Founders' Day Photos coming in

Dear 69er Barbara Rossi from Milan, Italy, was at this years Founders' Day in Mumbai. She has sent me this great collection of shots which sets the mood.

Hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

This was who was my correspondent and my eyes in Mumbai this year. :-)



Here is what Barbara wrote soon after she touched down in Italy:

Dear Jacob ,

I am back in Milan, grey and cold and naturally have downloaded the photographs I took during the past few days into my computer and am sending them to you, before anyone else, "in anteprima" as they say in Italy because from the very first of the beautiful Mrs Isaacs standing in front of the entrance of the Saint Thomas Cathedral
to the last in which I captured Fleur when she turned around for a moment as she stood in the group of ladies of '57 (!)

I thought I could act as your virtual eyes at the Founder's Day celebrations.

My photographs are not exceptional, but they surely help you to see the fantastic tradition of school repeated over and over again in its minutest details
and of course the photograph of those joyful choirboys is dedicated to you.

I missed Mr. Velu greatly, but the incredible size of the choir this year and the innocent enthusiasm of the singers did make up for that in part

lots of love

Barbara

Mrs. Meera Isaacs waiting to welcome the guests.

































As I was in school and took part in several Founders' Day services, was part of the Cathedral Church Choir, and was also one of those who read the Bible Lessons, etc., this set of photographs is especially nostalgic.

I remember wearing those choir costumes, walking down that aisle, sitting and listening to sermons and doing lots of mischievous things that we boys would do.

I wonder how we would have behaved if we had had girls in the choir?

Palmer House wins Golf Tournament

The results of the Golf Tournament associated with the 2007 Founders Day have been kindly sent to me by Cat Alumni President, 81er Rajiv Bhatia.

I am not a golfer, but I love to watch the game. I prefer to walk up to 20 km a day, but not swinging a club!

Palmer wins the 13th Annual
Cathedral Alumni Golf Tournament

The 13th Annual Cathedral Alumni Golf Tournament held at the Willingdon Sports Club, Mumbai, on Sunday, 11th November 2007 was a runway success.

There were a total of 38 participants including six current students.

Palmer House won the Tournament with excellent showings from Akshay Kilachand, Siddharth Thakker, Mihir Doshi and Rohan Jacob.

The Chief Guest Mrs. M Kochar, the popular English teacher in school in the 60s & 70s, gave away the prizes.

The following were the results :

Akshay Kilachand Salver for Best Gross Score:
Winner Riaz Batliwala
Runner Up Nohar Nath
2nd Runner Up Jamsheed Mehta
3rd Runner Up Krishna Kilachand

Rohit Poddar Salver for Best Nett Score Medal:
Winner Rahul Sood
Runners Up Chirag Doshi
2nd Runner Up Navroze Marshall
3 rd Runner Up Jamsheed Pundole

Anil Goyal Cup for Best Gross Stableford:
Winner Sidharth Thakker
Runners Up Rohit Poddar
2nd Runner Up Anand Jhaveri
3 rd Runner Up Rishav Mehra

Meher Amersey Cup for the Best Nett Stableford:
Winner Mihir Doshi
Runners Up Akshay Kilachand
2nd Runner Up Shaan Mehta
3 rd Runner Up Anil Goyal

Best House:
PALMER

Present school boys:
Winner Dhruv Toshniwal
Runner Up Kunal Bhatia

Max Pars
Madhan Soi

Max Birdies
Rohan Jacob

Oldest Alumni present
Mr Ajay Bhatnagar

The Alumni Association would like to thank Mr. Gopal Vazirani for his generous contribution of golf balls, Rajiv Bhatia (Barham '81) for his gift of towels and Akshay Kilachand (Palmer '88) for the T-shirts and water bottles as give aways.

Also the Alumni Association would like to thank Mr. Rohit Poddar for donating a new prize for the Best Nett Score.

The efforts for organizing this wonderful tournament is thanks to Meher Amersey (Barham '60), Pushpa Bhatia (Barham '53), Akshay Kilachand (Palmer '88) and our Hon. Alumnus - Mrs. Kiran Kanwar, who every year does a sterling job in making this tournament a success.

