Unconventional habits

There's so much more to nuns and convent education than what shows up on screen. Why do the cliches persist?

- Karishma Kuenzang

First off, let's kneel at the altar of Whoopi Goldberg. Her role as a nightclub singer hiding out in a convent in Sister Act (1992) set the template for how nuns are portrayed on screen. She may well have inscribed it on two stone tablets. Thirty-two years on, even those who've never stepped into a convent believe they know what Catholic nuns do.

Apparently, all nuns do is lead choir, get comically strict, be stingy with praise but generous with corporal punishment, and speak English like Julie Andrews. In Indian shows and movies, nuns get bonus features. They also butcher regional languages, wear oversized crucifixes and address grown men as "my child".