Controverdy on our Seventh Heaven Google Group

Everybody is entitled  to their own religious and political viewpoint.

Our 59er classmates together in 2009, 50 years after we left school.- Christian, Jew, Hindu, Muslim, Parsi, Sindhi, from around the world reunited for our Golden Reunion..

Several years ago, Annikki and I made it clear that on our Seventh Heaven Google Group for 59ers, religious and political opinions are personal and we would not permit posts that may demean others.

For several years this has been the rule followed by everyone.

With the Israeli/Palestinian conflict there were views expressed on both sides which provoked the other side to react to them and that resulted in threats and counter threats.

The problem  was of my making as I put moderation on auto-pilot which meant the posts violating our principles went through ”unmoderated”.

Annikki and I apologise for this.

I have asked Robert Tyabji, a  co-moderator to follow these rules and he and I will discuss anything we consider bordelline cases.

These rules do mot apply to our blog posts and our opinions. Where relevant, we will be post our views on our approptiate blog, and we have several!

We hope-all concerned will follow these rules we have set down for our Google Group for 59ers.

Guest Blog: John Billington - Classmaster Std. XIA 1959

I requested the classmaster of Standard XIA in 1959, John Billington, to write the Guest Blog to coincide at the time our 59ers are joining together in Khandala/Lonavala on the old Mumbai-Pune Highway this week at our 60th year Reunion.

(You can see  the picture of the unique "Golden Reunion", Directory of 1959ers which was released at the 50th year Reunion in 2009.)

Not only John, from UK, but also our Physics Teacher, William Shiri, and his wife, Pushpa, from Canada, did make it and attend what is now known as the Mother of Reunions! ".

The picture of most of those who attended oir 2009 Golden Reunion has been included in John's Guest Blog.

From our personal correspondence I learnt that  John is still playing his morning game of tennis!

Thank you John for this Guest Blog contribution.

"Jacob has asked me for some recollections, so here goes: 

The Class of 1959 was my second year of teaching at CBS, as I arrived in Bombay in the middle of the monsoon in 1958 just days after receiving my degree at Oxford. I chose India for my first job because from the age of 16 or 17 in England I had been drawn greatly to India for its spiritual heritage. Young people are often interested in the great unanswerable questions (Why are we here? What is the purpose of life? Why is there so much suffering? etc.) but I was unusual in that I had read Jiddu Krishnamurti while doing my O levels in 1952, and Paramhansa Yogananda's Autobiography of a Yogi and Christmas Humphrey's Buddhism in the same year – closely followed by the works of Swami Vivekananda and Ramakrishna. So I arrived in India not just to teach but to learn. 
From the start I loved India. In few (if any) other countries can you drop into a roadside cafe and find yourself deeply involved in a serious conversation on matters spiritual. Western males especially shy away from talk about the "inner life", preferring the safety of football or politics as topics for conversation. 

The Indian practice of referring even to casually encountered people as bhai or bahaina (brother/sister) struck me as profoundly wise and right, and indicated a way of thinking about other people very different from Western practice. I gave a talk in London three weeks ago about relations between Tibet and China and found myself taking about our "brothers and sisters in Tibet" and the need to persuade "our Chinese brothers and sisters" of the injustice of their treatment of Tibet. I owe the locution to India. 

I was enormously impressed by the CBS students. Their intelligence, commitment to learning and the inter-communal harmony they exemplified were admirable. 1959 was a good time to be in India for the idealism of a recently-independent country was still untarnished and India led the way for a high-minded grouping of non-aligned countries, steering a path between the communist USSR and the capitalist West. That idealism has long since gone and the world is poorer for it, but it was probably China's betrayal of the Hindi-Chini bhai-bhai catch-phrase and the 1962 border war that hastened its, and Nehru's, demise. 

1959 also saw the flight of the Dalai Lama from Tibet to India. A notorious left-wing Bombay rag called BLITZ, probably funded by the communist party, lampooned him mercilessly and was vociferously pro- communist. I bought an old Grammar of Colloquial Tibetan from a bookshop near the Prince of Wales (as it then was) Museum and took the train to Darjeeling to find out more. Sixty years later I am still an advocate for Tibetans to have the right to determine their own future. 
Bombay (as I still think of it) was a fascinating city culturally because of its rich ethnic, religious and linguistic mix. I visited all the temples I could get entry to, attended concerts of Indian classical music and dance, and was a fan of Ustad Vilayat Khan and Mrinalini Sarabai, among others. Oh, and I attended a talk by Krishnamurti at the J.J. School of Art. 