A big thanks to all who played.

The list of participants this year were :

BARHAM:
Jamsheed Mehta, Rohit Poddar, Anand Jhaveri, Shaan Mehta, Vishal Jhunjhunwala, Harsh Amersey, Jamsheed Pundole, Krishna Kilachand, Rajiv Bhatia, Rishav Mehra

PALMER:
Akshay Kilachand, Rohan Jacob, Siddharth Thakker, Chirag Doshi, Anil Goyal, Mihir Doshi, Viral Doshi, Manoj Mehra

WILSON:
Pheroze Dubash, Riaz Batliwala, Nohar Nath, Dr Ajit Deodhar, Kaikushru Dinshaw, Behram Gamadia, Rahul Sood, Pankaj Kalra, Madhav Soi, Ravi Toshniwal

SAVAGE:
Navroze Marshall, Harit Mehta, Ajay Bhatnagar, Suneet Kothari

Congratulations to the winners. A great shout out to all who took part, organised and ran the event and also to all who have supported this tournament over the years.

Cat Alumni President checks in

Despite the hectic goings-on in Mumbai on Founders Day today, I was especially pleased that the President of the Cat Alumni, 81er Rajiv Bhatia, (son of outstanding Cathedralite 53er Pushpa Bhatia and nephew of the late 56er Kirtee Dungersee), took the trouble to let me know what was happening so that I could share it with Cathedralites around the world:

Hi Jacob

The Church Service was very well attended. House full 20 minutes prior to commencement at 9am.

The service as usual was wonderful and moving. Reuniting classes of 1947, 57, 67 and 82 were there.

The Middle School Meeting was attended with the largest representation ever! Principal Mrs. Isaacs was in great `form' and we enjoyed having her with us.

An Alumnus from the Class of 1957 from London (prefers not to be named) has committed a sum of Rs. 1.5 million towards the corpus of the Association!!!!



The cricket score - School Boys went in to bat and in 25 overs made 179 for 7 wickets.

The Alumni were 58 for 3 after 8 overs at 2:40pm.

The President made efforts to `fix' the match and offered incentives to the School Boys to loose, who refused as they were `Cathedralites' !!!!!! (just kidding)

So the President has incentivised the Alumni Team with complimentary passes for the dinner on Nov-16th sponsored personally by the President, if they win the match !!!! (dead serious)

Regards


_______________________________________________________________________
Rajiv Bhatia (Barham, 1981 ICSE)
President @ your service

And as a Postscript Rajiv informed me that the Alumni won the cricket match:

TEAM ALUMNI WINS THE CRICKET

The cricket score - School Boys went in to bat and in 25 overs made 179 for 7 wickets.

The Alumni were 181 for 9 in 25 overs and won the match. Congratulations!

Team Alumni - Look forward to having you with us at the dinner on Nov-16 as the President's guests.

Well played School. Better fortune next time. But remember that leaving school and becoming and Alumnus is a wonderful thing too!

Regards

Rajiv

And here are some photographs from the cricket match:









Is it not truly great that the 60th Year Reunion of the 47ers and the 50th Year Reunion of the 57ers took place.

And that one 57er Alumnus, who wanted to remain anonymous pledged a sum of Rs. 1.5 million towards the corpus of the Association!!!!

Our late dear 57er Budni (Behram Badhniwalla) is watching and smiling down on us.

I can say that Budni's heroic effort to get the 57ers activated has more than been achieved.

Founders Day today

Lots of things are happening in Mumbai at the moment I write this entry.

But 59er Vijay Shivdasani took the time and trouble to share this very emotional email with all of us:

from: 59er Vijay Shivdasani
date: Nov 14, 2007 8:42 AM
subject: Founders Day Service --- I cannot even begin........

To all my Classmates & Schoolmates,

Even if I tried I could not express the quiet dignity, the peaceful beauty, the superb choral rendition and the warm friendly camaraderie of ole contemporaries at the Service from where I have just returned.....so I am going to send you all a quote..........

