Newsy Notes 002 - Pleasure is Jacob's

Hi Yezad, Sophie, Gracie and the other Newsy Hotes regulars,

I have below, as a special bonus to all on my Cathedralites,
the picture of Gracie Hayeem and and Willie Shiri from "Hassan",
the 1954 production (Producer, James Clarke) Yasmin at the
window is Gracie Hayeem (she alternated with Rashida for
the part). The guy beseaching her is Hassan (Willie Shiri).
Picture courtesy - none other than Willie!!)

Cathedral School Play 1954,
Hasan with Gracie Hayeem as Yasmin and
Willie Shiri as Hasan.

Yesh, I thought Benji Hayeem was your year (49er), but it seems
it is Sophie who is the 49er.

I think Yezadcan do the needful about keeping Sophie abreast
of the reunion activities of their year of 49ers. I am adding
Sophie to my email list. Her email to me is with me.

And Gracie, no problem, mistakes do happen - not age, but
concern. By the way, by mistake you signed your email as
Gracie (Hayeem) née Lerno!! Tush, Tush.

Thanks for all the concern about Annikki's mom. Annikki's mom
is physically extremely well, but as described, going to have
a difficult few years ahead, with her Alzeimhers, tunnel vision,
delusions and loss of hearing - plus the loss of her husband
(Annikki's dad) in February.

As children, we have a responsibility to help make our parents
final remaining years as comfortable as possible, rather than
pushing them off to old people's homes. After all, in the prime
of their life when we arrived helpless into this world they gave
us loving care when we most needed it.

Gracie, I will send you a plan as to how to get your year together.
Do you want to have it in Mumbai (Bombay)? If so, I can get a few
people to assist. And I am sure the bundle of energy, Sadhana,
will play a majordomo role, although I think she is physically
located in Pune (Poona).

I was planning the 59ers 2009 reunion in Finland. But impatience
has set in and the demand is that it is held in 2004!!

Yes, Mark Sopher was my classmate but stayed on for 2-3 years more
(like your brother Abe, to do his HSc). Abe Sopher is not on my
email list and I cannot quite place him.

Brother Ellis Hayeem remains incommunicado. To busy with the
energy problems of the big Apple, no doubt.

Doreen Feibusch (54er) is well and communicating very regularly.

Aditya Malkani (Tara's son) may be able to help with Steve
Episcopo's address as Tara's wife may have kept in touch with
him.

Gracie, today's picture features you in your heyday!!

Several 54ers are now active on the list as they get in touch with
each other. Rummy Kapadia sent me a copy of an email to another
54er which was titled: "Wonders will never cease!!"

How true, when which is evident when you see my email box. Other
53ers include Sen Philip, Anthony Ramsinh (54er to 56er),
Kasvy Dastur (who has now introduced his 57er brother
Phiroze who confused me with my 56er brother Ranjit) All very
complicated. The 57er crowd of Bhupinder Singh Anand, Kashinath
Dandekar, Abe Hayeem, Aubrey Ballantine, and now Phiroze Dastur,
is also rapidly growing.

I must thank Kishore (Shivdasani 62er) for a nice update about
his recent history after his years with Air India where he helped
a lot of us with our travel problems. He and his lovely wife Rekha
are off to US to be with their son and daughter who live in Boston.
If someone has an assignment in Marketing I can recommend no one
better than Kishore as he did a great job in Air India and then
in Dubai. And Kishore is looking for help in several areas with
his new assignment. Will keep you updated on this when he gets
back from his much needed vacation and briefs me on his exact
needs.

Kai Lam (61er) is back from his jaunt to the US. He has requested the
email addresses of Willie and John Billington.

Prakash Thandani (69er) has updated me about the scene in Mumbai
- and I hope you enjoy his email which I have appended below.

I think all of you have got it wrong - it is my pleasure to
communicate with so many from our school across the age
divides from present day 2001 Cathedralites right back to
Yezad and now Sophie of the 49ers!!

Thank you for allowing me to be a link.

Regards while I enjoy my midnight sunset and 2 am sunrise!!

Jacob Matthan
Oulu, Finland

1. Mail from Sophie Hayeem 49er

From: Sophie Miller (née Hayeem)
Date: Sun, 8 Jul 2001 02:59:14 EDT
Subject: Cathedral School alumni

Dear Jacob,

I think your name is Jacob. My sister Gracie forwarded your
e-mail to me about my brother Abe in London. My name is Sophie
and I am the eldest sister in the family. I completed Cathedral
in 1949 and left Bombay soon after, the following May, 1950,
for Israel. Do you have other students from that year on your
list? Is it possible to add my address to your subscriber list?
I live in Southern California not far from our sister Gracie
Hayeem. My name was Sophie Hayeem, but is now Sophie Carver
Miller. Hope to receive your mailings.

Thanks much.

