Soli Sorabjee, SJ

Sorabjee moved to St Xavierrsquos High School from Bharda New High School at age 12 because it had better prospects It was a school of older vintage it enjoyed greater patronage from the government and it had a stronger academic record Despite having transferred from a Gujaratimedium background Sorabjee excelled in subjects like English and French He liked the atmosphere there Charles Correa later a famous architect was one of his classmatesHe revered the Jesuit priests at St Xavierrsquos and developed a deep sense of fondness for them Towards the end of his life when his memory was no longer what it once was he gleefully remembered the Jesuit priests who taught him at St Xavierrsquos even though he might not have been able to recall the names of some of the more prominent politicians that he had encountered as the Attorney General of IndiaFather Morant was the Principal at St Xavierrsquos and Sorabjeersquos teachers included Father Solagran Father Tena a particularly compassionate figure Father Esteller and Father Jorda If the students made too much of a ruckus Father Jorda would get upset with them and stop teaching Sorabjee admired his teachersrsquo lessons in schoolOn 14 April 1944 Sorabjee was in his classroom at St Xavierrsquos when the students heard loud explosions Those were the days of World War IIAll the students rushed out of their classrooms in order to figure out what had happened They later learned that a British freighter called SS Fort Stikine which had arrived from Karachi and was carrying explosives and ammunition had exploded causing serious casualties Father Bonet another Jesuit instructor at school had provided relief to the injured during that tragedySorabjee had a friend in school by the name of Nani Wadia Wadia was not a very good student and used to believe that he would be promoted to the next level if he participated in the Boy Scouts programme Father Bonet would firmly tell Wadia that this was not true lsquoWadiorsquo he would say in his characteristic way lsquoif you think you will get a form to advance into the next standard merely because you are in the Boy Scouts you are mistaken If you work you will get a formrsquo Father Bonet frowned upon pupils who swore even those who uttered the words lsquoDamn itrsquo In a society fixated by race caste and complexion Wadia a darkskinned Parsi boy was teased by his classmates about the colour of his skin In turn Wadia never lost his sense of humour He and his classmates had once played a prank on someone When the victim of the prank asked Wadia and others to apologise Wadia asked him lsquoShould we say sorry one by one or togetherrsquo Wadia Sorabjee and another classmate Jimmy Umrigar were called lsquothe gang of threersquo by their friends They were sometimes ordered out of the classroom by the instructorThe Jesuit teachers at St Xavierrsquos got Sorabjee interested in the principles of Roman Catholicism and he was deeply influenced by them His classmates used to often tease him and say that the first two letters of his initials lsquoSJrsquo stood not for Soli Jehangir but for lsquoSociety of Jesusrsquo Priests of the Jesuit order would write the letters lsquoSJrsquo after their names The basic principles of Catholicism appealed to Sorabjee Roman Catholicism struck him as a very gentle religion He enjoyed reading the Sermon on the Mount in the New Testament and felt that its lessons had to be practised in order to really bring about a true Catholic spirit in keeping with the requirements of the timesHis parents on the other hand were a bit concerned about his interest in Catholicism They took steps to ensure that he would not convert to it They tried to persuade him and instil in him the notion that Parsis believe in a particular faith because of the values that it represents At that time there was a Parsi woman called Dhalla who had converted to Catholicism and become a nun The phenomenon of Parsis converting to Christianity and causing an upheaval in the community was not unique to that time In 1839 for instance two senior Parsi pupils at Wilson School converted to Christianity creating an uproar in the community Predictably there was quite a commotion in the Parsi community when Dhalla converted in Sorabjeersquos time In fact Sorabjeersquos family knew Dhallarsquos father distantly Interestingly many years before as a student at Queen Mary School in Bombay when Sorabjeersquos own mother won a prize in Biblical scripture her father promptly pulled her out of the school and put an end to her education for fear that she might convert to ChristianityDespite such fears however the Parsi community took to English education in the Jesuit St Xavierrsquos High School and College in large numbers In retrospect Sorabjee believed that he never came close to converting to Catholicism though he was certainly influenced by it He did not for instance make it a habit of regularly going to church though on some occasions like Christmas Mass he may have attended church The Jesuit instructors at St Xavierrsquos made absolutely no attempt to convert Sorabjee As he later confessed to an alumni audience though he was not converted at St Xavierrsquos he was transformed by the education he received there Many years later as a lawyer in the 1960s he made sure to visit the Vatican Sorabjee later enrolled his sons Jehangir and Hormazd in a Jesuit educational institution as wellHe was also quite pleased when he learned that his grandson Raian would be enrolled in a Jesuit institutionSorabjeersquos interest in Catholicism deepened as a college student at St Xavierrsquos He continued to be fond of his Jesuit instructors in college One such teacher was the legendary Father Duhr who used to heavily criticise the philosophy of the Nazis in his classes on history Sorabjee enjoyed attending his lectures and listening to him particularly because Father Duhr did not care whether Sorabjee got the right answers in class or not He had a great personality and Sorabjee later wrote about him in his column in the Indian Express Another instructor Father Raphael used to play the piano in his free time and Sorabjee loved listening to his rendition of Beethovenrsquos Emperor Concerto Theophilis Aguiar his professor of English at St Xavierrsquos college was another favouriteSorabjee was quite upset with him when he did not visit Sorabjee in the hospital when he broke his leg in a motorcycle accident later on In his college days Sorabjee could not write very well because he had writerrsquos cramp Even his examination had to be written by somebody else under his dictationOf course not every lecturer at St Xavierrsquos College was universally admired There was a professor called Father Fell the sports director who taught poetry in the first year In their youthful way students would say behind his back lsquoFather Fell Go to Hellrsquo Sorabjee developed an aversion towards poetry in Father Fellrsquos classes only to fall in love with poetry all over again in 1961 during a case at the Bombay High CourtFather Noguera a wellbuilt instructor would point to his large forearm and threaten students by saying lsquoDo you see thisrsquo when a student got on his wrong side during a lessonExcerpted with permission from Soli Sorabjee Life and Times by Abhinav Chandrachud Penguin Random House