59er Golden Reunion Directory

59er Golden Reunion Directory
59er Golden Reunion Directory

Thursday, November 24, 2005

Get your FREE 2006 Desktop Calendar

As a prelude to the release of Annikki's book "Edible Art" in 2006, we are pleased to inform you that the 2006 Desktop Calendar, featuring 13 of her beautiful cake designs, will be sent, ABSOLUTELY FREE OF COST, to the first 500 readers (relatives who are in touch with us regularly need not check in) who send us their snail mail (posting) address.

FREE 2006 Desktop Calendar

FREE 2006 Desktop Calendar featuring
13 of Annikki's beautiful and artistic cake designs


As the calendar is being printed and dispatched from our printer in China, please act quickly, as I will be transferring the final database to the printer for posting purposes within the next few days.

You can email your snail mail address to:

Free Calendar Request

Saturday, November 19, 2005

Sharp increase!

My campaign to identify those who had been in Cathedral well as St. Stephen's College in Delhi (Stephanians) got a sharp kick a few days ago when I received an email from a consultant in the Phillipines, Ravi Nangia, who finished from school in 1968 and then graduated in Economics from Stephen's in 1972.

Ravi reported to me two others in his year: Kapil Mathur and Sudhanshu Ranade were from Cathedral and went on to St. Stephen's College.

In a later post Ravi said that Kapil was in Bombay and that he probably saw an article with a by-line by Sudhanshu in The Hindu (the newspaper from Chennai).

Kapil Mathur (68er Savage, Treasurer and Executive Committee Member of the Cathedral Alumni Association 2003 - 2004) seems to be very active in the School Alumni set-up. Here is a picture from the Alumni web site where he is at the cricket match between the Old Boys and the School. Kapil is the one in the blue shirt. Photo by Rajiv Bhatia (Barham'81)



I will try to g4et some comments from kapil in due course.

I was able to track references to Sudhanshu as he has hundreds of references to his work when you search for him in Google.

There is a commernt about him in this online article A fine blend of religion and culture by V. Sundaram

According to Sudhanshu Ranade (author of the articles in The Hindu `The great betrayal' (February 7, `99) ``Religion and Politics'' (August 1, '99) and ``Religion and Politics'' (August 15, '99) the linkage between religion and politics during the Vedic Phase of the Hindu religion ended in a total disaster 2500-3000 years ago. Eminent men including Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Keshab Chandra Sen, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Swami Vivekananda, Sister Nivedita, Anne Besant, Aurobindo and Mahatma Gandhi (whose academic and other credentials can be considered equal to that of Mr. Sudhanshu Ranade) have all passionately underlined the man-making soul-elevating and nation-building impact of Hinduism through the ages on the people of India. Mahatma Gandhi had professional intellectuals like Sudhanshu Ranade in mind when he observed: ``Rationalists are admirable beings; rationalism is a hideous monster when it claims for itself omnipotence. Attribution of Omnipotence to reason is as bad a piece of idolatry as is the worship of stones believing them to be God. I do not plead for the suppression of reason but for the recognition of `that' in us which sanctifies reason.''


Starting initially with his quasi-religious pieces, as indicated from the quote above, Sudhanshu appears to have gone up the ladder to be a leading correspondent on a variety of subjects in the newspaper.

Sudhanshu appears to have been at The Hindu for some time, doing book reviews. His recent pieces include many of general interest to me: China's rapid economic growth hits Asian nations differently, Garment exporters: Know your customer, The logic of tax on fringe benefits, savings

I am sure many others may now come forward who have this double heritage!

Thanks Ravi for the leads.

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

School Quad evokes many comments

After my nostalgic reminiscences of the quad and traditions in the school, I have been innundated with many comments, all of them expressing that they too thought that traditions should be passed on.

This subject became poignant, especially as it was Founders' Day, and we were immortalising the traditions of our peers, the very founding of our school 145 years ago.

The one person, whom I had singled out, H. S. Uberoi (Ubi), came back with this very interesting response:

Dear Jacob,

My query regarding the quad was genuine.

No, you did not touch a raw nerve.

But your subsequent blog entry did jog my memory back to those delightful days.

In fact, I could write a whole epistle just on the diverse activities that were conducted in the quad and how they were an integral part of our daily lives.

You are quite right in what you have written. Sadly those activities, to the best of my knowledge, cease to exist.

Actually they disappeared a long, long time ago.

Even my son, who passed out 20 years ago, does not recall any of the activities that you have recounted.

I think only the boxing finals take place there, the last I heard.

Remember the Free Booters' League conducted by C.J.Olliver?

I think post co-education in the school, a great deal changed.