Sophie

2. Mail from Gracie Lerno (née Hayeem) 54er

From: Gracie Hayeem
Date: Sat, 7 Jul 2001 19:52:29 EDT
Subject: Re: Latest Newsy Notes

Dear Jacob,

Just want you to know that we missed your link when you took
some time off. We were very sorry to hear of Annikki's Mum. To
lose a parent is so hard, so many Memories and to lose a mother!
We were all so close to our dear Mother.

I have not heard from Doreen in a while. Abe Sopher is on the
E. mail list or is he? I send him your E. mails, maybe this
time he will communicate withyou. I think his brother Mark Sopher
was in your class. Also I am dying to get in touch with Episcappo.
He lives in London. His best friend was Tara Malkani!

Do you know our paths crossed in Bombay. You arrived that same
year we graduated! How do we go about having a reunion of the
class of '54?

I am looking for a marvellous picture of our class in English
country dancing. There is Sadhana, Miriam Gumpert, Joan Twist,
Nargish Mody and Armighty Mody and Kamma Dharmcey. Thanks
again for you wonderful work, to keep us connected.

Love

Gracie [née Hayeem] Lerno

3. Message from Prakash Thadani:

Date: Sun, 01 Jul 2001 19:38:49 +0530
From: Prakash Thadani
To: Jacob Matthan, Rohet Tolani
Subject: News for July 2001
Status: U

Dear Jacob,

Hi there.

So much has been happening that I can't figure out where to begin.

So let's just start.

The monsoons have descended and Mumbai is wet. This brings with it dead
telephone lines and flooded streets, but this year its been better, not
much flooding.

Movie Halls are all full with the latest releases like Moulin Rouge &
two new Indian films, Gadaar & Lagaan.

A spate of new restaurants have opened up. Seems like the food business
is the only thing thats making money nowadays.

The fully renovated Gordon House Hotel behind the Regal Cinema on
Battery Streets has three new spanking restaurnats with very unusual
cuisine not seen in Mumbai before but popular in the fast east.
Karma , Belissima. Liquid are the 3 new places on Hughes Road,
formerly, Bombay Cycle showroom . Karma loud blaring music a large tv
screen trendy decor snacky food pizzas paasta and their chocoloate
desert CHOCOLATE SIN something to die for.,and a bar, over looking the
road to the chowpatty sea face.. Belissima Italian food slightly more
formal elegant on the 1st floor and Liquid the newest Bar in
Mumbai.more for the cigar loving crowd and 40 plus in age.

To top it all the Copper Chimney Group Worli and Cream Centre Group
Chowpatty Sea Face have tied up to start 8 new restaurants all over
Mumbai, 2 of them opening in August this year.

All these places are going to give the other newly opened restaurants
stiff competition.

All the liquor companies are having bashes at the 5 star hotels to
introduce their new Brands. The latest entry being Bacardi Limon.

The importance of good affordable food has become very prominent
especially since all publications carry some article on food daily.
Everybody wants to eat out no matter if you are a vegetarian. Many are
tired of cooking and eating at home every day.

In the news is Jayalalita Current Chief Minister of Tamilnadu, who got
her enemies arrested and jailed in the most crude rough offensive manner
which was liberally shown all over tv channels as these arrest were
carried out at an unearthly hour of 1.45 am.

(Ed: Prakash - the concept of going in at this unearthly
hour was started by Indira Gandhi at the time of the 1975 Emergency
when her security chief told her that people do the most normal
things between 2 am and 5 am - usually stay in bed. So, if you
intend to catch the fish, you catch them between those hours.
Jayalalitha has just taken a leaf out of Indira's book!! - Jacob)

Ajit Dayal who runs equitymaster.com and quantum financial services
was blessed with a baby boy in Zurich a few days ago.

The Cathedral mid term exams are going to be on next week so all kids
are really studying this makes the parents also hibernate and go on
study break.

Jazz India is planning to have several interesting Jazz Conccerts
starting in September.

if you are aware of new young jazz groups, of any jazz musicians wanting
to come to India to perform or enroute to the far east and if they can
take a 2/4day break in Mumbai we would be happy to look after them and
organise a concert or two to the delight of the jazz starved citizens of
Mumbai.

Roxanne Davar Conz was in town from Ooty. Her latest passion being
welfare of animals. Please visit her web site

It's worth seeing all that she does to help the animals. They need
funding so any help of any kid will be gratefully acknowledged and
must appreciated.

(Ed: Prakash - I run a very popular web site which lists
all the books published about Animal Welfare and Cruelty to
animals. Jacob)

Another site worth going to is Jehangir Trust in Pune.
This is a site by Jehangir Jehangir who passed out of Catehdral in 1970.

Rohet Tolani finally put all the photograhs he took out on a
Class of 1969 reunion at his place on the net.

All those sixtyniners who wish to see what their classmates look like
can log on and see. Rohet's captions are very appropriate I must add.

More news when time permits a break as I am busy with my younger son
Kaviraj who leaves my beloved Cathedral School next week to join the
Kodaikanal International School in Kodaikanal.

Best wishes

(>Ed: The photographs were great, very clear and now we know
who you are andcan attach a face to all the news that you have
been sending us.)

