When my brother and I found it quite a different experience in the Besant Memorial School in Adyar – and in the hostel at that, as our parents were in Ceylon – it was a year ahead of Maria Montessori’s arrival in India. We were 6 and 8.

A group of six children with Maria in the background (See text).

I still remember the inauguration day of the Montessori section by Maria at the Olcott bungalow in the Theosophical Society. At a recent meeting of 9 of the 20 students of Maria, we reconstructed the history of those early days. Maria first stayed at the TS’s Leadbeater Chambers and came to Olcott’s bungalow by a hand-drawn rickshaw. I still remember her giving a Christmas party on January 6, 1940, the day she inaugurated the school. It was out in the open air, behind the kitchen, on the road leading to the building from the Dr. Annie Besant Avenue going to Elliot’s Beach. There was a huge group with Maria sitting in a chair next to the Christmas tree, decked with light and gifts with several teachers and children crowding the place together with guests. She gave away cakes, sweets and chocolates and well-wrapped gifts. I still remember, I was ushered in as I was hidden by tall people. I did not understand what was going on till sweets, cakes and gifts were heaped on me.

Mario, Maria’s stepson, was a great PRO. He would take us to the nearby beach to play, catch crabs, and pretend to tear them up and eat them.

Several of us at our recent get-together reconstructed bits and a piece of that Montessori’s past. Radha remembered getting laddus and roses from Maria. Nithia said that Maria usually wore a pottu. And several of those present said they reached Olcott’s Bungalow by the new school bus driven by Neelakantan, who eventually married Sita teacher, an expert geography and chemistry teacher of Besant School.

Maria was very fond of Lakshmi teacher who carried out her suggestions, aided by C.S. Krishnaswamy, the first Principal of the Arundale Montessori Training Centre. Lakshmi’s husband Subramaniam, better known as ‘Gundumani’, was a talented stenographer, taking notes in shorthand as the meetings progressed and would soon after get the proceedings printed at the Vasantha Press and give them to the delegates attending Maria’s meetings. Lakshmi’s son Padmanabhan and his younger sister Rukmini were Maria’s favourite students and their aunt R. Sivakami too was among her students. She recalled how she felt “so proud to be asked to garland Maria on her 70th birthday.” P.K. Prabhakar recalled how “Maria cried”, when a sergeant hit him with a baton and went on to say, “No one should ever hit a child.” Prabhakar added, “She taught us that your love for others is more important than all the education in the world.”

One of the most important contributions to Maria’s success in India was the great advantage she had in having the first school teacher of Besant Memorial School, P.S. Krishnaswami, hand-picked by Annie Besant to be trained in Maria’s methodology long before she reached India. His son P.K. Prabhakar was the oldest child student of Maria. Then his daughters P.K. Bhuvaneswari and P.K. Rajeswari were taught by Mario and they later became teachers. Then there was P. Doraiswamy Iyer, brother of P.S. Krishnaswamy, two of whose sons were child students. They were P.D. Jaganathan and P.D. Balaraman. P.D. Padmasini, their elder sister, was the right-hand of Rukmini Devi in teaching music as well as taking charge of the dispensary and hostel. To this list should be added the names of a Theosophist personally known to Annie Besant, science teacher N. Swaminathan’s children, S. Vasantha, S. Ravi, S. Ganesh and, their cousin Radha Sekhar. This was perhaps the biggest single joint family that was closely involved with Maria and Mario.

I have a photo of Maria taking classes with six children in front of her. This is a photo Ct. Nachiappan gave me 10 years ago! The photo was taken by Conrod Woldring, a Dutchman who came to Kalakshetra. He could sing Carnatic music, and was Nachiappan’s photographer-guru.

Last year, Gabriele Binder, President of the Montessori Association of South Germany, contacted me and said she is writing a history of Maria Montessori’s stay in India and she would like to meet child students Maria had taught here. I agreed to help and started to contact my classmates and search for them. We then wanted to discover who the children were in that photograph where she is with the six children. So far, we have identified five of the six and they are K. Krishnamurthi (back to the camera), Srinivasan (next to him playing with Montessori material), K.V.S. Krishna (making a map of India with plasticene clay), S. Padmanabhan (standing and facing Maria) and Radha Sekhar (nee Srinivasan), working with Montessori material very seriously. We still have a child student with unkempt hair, idling before the Abacus. Who is he? We are still looking.