"A tree is judged by its fruit. We thank Thee for the fruit that is our School that has borne good fruit for these several years. Grant, that as the years pass by, there may go forth from this School, a great company of men and women who, inspired by Thy Spirit, shall serve faithfully in their different professions for the welfare their fellowmen and for the good of India........."

See you at our (59er 50th) Reunion if not before!

As ever

Shivi

Suchita and Vijay - 2007.
Photograph by Hasnain Chinwalla.

Vijay's lovely wife, Suchita, also a Cathedralite, is 62er.

Thank you Vijay for sharing this with us who could not be there.

Just hours away.....

This message from Prakash in Mumbai reached me via 59er Percy who is presently in London. He and Frainy have not missed a Founder's Day Dinner since 1972 if they have been in India, and unfortunately they are not in India this year!

Dear Cathedralite,

Please arrange to pick up your Invite for the Founder's Day Dinner from TENT Located at Meherabad Building. Between Samsonite & Barrista. On Warden Road ( B,. Desai Road). Phone : 23696173 (Geeta)

They are getting sold out fast.

Function starts at 8.00 pm

Invites are priced at Rs. 950.00 per Head.

Looking forward to seeing you there.

Regards

Prakash A Thadani

I also had a message from 49er Yeshpal Kapadia in New Delhi.

Jacob,

Just a note to say that the Delhi Chapter of the Alumni Association will be celebrating Founder's Day with a dinner on 16.11. to be hosted by Jamshed Desai of the class of '49.

Kap

Have great reunions but spare a thought for poor Annikki and Jacob in the Arctic thinking of you gals and guys dancing the nights away!

Founders Week Programme

The Alumni Association has just sent me the programme for Founders Week this November:

November 2007 - Founders Week Schedule

Sunday November 11th, 2007

10 to 11:30 am Tee Off - Alumni Golf Tournament (includes present students) at Willingdon Club followed by a high tea and prize giving ceremony.

Wednesday November 14, 2007

9:00 am to 10:00am - Founders Day Church Service at St. Thomas' Cathedral
10:15 AM onwards - Cricket Match - Old Boys V/s Present Students at Bombay Gym
10:30 AM to 11:30am - Founders Day Tea and Alumni Association General Body Meeting at the Middle School & Release of the new Alumni Association Magazine

Friday November 16, 2007

8:30PM onwards - Founders Day Dinner & Dance at the Blue Sea, Worli Seaface, AG Khan Road Worli, Mumbai

Contact Information

Sponsorships - Rajiv Bhatia - rajiv@catalumni.com - HelpDesk 99203-21463
Cricket Match - Sanjay Shah - 98210-15871
Golf Tournament - Akshay Kilachand - akshaykilachand@hotmail.com - 98210-27000
Dinner Event & Branding -Gopika Saran -98195-13698
Decor - Nazneen Gamadia - 98200-45100
Magazine - Sunaina Murty - sunaina001@hotmail.com - 98190-75553

Dinner Dance Donor Passes:

Chitra Rajkumar 22-23519897
Shyla Boga shyla_boga@yahoo.com
Rohita Doshi doshi.rohita@gmail.com
Sonal Modi 98201-84762
Radhika Shums 98702-04615
SoulKurry Art Point Gallery, Gr. Fl., Chowpatty, Mumbai 7 (11am to 6pm)
Rhythm House Kala Ghoda,Mumbai 1 (11am to 6pm)

All queries to Rita Vaswani
Administrative Help Desk
catalumni_helpdesk@yahoo.com
99203-21463

I have also received two files, one which speaks of Sponsorship Opportunities for the Founders Day Dinner and the other which offers advertisement space in the Magazine which will be released at the time of Founders Day and will have a circulation of around 5000 alumni.

Contact me and I will send you these files.

I need volunteers who will attend the various events and rush me digital pictures for this Blog.

As you know "Seventh Heaven" is one of the oldest established web sites for our school and serves our alumni in all six continents. I have been pushing the nostalgia button for over 10 years. I have helped various years organise their reunions and have carried pictures and reunion reports of many of them.

Your help in getting the news out to those who are unable to be present in Mumbai at that time would be greatly appreciated.

Acknowledgements for all material contributed will be given.