obituaries

Memories have a way of making people who have departed ubiquitous. Nisha da Cunha’s recent passing revived memories of her indelible presence in the history of St. Xavier’s College. Her students have varied memo

ries of the quintessential Nisha da Cunha. For some it is the way she would start by teaching them to pronounce her full name. For others it was the bright red bindi and yet others remember how the bindi matched the border of her saree. For some others, it is the bloodcurdling chant from William Golding’s Lord of the Flies that she practically enacted in class while maintaining the tempo and rhythm of the chant. “Piggy” from Lord of the Flies remains ingrained in the inner recesses of the minds of many students because she essayed the character meticulously in her English Literature class at St. Xavier’s College where she taught for 25 years. Some of her former students recall her as mesmerising when she read aloud from literature and also menacing to latecomers and teens ‘with attitude’. In 1973, her signature style was defined by a range of crisp cotton off-white sarees with a broad pastel border. Long straight hair framed her face and a huge bindi, the colour of the border of her saree, graced her forehead and her spaghetti strapped slippers always matched the bindi and the saree border.

Nisha da Cunha hailed from a prominent Gujarati political family. Her father, H.M. Patel, was an alumnus of St. Xavier’s College and had served as the Finance and Home Minister of India. He encouraged his five daughters to read voraciously. Armed with a BA in English from Miranda House, New Delhi and a postgraduate degree in English from Newnham College, Cambridge, she became an integral part of St. Xavier’s College. Prior to St. Xavier’s, Nisha taught at Miranda House in New Delhi for five years. It is after her marriage to the creative legend of advertising, Sylvester da Cunha that Nisha made Mumbai her home. She nurtured several generations of students at St. Xavier’s who soared great heights. Shabana Azmi, Shobha De, Sunil Gavaskar, Smita Patil were some of her prodigies. Her impeccable diction and legendary expositions on literature left her students wonder-struck. In the contemporary age of artificial intelligence and deep fakes, and the challenges they pose in the classroom today, it is heartening to note that Nisha verbalised the necessity for authenticity of thought in her interactions with her students. She expected them to possess a mind of their own. She did everything in her capacity to elicit the best out of them. Saumya Balsari writes in The Scroll, “Some people come to us to definitively shape who we later become. Call it providence, fate, destiny, chance or sheer good luck, but Professor Nisha da Cunha, who died on August 11, was one such provocateur in my life.” She never compromised on her originality and unflinching values. She retired in 1985 as the Head of the English Department. After her retirement from teaching, she published her prolific literary works comprising several books of short stories namely; Old Cypress: Stories (1991), The Permanence of Grief (1993), Set my Heart in Aspic (1997-98), No Black, No White: Short Stories (2001), Of Age and Merry Wisdom (2001) and The Quiet of the Birds: Collected Stories (2005). She also directed plays such as Chekhov’s Three Sisters and Federico Garcia Lorca’s The House of Bernarda Alba. Nisha da Cunha will always remain a memorable educator who propelled generations of students to find their calling and purpose in life. St. Xavier’s College remains grateful for Nisha da Cunha’s stellar contribution.

Dr. Rashmi Lee George