The Narrow Corridor: Moments In A Woman's Life

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The Narrow Corridor brings together auto- biographical writings and essays on crucial educational theories and practices by the late Muriel Wasi. The autobiographical writings reveal a sensitive, probing, independent mind. While "Fugue" is a confession of the mystery of the sea of which Muriel first be- came fully conscious in Goa as a child, "The Dining Room" is a poignant evocation of her parents' desire to make of their home "a country of our own", a sovereignty with no boundaries. "Through the Wilderness" and "The Golden Years" are a vivid portrait of Muriel's stepping out of this "country of her own".

In "On My Own" and "A Spanish Proverb", one finds Muriel immersed as a writer in the war effort against Hitler, without ceasing to want India to be free. In "The Way Back", she enunciates a supreme principle of education, that you cannot teach what you do not know. She recalls her years as a teacher at Jesus and Mary College, and at St. Stephen's. In The Narrow Corridor, Muriel lays down her own philosophical faith.

In the four educational essays, she emphasises that a true teacher is his students' equal in the common pursuit of knowledge ("The Uncommon Task"). Public schools must broaden their horizons and welcome children from all sections of society ("What To Do with Public Schools").

In "Teaching and Learning the Humanities in Indian Colleges", she maintains that the supreme virtue in a teacher is "to penetrate to the heart of what the wise dead taught and what the living grope to say". In the last essay "Education and Traditional Values", Muriel Wasi affirms that the tradition of reverence in our country must be replaced by the critical habit in the process of education.

MURIEL WASI (1912-1995) was educated at the University of Madras, where she took a Triple First Class and topped the Presidency lists for the year 1933, and at the University of Oxford. She taught at Maharani's College, Bangalore (University of Mysore). During the Second World War, she served in the Directorates of Military Public Relations and Public Liaison in South India, Assam and Delhi, editing three war journals. In 1952 she joined the Union Ministry of Education, edited The Education Quarterly for several years and served here and on deputation to the National Council of Educational Research and Training for 18 years. She worked as Consultant in Area Studies to the US Office of Education twice: once on behalf of the Government of India in New York in 1964-65, and later in a personal capacity in Indiana in 1971-72. After her retirement from the Government of India in 1970 as Deputy Educational Adviser, Muriel Wasi taught English at St. Stephen's College, Delhi, and the Jesus and Mary College, New Delhi (on whose Governing Board she served) for three and a half, and five years respectively. She continued to teach, write and broadcast regularly.

I had the pleasure of meeting Muriel Wasi on a few occasions, but greatly regret not knowing her better and not encountering her insightful writings. I feel compensated for this neglect by the book, The Narrow Corridor, assembled by her daughter Jehanara Wasi, which offers a rare insight into the mind of a remarkable thinker, writer and educationist.

The book brings together eight pieces of autobiographical writings and four essays on crucial aspects of educational theory and practice by the late Muriel Wasi.

The autobiographical writings reveal a sensitive soul and a probing, independent mind.

'Fugue' is a confession of the mystery of the sea of which Muriel first became fully conscious at Colva in Goa as a child. The sense of 'controlled passion' which the sea symbolised remained for her the mark of all depth and greatness in life and literature.

'The Dining Room' is a poignant evocation of her parents' desire to make of their home, which breathed the air of books and learning, "a country of our own", a sovereignty with no boundaries. The sense of such a sovereignty of scholarship and literature beyond nationalism stayed with her throughout her life.

"Through the Wilderness' and 'The Golden Years' are a vivid portrait of Muriel's stepping out of this 'country of her own' into the domain of the ordinary, and her discovery of the extraordinary within it.