’s convent

We shifted to Patiala from Bathinda after my father’s transfer when I was still a toddler. Growing up, studying in Our Lady of Fatima Convent school, we had many dedicated nuns from Kerala in the teaching staff who would take a weekly class of moral science. For kids, it was more of a fun class with no exams stress, and the only thing I can remember is getting a homework of writing about what we consider five good and five bad things daily in a notebook.

As with other subjects, we would often copy even this homework from others if we had not done it at home. It is only in retrospect that I realise that it was quite a gigantic task for tender minds to decide what is good and what is bad.

Once the road leading to the school from the famous 22 number phatak market was dug up for repairs. For us kids, it was not a hassle but a delight to walk the dug-up stretch, dragging our bicycles and heavy bags. One winter day, I found a Rs 10 note on the road and it soon became a moral crisis for me. In the backdrop of all moral science lectures in the school, I found myself giving hilarious new answers about good or bad things for 10 long days. Property and ownership rights were way beyond the scope of childhood naïveté but the counter questions to my own self were still hard.

However, after a long tussle with the self, I arrived at the decision that this Rs 10 note was probably my reward from the Almighty, as there was no claimant. Also the place where I found my ‘reward’ was beyond the school premises, and it wouldn’t hurt the unknown owner if we had a couple of hotdogs after thanking the Lord!

Nidhi Sharma, Patiala