Great.

Cheers

Prakash

Newsy Notes 001 - Jacob's back

Hi Cathedralites,

It is almost a 45 days since the last edition of Seventh Heaven. This time I
was not inundated with anxious queries as to the state of my health. Most
of you who wrote were interested to know whether my hard disk was OK!! :-)

The reason for the delay this time was not my hard disk. I had to get a
replacement hard disk, no doubt. They changed my defective 10 GB one to a
20 GB hard disk for the same price.

I have been busy with several other matters.

We have to give up our beautiful apartment in the centre of Oulu by the end
of this month. Annikki's dad died in February 2001. Her mother (81 years)
was admitted to hospital for routine checks and determined to have 50%
dementia (Alzeimhers), 20% tunnel vision and only 20% of hearing. Also she
has delusions. Hence she needs constant care. So, we have to move back to our
former residence (Annikki's family home), which however needs a massive
rennovation job to be done. Annikki has been removing the accumulated junk -
and already about 20 garbage bags of stuff have been readied to go to the Red
Cross, Salvation Army, etc. Now we have to throw out all the junk furniture
and organise moving our stuff across. I am not very enamoured of this prospect
- but we will have to shift in well before winter sets in. The entire heating
system has to be changed from wood to oil, the cellar made into living area
with underfloor heating, my office room planned to be less than a mess than at
present - as now it is my den but there it will be part of the house.

While clearing out the rubbish we found a bank passbook of Annikki's mother
dated 1942 and another one of Annikki's dated 1955 (when she was just 11 years
old). It is noted in Annikki's passbook that she was given a piggybank when
she started this account!! These passbooks have been sent off to the Bank's
headquarters to find out what those deposits are worth today!! Even at a
nominal 5% interest both of these could be today worth enough for a couple
of dinners in a fancy restaurant in Oulu!!

News has been trickling in from many of you. In summary:

Willie Shiri has been busy adding contacts to my list.
Yezad Kapadia has provided deetails of the next reunion plans for 49ers.
Anthony Ramsinh has been watching his horses win races.
Rumy Kapadia has been singing praises of yours truly to other Cathedrlaites.
Aubrey Ballantine has sent in a couple of great pictures of Cathedralites - soon to be revealed at the new site.
Doreen Feibusch got her daughter married.
Doreen also suffered an attack of "Montezuma's Revenge" when holidaying with her husband in Caucun, Mexico.
Abe Hayeem returned from his holiday, missed my daughter in London, but got his Alvar Aalto vase which I sent as his prize.
Bhupinder Singh Anand visited UK but missed his appointments with both Abe and Tony (see later about Tony Stone).
Sudhir Anand visited Helsinki and met up with Ajeet Mathur. They discussed Dead Chicken!
My son-in-law Tony visited Philly but was not able to meet up with Sexy Narayan Acharya. However, he did see a B17 display.
Percy Mistri has been completing the last rites of his mother, who passed away of May 17 aged 97. (I sent condolences on behalf of all of us.)
Adi Cooper got his son Carl married.
Anju Lakhani is keeping many of us amused wither her regular postings.
Eddie Pettersson sent me a picture of his lovely dog.
I wrongly recorded Suchita Shivdasani's maiden name as Assomul when it should have been noted as Kripalani.
Brinda Chinappa's (The Somayas) email in Bombay is bouncing (could someone tell her).

I have my 70 year old Maths Professor from St. Stephen's College, Delhi, Dr.
Anthony Stone holidaying at Oulu at present. He is noted Indologist and an
expert on Indian language scripts and fonts. I am discussing transliteration
with him!! Tony lived in Alwaye, Kerala, before teaching Maths at St.
Stephen's, Delhi. He is from Oxford University but now lives near St. Albans
near London.

If this 70 year old can make the trip to the Arctic to visit us, I see no
reason why some of you younger bucks and does cannot make it here also.
Tony chose to visit Annikki and me as he has 2 weeks off from looking after
his wife who is suffering from Parkinsons. He is picking my brains on how
to push his web sites to the top of the search engines.

We were hoping to have a reunion during Tony's visit with Ajeet Mathur, who
like me is a Cathedralite plus a Stephanian. But Ajeet was busy with his
research in Tampere in South Finland, so coould not get away to reach Oulu
during this two week period.

The Newsy Notes web site continues to be developed. The Cathedral School
Picture Library project is progressing very nicely. Hope you enjoy the
picture of Willie and Pushpa Shiri and their daughter which was
taken by Hasnain Chinwalla (which is from this picture library).

We are having a great summer with our sunsets at around half past midnight
and sunrise at just after 2 am.

I am testing a new mailing software with this issue of Newsy Notes - so
please do report any problems about readability, etc. to me so any
corrective action can be taken by the time of the next issue.

More in a short while - but please do keep the emails and photographs
coming in.

Very best regards from Annikki and me...

Jacob Matthan
Savage House Captain 1959
Oulu, Finland