Golden oaks forever

It was 1943. I stood, raw and anxious, outside the unassuming office of the principal of the Kinnaird College for Women, Lahore. Miss Isab...

It was 1943. I stood, raw and anxious, outside the unassuming office of the principal of the Kinnaird College for Women, Lahore. Miss Isabella T. McNair looked up at me, her grey hair outlined with silver. Her small, encouraging smile and the twinkle in those grey-blue Scottish eyes brought the blood coursing back comfortingly through my body. I realised I was admitted. Hundreds of unsure girls like me found a haven in this excellent women8217;s college and were initiated into a way of life that exuded discipline, work, loving and joyful service before self. We were always young ladies8217;, even if a reprimand was to follow. From college activities to our image in the outside world, we were expected to be the repositories of all that is worth striving for in life.

Even while we were gifted that evanescent touch of class, we were expected to do battle with all our resources in just causes without descending to abuse or underhand methods! Miss McNair encouraged us to fight for gender justice at a time when the phrase was not even invented. Kinnaird College has provided both India and Pakistan with outstanding women achievers in politics, education, the arts, sports, journalism, social service and homemaking.

At the turn of the millennium, it would be in the fitness of things that we pay homage to those who conceived and cultivated the nurture bed where such institutions took root on both sides of our political divide, even as we honour the greats of our own time. We grew in an atmosphere where healthy educational inputs for mind and spirit bridged all possibilities of division between religions and cultures. There were no class distinctions. We all shared the same amenities 8212; or the lack of them 8212; and were readied to adjust ourselves to fit into the ups and downs of the world outside our unimposingly low college walls!

Kinnaird College was started by the energetic and indefatigable Joan MacDonald, principal of Kinnaird High School, Lahore, on October 13, 1913, with seven students. Both institutions were named after Emily Kinnaird, a pioneer in women8217;s education. Three changes of site and two principals later, the college became one of the premier women8217;s residential colleges in pre-Partition India. Under the eagle eye of Mrs Dorothy Najmuddin Aunty Naj, the college8217;s dramatic performances in the open air theatre in the Lawrence Gardens, now the Bagh-i-Jinnah, became a must on every serious theatre goer8217;s list. Some of the outstanding theatre personalities in both countries owe their beginnings to these productions.

The older one grows, the less one likes to acknowledge it! Clothing aging in beautiful imagery, the Kinnaird College has connected its students with growing oak trees; acorns being the young ones, and green oaks from the nineteen seventies through the eighties. The silver, golden and platinum oaks complete the picture, bringing maturity together with the strength and the serenity that is expected to come with age. The younger generations of Kinnaird College students are young Pakistanis who look forward to understanding problems and working for a harmonious life.

Loyalty to our 87-year-old alma mater has transcended political borders. Following on a series of invited visits to and fro between Delhi and Lahore ever since Partition, about 30 Pakistani old students of Kinnaird College have been invited by the Indian Golden Oaks to visit India between the 20th and the 30th of November this year on a mission of renewing bonds, refreshing minds and helping each other in the mutually imperative task of building bridges of understanding over our troubled borders.