59er Golden Reunion Directory

59er Golden Reunion Directory
59er Golden Reunion Directory

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Oldest Cathedralite?

Is this the Oldest Cathedralite?

Dearest Annikki & Jacob,

Thank u for ure NY greetings. The same to you.

When I'm in India I'm not on email, only on mob.

My mother is 96 & not so well physically; she is probably the oldest, existing, Cathedralite.


Gool Lam (née Framji) when she was 94 years old
at the 54ers 50th Year Reunion.


When we had 54'ers 50th do, Gracie Hayeem, Pratap Dundh & Gool Lam (née Framji) had a pic taken at CCI for Barham House Captains & I believe it was on the blog.

God Bless,
love,
54er Zarrin (née Lam) & Minoo Aga


I hope all of you will join Annikki and me in saying a special prayer for Gool to wish her all the best.

Please take a few minutes to wish Zarrin a very very happy birthday - 31st January ande wish her mother well.

Her email address is:

(Replace " at " with the @ symbol.)

Monday, January 21, 2008

Pleased as punch?

Posted on my Jacob's Blog, the Oulu CHAFF Blog, the Mumbai Cathedralites Seventh Heaven Blog and the Delhi Stephanians Kooler Talk Blog.

Does the term "pleased as punch" refer to the condition after drinking an ample amount out of the Punch Bowl (remember Annikki and I are teetotallers) or is it some condition of Punch in the "Punch and Judy" Show?

However, Annikki and I were pleased as punch yesterday, whatever the origins of this phrase.

As was conveyed to most of you by "Manorama JM" yesterday, our younger daughter, Joanna and her husband, Tony, have produced their 3rd child, 3.49 kg in weight, 52 cm in length, at 15:35 on Sunday 20th January 2008.

Samuel and Daniel are very happy with their new baby sister, who is our second granddaughter, and just as beautiful as lovely Asha in England.


Our new granddaughter.


Daniel with his sister.


Samuel and Daniel with their sister.


Samuel with his sister.


Joanna watches her brood after the proceedings of the day.


I took these pictures (with my camera which is held together by sticky tape) at the hospital for Annikki, who cannot leave the house as she is looking after her mother. Grandmom was so pleased to be part of the event! And greatgrandmom was also quite thrilled to hear the news.

Annikki is the only one, who from the time she saw Joanna in mid-December, has been saying that the baby would be a girl!

Knowing Samuel and Daniel, this little girl is likely to grow up as a tomboy!

Saturday, January 12, 2008

Caught in a blinking snowstorm

I had just finished a meeting of the new Indians Group we have in Oulu - called O-Indians. (We have all the major Indian InfoTech Companies moving into Oulu these last few months). We are having a celebration party of Pongal and Shankaranti this Saturday evening. I just stepped into a blinking snowstorm from the organisation meeting when my mobile rang.

On the other end was none other than 59er Venkat, Venkat Kurma, and that guy had the audacity to ask whether I knew who he was!!!!!


Venkat and Shivi.


Not know Venkat?

I was sure that he had consumed more than his normal quota.

Ignoring the roaring blizzard conditions around me, with a very bad line, I heard from Venkat that they were having "a party" in Pune.


Trevor in Mumbai.


Hasnain and Shivi.


After a few words with Venkat, I spoke to 59er Trevor Newnes, who was there from Brisbane, 59er Hasnain Chinwalla, who was there from Toronto, and 59er Vijay Shivdasani (Shivi), who was there from Mumbai. And they had just chatted with 59er Armeane Choksi in Washington!

Aren't we 59ers a great crowd?

Now Shivi was very specific - I would be personal non-grata if I wished him Happy Birthday on Sunday. Fellow 59ers, remember NOT TO WISH our Captain on his 65th birthday this Sunday, as I have no desire to attain the status described!

Tuesday, January 01, 2008

Back again to our teeny weeny world

Posted on my Jacob's Blog, on the Mumbai Cathedralites Seventh Heaven Blog, on the Stephanian Kooler Talk Blog, and the Oulu CHAFF Blog.

Glad to get back to regular blogging.

The last two weeks were a delight in that we were were not snowed under by snow, but with love and affection and greetings from all over the world.

(Sadly, as an aside, this is the first time in the last I winters we have been in Finland (and Annikki's some 40 winters she has been in Finland out of her 63 winters) that we did not have snow in this near Arctic location. Remember we are just 200 km from the Arctic Circle! A sad reflection of the effect of global warming!)

Into our 10 email addresses, 5 Blog Accounts, 3 Google Groups, our mobile phone number, our landline phone and our snail mail postbox, a total of just around 70000 (YES 70000!) season's greetings poured in.

I had a task sorting them out and then updating mailing addresses in our numerous mailing lists, grouping them into the various groups, i.e., family (Maliyakals and Kandathils), friends (Indian, Finnish, world), Mumbai Cathedralites, Delhi Stephanians, Bishop Cottonians (Bangalore), Findians, CHAFF Participants, O-Indians, past colleagues, present colleagues and others - making sure we were not sending out duplicates or to dead addresses and then send our greetings to all on our lists. (If it was not for 3 trustworthy Macs working round the clock this task would have been impossible for just one computer idiot!)

Out of a total 37000 postings (the last ones were today), I am glad to say that this year we had hardly around 300 returns! I had taken out all those who had university addresses in the US and UK, and that had cut the mailing list from the 80000+ to this more manageable figure.

We are sorry to all whom we may have missed.

But this is proof that we have a teeny weeny world of our own. But this teeny weeny world is even smaller than we thought!

A few weeks ago I had about 6 emails, all with the same attachment - some pictures of the Old Bombay - a truly great collection of pictures. Most of the emails were forward.

One of the persons who forwards me great emails is Cathedralite from Mumbai) 56er Ubi (HS Uberoi). (Another is Cathedralite 49er from Mysore, Naval Patel.)

When I looked at the forward I noted that it was from his daughter-in-law, Anahita. Besides Ubi, she had forwarded it to one Farookh Mehta.

I sent an email to Ubi asking him whether this "Farookh" was the same "advertising" Farookh who was married to a great Maharashtrian stage actress, Vijaya. I explained to Ubi that we had sailed together from Venice to Bombay in 1969, round the Cape, and Farookh had beaten me in the Table Tennis final on board the ship. Farookh played well on a tilting and listing ship!

Ubi's reply was swift as it was amazing. Yes, this was the self-same Farookh, who was also a Cathedralite of the 47 era, married to the Maharashtrian stage legend, Vijaya, and whose daughter, Anahita, who had been a few months on that voyage was Head Girl in Cathedral School in 1985, when Ubi's son, Samir, was Head Boy, and the two were married!

A year or so ago, Farookh and Vijaya's son, Ravi Khote, had passed through Finland and I had talked to him about his parents.

Since this exchange of emails I have had emails and photographs from Farookh, which I will blog soon.

But the moral is that our teeny weeny world is much much smaller than we thought!