There are, no doubt, great improvements, but a great deal of tradition gave way to a new way of life.

But that I suppose is life!!

I do feel the same way as you do, but after two children who have passed out of school and with a grand child in school now, perhaps my eyes are more tolerant now than they were earlier.

My warmest regards on this the 145th anniversary of the Founders' Day of the Cathedral and John Connon School!

Ubi


Thanks Ubi - especially for updating us about the situation as may have prevailed for a long time. As I said, I had little or no direct contact with the school after I left, but my memories have lived on and kept me alive and active. When I started the reunite campaign for 59ersd, I had no idea it would lead to such abroad readership that i enjoy today. As Willie Shiri, our Physics teacher resident in from Canada wrote a few weeks ago: "PS: Never miss your Blog !" Can I get a better compliment than that from a person who "educated" me?

I loved the days when we were cheering on our house colleagues who were battling in the boxing ring in the quad. I remember yelling my guts out for Ubi! We used to stand on the balcony just outside the then Standard VI, directly overlooking the ring and just above where the Boxers came out to go into the ring.

Many a bloodied face have I seen going back after the fights! But the next day all the contestants were the greatest of friends. The battles that took place in the ring never took a step out of it.

I was never a strong enough a boxer to enter the finals. Little 59er Neelam Lakhani consistently knocked me out before the finals - one savage consumed another - as they say!

And the Free Booter's League was the quad football tournament that I had referred to in my earlier post - but the name had skipped my memory. Thanks for jogging it, Ubi.

Do the Operas or School Plays still get performed these days? Is there still a school choir?

It would be wonderful if someone would let me know as to what are the traditions of today that maybe will be passed on to the next 50 years - a computer games club?

Writing this blog, which is read by Cathedralites from the 49ers to 05ers of today, is part of my desire to drive the nostalgic juices in my alma mater colleagues.

If we are lucky, we may add "Big Benjy", the second born of the eldest of the Hayeem family, Solomon Hayeem, and elder brother of Josey Hayeem, both of whom live in Canada, to our readership.

That may extend our readership to the someone from the mid 1940s!!!

And in passing, I would love to know which Hayeem instituted the Hayeem Prize for English Literature. Don't scream the answer, please. I admit that I am the ignoramus.

Take care.

Monday, November 14, 2005

I am scandalized on Founders' Day!

Today is Founder's Day of our School.

I wish all those in Mumbai celebrating this occasion, the very best.

I hope you will spare a thought for many of us who would like to be there with you to celebrate this auspicious occasion.

54er Gracie Hayeem (BentLerno) emailed me yesterday labelling me with the nickname "Detective Jacob"!

I felt scandalized by the term. :-)

What happened was that I received an email from someone in Canada who had visited this blog and seen mention of various Hayeems. The person wrote to me for further information.

I have a strict policy not to reveal the email addresses of our Cathedrlaites to anyone without their permission.

All I did was forward this email to all the many Hayeem's who are in touch with me.

57er/59er Abe Hayeem from London was quick to respond identifying this as a genuine enquiry of a niece.

So I sent them an email organising an online reunion.

This has snow-balled. Now they have discovered an enormous genealogy site where many of the famous Hayeem families of Mumbai are listed, much of the information incomplete.

Now it will be possible for the site to get one solid portion of this genealogy completed if someone has the patience to fill it up. Many Cathedralite Hayeems will feature in it.

In the genealogy site the name is not Hayeem, as we all know them, but a Jewish form, Haim.

Here is one of the many emails that were exchanged between Chloe, Abe, Gracie and another who came later on in the day - karen:

Hi Jacob,

Thank you for your reply. My dad is Joe (Joey) Hayeems and he attended the Cathedral school from 1942-1949 before he moved to Israel. He is from the family of 15 children, which are listed on that site as "Haim"....but their last name was always "Hayeem" - so there appears to be an error there. He will check and then let me know. And I see that the source of all the information on that site related to this family is Kay Mennaseh (thanks for letting me know who she is Gracie), so I would be interested in getting in touch with her.

During our trip to India this past January we visited the Cathedral, and the "headmaster" allowed us to walk around. It was very emotional for my dad and he got a kick out of looking over into the courtyard (there was a gym class taking place) and sitting in one of the classrooms!

And hello to my cousins that I have not yet met whom are listed on this email!

Karen


Dear Gracie, all I did was put you in touch! Seriously, I am not the detective!!

Only thing there seem to be a lot of web detectives getting in touch with me!

Have a great time discovering each other. It was fun for me to read some of the stories on the genealogy site dating back a couple of hundred years.

And hope all of you have a great 145th FOUNDERs' DAY.

