Hi Cathedralites,
This week is just a very short memo about how ridiculously small the world is.
A few days ago I received email from the mother of 94er Vikram Somaya, who is known to almost all of you as the maintainer of the Cathedral School email directory. I was a bit shocked when 64er Brinda Somaya (née Chinnappa) asked me whether I was brother of 62er Elizabeth. She went on to explain her connection.
Elizabeth, my younger sister, Cathedral School Girls School Blue House Captain in 1962 (I think) had been the classmate of the elder sister of Brinda Somaya, Ranjini Kalappa (née Chinnappa).
In addition, when my father, the late Kuriyan Matthan quit his post as Chief Engineer of BEST in the mid sixties and joined the Killick Nixon/Bombay Suburban Power Distribution group, the father of Rajini and Brinda, Mr. Chinnappa had asked his childhood friend from Bangalore, my father, to take charge as Engineering Manager of the fledgling Tata Consulting Engineers, a small consulting group which had been formed to engineer and maintain the power projects belonging to the Tata group.
Under the guidance of Mr. Chinnappa, Tata Consulting Engineers grew from a small Consultancy Company into the largest private Engineering Consulting company in India with offices in Bombay and Bangalore, the home town of both my dad and Mr. Chinnappa.
When my father fell ill in the early seventies and had to retire, Mr. Chinnappa asked him to organise and set up the offices of Tata Consulting Engineers in Bangalore and be the Resident Manager. So our family connection with the Chinnappa's went far deeper than just the fact that Ranjini and Elizabeth were in school together!
Although much junior to me, I can recall Ranjini and Brinda, both of whom, I understand, are now thriving architects and even architects to our school.
Elizabeth, by the way, finished from Cathedral, did her Masters in Nutrition (I think) from MS University in Baroda, married an Engineer who worked for UNICEF involved with setting up milk projects in developing countries, lived a colourful life in various parts of the world (has two dughters neither being Cathedralites) - Brazil, New York, Kampala at the time of Idi Amin, Nairobi, Dubai, etc., and now, as her husband has retired from the UN, is settled in Madras!
Those of you semi-dinosaur Cathedralites (me, like 57er Kashinath Dandekar, 57er / 59er Bhupinder Singh Anand and 59er Bala Parasuraman are the dinosaur group) who want to establish contact with Elizabeth, should get in touch with me for her address - sorry, no direct email contact at present.
More interesting anecdotes and personality assassinations in a fortnight,
Your Cathedralite friend,
Jacob Matthan
Savage House Captain 1959
Oulu, Finland
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