Susan George Pulimood - respected in academic circles

The year 1945 marked a turning point in the educational and therefore in the social history of the country. The Free Education Bill was passed in the State Council in 1945. It was an exciting year, with much debate on the feasibility of giving every child in the country a free education from kindergarten to university.

It was in this year that a woman of great vision and tremendous energy, Mrs. S.G. Pulimood, came to the helm of Visakha Vidyalaya. The school, founded in 1917, had eight Principals in the 28 years before her.

Susan George Pulimood, a graduate of Presidency College, Madras, and the co-author of ‘A Text-book of Botany’, joined Visakha Vidyalaya as a teacher 67 years ago in January 1941.

Born on July 23, 1907, as the third daughter of K C Joshua, a magistrate and later District Judge in the State of Travancor, Susan Joshua had her secondary education in Baker Memorial School in Kottayam. The Joshuas belonged to the oldest Christian community in India, the Syrian Christians.

From Baker Memorial School, to Queen Mary’s College and to Presidency College where she obtained her Master’s degree in Botany. Keen to be a teacher she joined Wellington Training College and got her Licientiate in teaching.

Administrative work

Being full of fun and with her keen sense of humour, Susan Joshua was very popular among her fellow students. She took an active part in sports and athletics and did well in tennis and long-jump.

She taught in a girls school in Tamil Nadu for a few years before coming to Sri Lanka. Mrs. Pulimood taught at Moratu Vidyalaya and one other school before joining the staff of Visakha Vidyalaya.

The day she took up her appointment must have been very auspicious both for Mrs. Pulimood and for Visakha, for on that day began a long and rewarding association between a school struggling for ‘her place in the sun’, and a dedicated educationist. Her 22 years as Principal were years of achievement and fulfillment for both Mrs. Pulimood and Visakha Vidyalaya.

Professional opportunities

First as a staff member, then as head of the Bandarawela branch of Visakha. In the war years, as acting Principal and in her early years as Principal, before the load of administrative work left no time for teaching, she taught Botany, her forte, Mathematics and English Literature. Inspite of administrative work which increased with the years, she found time to coach her students for Quiz Contests, Oratorical Contests, Spelling Bee Contests and other such inter school activities. When she took over as Principal in 1945, Mrs Pulimood realized that Sinhala girls had more to do than sit on a cushion and sew a fine seam. Herself a graduate in science, she saw the professional opportunities a science education offered. While some girls’ schools were forging ahead, Visakha was ill-equipped to give that education to her students.

Thanks to her foresight and her venturing spirit, Visakha Vidyalaya was able to have a science stream without which the school would have fallen to the rear among the country’s schools. In this venture she had the whole-hearted support of the Manager N E Weerasuriya QC.

Wicked comments

It was easier equipping a laboratory than finding teachers, for there were very few women with degrees in science in the late 40s. Mrs. Pulimood had one of two alternatives - employing male graduates or getting down qualified women teachers from India. She chose the latter, making herself the target of wicked comments and accusations that she was helping her kith find jobs. Undaunted she went ahead.

Rites and rituals

The students in the science classes in the early years will swear by those teachers, Ms. Kurien, Ms. Abrahams,Ms.Banu,they were the pioneers who laid the foundation for Science education at Visakha, which gave the school the momentum to reach super-grade, and become the prestigious school it is. By the mid 50s ‘parents stood in queues to enter their children, both to the school and the hostel’.(N E Weerasooriya, Swarna Jayanthi Souvenir).

New buildings were constructed to house the increasing numbers. The new administrative and science block built on land bought from the adjoining Kathiresan Temple was opened in early 1959, followed by the starting of a second Nursery School in the newly acquired house in Vajira road, the residence of the late Justice A E Kueneman. The next addition was the Gitanjali Amarasuriya Memorial Library, a gift to the school from Mr. and Mrs. H. W. Amarasuriya in memory of their youngest daughter.

“All that the school now needs is a hall”, she used to muse. It was Mrs. Pulimood’s dream to equip Visakha Vidyalaya with a hall in keeping with her prestige, and to collect funds for a hall she organized the seven day ‘Swarna Jayanthi’ carnival in the Old Race Course grounds in February 1967. Never has a school had a carnival as gay and grand as that.

Jeremias Dias Hall

Mrs. Pulimood retired in July 1967, 24 years to the day, leaving Rs.250,000 in the Swarna Fund. It took 15 years to build the hall.

Although Mrs. Pulimood was of another faith, the study and practice of Buddhism in the school in her time was real, not perfunctory observance of rites and rituals. Mrs. Pulimood was held in high esteem in academic circles and she was appointed to the University Senate. She was also, for a time, President of the University Women’s Federation. Her textbook of Botany was the standard text used in schools throughout the country until O-Level and A-Level students switched over to the Sinhala medium. Mrs. Pulimood left Sri Lanka in December 1967, presumably to enjoy a well earned rest, but retirement was not for someone with as active a mind as Mrs. Pulimood’s.

She got involved in various projects and in the mid 70s took up the post of Director of Jawarhar Vidyalaya in Ashok Nagar, Madras. She visited Sri Lanka thrice after her retirement, first to felicitate two retiring teachers, Mrs. Pearl Weerasinghe and Mrs. Marie Hewavisenthi, who had served under her, and again in 1977 for the school’s Diamond Jubilee. Her last visit was in October 1983 to see the fulfillment of her cherished dream - the opening of the Jeremias Dias Hall.

She longed to visit Sri Lanka again to meet her former students and visit old friends, but she was prevented by the troubles on both sides of the Palk Strait.

She passed away peacefully in the early hours of April 12, 1989, in her home in San Thome, Madras.

S. S. (A pupil in her first Botany class in 1941)