Friday, November 11, 2005

Our School Quad

I seem to have a bit of a raw nerve here about the school yard!

56er Ube led the charge in that he said that he did not see anything different about the yard. An unidentified blogger by the name of αδιβ, who has a nice site about Formula 1 racing, another great interest of mine, as in Finland we are crazy about Kimi Raikkonen, wanted to know what was wrong with the yard picture.

School yard

Mr. αδιβ is quite young, just 17. If he is a Cathedralite, he may hardly know what I was refering to.

But the query of Ube, one of our greatest sportsman and also a great great leader, of our decade?

The yard in our day was the centre of activity, from morning till evening. We had Lemondrop cricket matches, in some cases, even before school started in the morning. If, not, we had challenge matches. The matches went through lunch hour.

If it was not the cricket, we were all involved with quad football, and every class had two or three teams, so everyone got a chance. The only time I was injured in school was when I fractured my wrist when i fell saving a goal in a quad football match. But that was a part of growing up in our school.

Look at the this picture of the 59 Rackets team.

1959 Cathedral Rackets Team

What about the Tin and Bottle Badminton Tournament, which was great fun, even if we were whipped by such great players as the Ruias, Ashok, Anil and even that little brother of Ashok, Bharat! Remember the very unassuming Ralph David, who was really a great badminton player.

To me the quad was the character of the school.

When I looked at the picture of this yard, as it is in 2003, some of the basic elements that tickle my memory nerves, were missing.

No crease and stumps for the Lemondrop cricket tournament, no goalposts for the Quad football tournament, and no court lines for the Tin and Bottle Tournament.

Have these sports vanished from our school agenda?

I see the basketball net.

During the 50's, basketball was not yet a sport in our school.

It was only in 1959 that the Harlem Globetrotters arrived for a demo tour to Bombay. Many of us from the school witnessed the marvel of the teams and the performance of their coach, a tiny little man. No doubt, that would have introduced the sport in our school after my time.

Great, but did we or did we have to lose our other quad games?

Maybe I am wrong. I would love to hear that our deeply loved traditions are still intact!

Wednesday, November 09, 2005

Does this picture trouble you?

No, no, no, Not the picture of Mithoo and Nancy!

But the following one of the photograph of the school yard, which I have posted below, was sent to me recently by a 63er, Mithoo Malani, who lives in Florida. The first picture is Mitho with a gorgeous dish, fellow 63er Nancy (née Dastur), who is the sister of 59er Piloo.

63ers Nancy and Mithoo at the 40 year reunion of 63ers

The sisters share one thing in common. They certainly can turn a lot of admiring heads!

I studied the picture of the yard very carefully. I was greatly troubled by what I read into it.

School yard

Not having had much to do with the school on the physical front after my time there, which ended officially in 1959 December and more generally when I travelled on for my studies in Delhi in 1960, I still hold on to certain traditions that were great during the 50's.

I wonder how many of you know what I am talking about. Of course, I have no right to hold these opinions.

If you are also troubled by this photograph of the state of the school yard, maybe you would like to voice your concerns to me to see whether I have the right to feel the way I do, or whether I am just being a sentimentalist.

Sunday, November 06, 2005

Another two located

Recently I had written about some of us who are both Cathedralites as well as Stephanians.

Some of you may have noted a Comment recently which introduced me to two 90er Cathedralites and 93er Stephanians. Welcome to my alma mater blogs, Gop.

My email address for Ranjeev was when he was in the U.K. He has moved on. Can anyone give me his most recent email address?

Gopkiran Rao, Bombay Scottish 88er, Cathedralite 90er, Delhi Stephanian (Eco Hons) 93er

Ranjeev Bhatia, Bombay Scottish 88er, Cathedralite 90er, Delhi Stephanian (History Hons) 93er

Gop has a very nice set of web pages filled with a huge selection of classic pictures.

I chose one which makes my memory cells go back a few years.

Katherine and Gopkiran, LA, 2002

Katherine and Gopkiran, LA, 2002


They certainly are a beautiful couple.

Hope both of you as wonderful a marriage as I have had for the last 38+ years.

Tuesday, November 01, 2005

Happy Diwali Cathedralites

Jaakko records a Fiery Sunset

Today is the 1st of November 2005.

It is the 37th birthday of Jaakko, our eldest son, who lives in Birmingham, England. Our elder daughter, Susanna, and her family, husband, Chris, and daughter, Asha (8), will be with Jaakko to celebrate the day with him.

To brighten his birthday and also show you the grand festival of lights, I have chosen to use one of his most famous sunset photographs which uses "light", one of Jaakko's most favourite themes.

Happy Diwali to all of you