Boxing Finals

59er David Colaco and late Dossu Pagdiwalla 

battling a boxing final..

I never reached the finals of any school boxing competition, the best being the semi finals, where my six foot frame was given a hiding by a five foot dynamo called Neelam Lakhaney (also Savage House).

It is very strange, but a few years ago Neelam surfaced on my internet radar but then vanished. Had I been dreaming?

When planning our 50th year reunion, I searched all my mailboxes to find the correspondence that had transpired between us, but I did not trace it.

On the other hand, another Neelam Lakhaney took great offence to how I had addressed our Neelam in one of my blogs and was ready to fly at me over the internet.

But I digress, as I was intending to talk about the Boxing Final's evening.

Those of us who had not made it, got to school early so as to get the best place on the first floor overlooking the boxing ring. The boxing ring was always professionally made up and looked resplendent. I wonder who supervised that. Mr Morecroft?

The air was filled with excitement as we watched our House representatives who had made it to the finals, fight FOR US! It was as if we were in the ring with them, trading blow for blow with the opponent!

The air was always charged with excitement as we watched each fight, shouting for OUR Fighters.

If our guy lost, we were ready to blame the judges. The atmosphere was absolutely electric, right through the evening for a few hours well into the dark. We shouted our throats hoarse.

It was the late night that we enjoyed and it is these evenings that are deeply ingrained in my school days memory!