I said I was highly impressed by CBS students. Names and years get muddled up but I enjoyed taking a small number of pupils for A level and among them Statira Guzdar and Yasmin Batliwala from the Cathedral Girls' School joined Madan and Hussain from the Boys' side. They were very bright and a pleasure to teach, as were the O level classes. First names now escape me in many cases but Sethi (Ed: Viney), Ashok Kapur, Parasuraman, Jacob Matthan of course, Dabolkhar (Ed: Vinay), Sabnis, Ajgaonkar, Cyrus Guzdar, David Colaco, Trevor Newnes, Choksi (Ed: Armeane), Stevenson (Ed: Abe), Venkat Kurma, Mark Sopher, O'Halloran and Peter Miovic all come readily to mind – as would others if I saw their names or photographs --- but I will certainly have muddled up people's years. (Ed: Names in bold are 59ers)

 Picture of 59ers at St. Thomas Cathedral Church after the 
2009 Founders Day Service on 14th November 2009. 
(Photo Courtesy 59er Hasnain Chinwala)




 A number of your year I did, of course, meet again ten years ago at your Bombay re-union and Peter Miovic is one with whom I have remained in contact and met a year or two later in Wales, and again this year when he very kindly invited me to visit his native Slovenia – a lovely country, iridescently green from its Alps to the sea, and the highlight of my year's travels. With some staff also I remained in contact until they died, including Rider Salmon, James Clarke, Alberto Zavala and Olpherts Gregory; and I am still in touch occasionally by email with Willie Shiri, and regularly receive messages from Mohan Rao. 

( Picture courtesy 64er Rajiv Ved- 2009)

And I meet Pauline Salmon annually when I visit north Wales to see the Welsh Opera. I have always admired her cheerful outlook and in her late eighties she continues to paint and to exhibit with undiminished creativity. Which reminds me of Lady Marie Temple... But I must stop! 

Faces and memories merge with age but are not forgotten – they are all part of life's rich tapestry. But I remember with affection how kind, polite, intelligent and well-behaved were the boys at CBS. That I have returned frequently to India and treat it as my second home is a measure of your hospitality. My Namastes and Salaams to you all! Floreat CBS!

John Billington (CBS 1958-1961)"

What makes it happen?

I was thrilled to read that our alma mater was rated as the best school in India for this year.

Last year, I was a little disapointed when  saw that we were not in the top postion, which was held by a Delhi school.

Our School - by 59er Hasnain Chinwala

I thought to myself - WHY are we No. 1?

Is it the Management, is it the staff, is it the students, or is it the alumni?

If I look back on my life at the school and my times in other schools, we did not have playgrounds, we were cramped in the City Centre, and yet our lives were full of everything.

Our staff, from around the world, those days, were simply of a class well above others.

But then, now comes the rub!

Which has been the best Class EVER in the 150 history of our school.

Having written about this school for the last 15 years, in my mind, there is no doubt.

It is the 59ers, as is embodied in the song written by a 59er Ratan Singara, called "THE CLASS ACT". (Click on the image to see an enlarged version of the song.)

If you look at the 50th Year Golden Reunion organised by our class last year, it is going to be a very hard one to beat.

This picture taken outside the St. Thomas Cathedral on November 14th 2009, shows most of our 50th Year Golden Reunion Group assembled from around the world.

This reflects on how wonderful a class we were and are!

Reflecting on the past, I would say that what made our school exceptional was the combination of the staff and the students. That made our school No. 1, 51 years ago.

Maybe someone could enlighten me as to why our school is still No. 1!

1959 Issue of The Borderer

Today I received the 1959 Issue of The Borderer from 59er Trevor Newnes in Australia. (I also got the 1960 and 1961 issues from Trevor, but I already had the last one sent to me by Mr. Billington a few years ago, which I must return to him!)



It is fascinating as much as it is a memorabilia which is worth a small fortune. That is like all things from our school in 1959! :-)

If anyone else has a copy or knows of any, please ask them to contact me immediately. I want to establish how many copies of this issue are available out there. Considering the Prefects´ Notes by School Captain 57er Bhupinder Singh Anand in The Borderer, maybe not many!

It looks like the 59ers Coffee Table Directory is going to be a publication which is going to be worth a million, considering I am only going to publish just a 100 copies of it. Free to all our Class Members attending the reunion and those who assist our reunion efforts (seen and unseen) and on sale to others. (Also free to staff members attending the reunion.)

I already have the 1959 Cock House photograph (Palmer), School Prefects photograph, School Hockey Team photograph, School Cricket Team photograph, School Football Team photograph, Sports Day brochure, many other items, and some absolutely wonderful pictures of many of our year. I do have photographs of almost all the staff members.

I am still looking for input from the 59er girls. I do have a class photograph of them. Wish I had one of the boys, but I do not think we had class photographs for us boys in that time! Maybe I can be proved wrong!!!

But there are a few surprises in store for you in this publication.

Anyone having an undamaged copy of the picture of the class visit to the Sathe Biscuit Factory in 1954 should scan it and send it to me. The one that 59er Percy Mistri sent may may be too difficult to restore - but my photo experts are trying hard to restore it. Was the Sathe Biscuit Factory owned by our late Sudan Sathe's family? Is it still functioning and can anyone get me a photograph of it if it is still out there.

Anyone with snaps from our 1955 visit to Vasind should also let me have a scanned copy of it. Remember the Dead Chicken was reborn there!