Looking Back: 37 years of Blogging - Journey of Self-Discovery

Golden Reunion of 59ers, 2009, at late 59er Ashok Kapur's residence in Alibaug, hosted by his wife, Madhu Kapur

I got this email last week from a regular reader of the Seventh Heaven Blog from Italy:

Jacob you have really and truly persevered!

Sunday, April 21, 1996

SH-Issue 1: 960421

April 21, 1996!  

almost 30 years ago! and your ginormous project had most probably started even before, also because unlike me you remember so much from school days and also what followed, even if you were isolated in faraway Finland!

and this is to say, most probably to repeat, that I am fascinated by the enormous amount of data, of facts, of entries and posts you have put together, a little at a time!

and yes! Seventh Heaven was certainly a webpage I read with great interest, particularly when the personal stories of cathedralites and the teachers were posted!

and now here we are ANOTHER school! the Junior Middle and Senior schools were the first, then the little one (probably it was Sunnyside where my youngest sister went) for the younger kids on Malabar hill, and now the IB section!  this is really proof of Cathedral standing through the ages!

check if the name of the new house is SAINT Thomas, or only Thomas... I have a little doubt about that

love Jacob

and a hell of a lot of admiration!  

Keep it up!

Barbara

Barbara is right. It is not St. Thomas House on DN Road, but Kodak House is now Thomas House. I am glad to be corrected. I also love her “Italian” English: :-)

And then  I had this email from a regular reader from Canada:

Dear Jacob

Thank you so much for your writings, your blogs, your photos, your messages. I love reading all you write though I don't say so every time. 

Please keep them coming.and looking forward to your memoirs.

Love and hugs to Annikki and you, Sheila

It is with this encouragement that Annikki and I still keep blogging.

We started to look back at our blogging history. In our Jacob’s blog blogs on general matters, there are almost 1000 blog entries. Our Seventh Heaven blog is exclusive for Cathedralites with almost 500 blog entries.

This blog journey started on 21st of April 1996 where I paid my tribute to 94er Vikram Somaya and 93er Vivek Sikri, who were my inspiration to start my web pages and this blog Seventh Heaven for Cathedralites and then in 2007, my Seventh Heaven Google Group for 59ers.

The blog has now hit 495 posts. My Google Group for 59ers has shared some 12200+ posts and discussions. 

This has been my great interest to put together trivia information about our school.

I thought that as Founder’s Day (14th November 2023) approaches, I would reflect on some of the highlights of the last 27 years of this blog and 16 years of the Google Group for 59ers. (This also includes many editions of Newsy Notes that I have sent out occasionally.)

Before I start this journey, my first stop is to restate my thanks to the Gang of 18 who took me out of severe depression after my heart failure and amputation of my right leg and put me back on the road (sadly not behind the wheel but in my wheelchair) when I received a Christmas Gift in June 2021 of a brand new iPhone and a MacBook Air just as my antique iPhone 4 was dying and my trusted 2011 Mac Mini was on its very last legs.

This Gang of 18, behind my back (and that is very difficult to do), got together across the world (Canada, India, Israel, Malaysia,  Saudi Arabia, Singapore, UK,  US) and got delivered to my doorstep in Oulu the dual gift which rekindled all the bones in my fingers. 

We were back on the road to rehabilitation. Those in  the Gang of 18 were:

Late Hasnain Chinwala (Chinnie) (Canada)

Robert Tyabji (from Malaysia)

Vikram Savara (US)

Adi Cooper (Mumbai)

64er Rustom Dadabhoy (Mumbai)

Elijah Elias (Ooky) with wife, Rivca (Mumbai)

Nihal Kaviratne (Singapore)

Vijay Nayar with his wife, Meera (Delhi )

Captain Vijay Shivdasani with his wife, Suchita (Mumbai)

Mark Sopher (Israel) with my younger daughter, Joanna

Ratan Singara  (Mumbai) with  Annikki and me

Wabhi Zayani, (Saudi Arabia)

'

Prof. Sudhir Anand (UK), 

Ellis Hayeem (US)

Noel Ezekiel with his sister, Fleur (US)

Late Jack Haskell (US)

Viney Sethi with his wife. Purnima (US)

Arvind Thadani (US) with Viney and me (1960).

However, let me start at the beginning.  

I have the Annual Prize Distribution and Speech Day brochures for the years 1949 and 1950 which were sent to me by 1954 Doreen (née Feibusch) Hemlich from the US.

There are lot of familiar names in this list. 

My three oldest readers, 49ers Sheila (née Contractor) Vaney (wife of late 49er Peter Vaney) in Canada, Naval  (and 54er Armaity (née Mody)) Patel, Bengaluru and Yezad Kapadia from Delhi, feature prominently in the prize lists.  

The late 54er Pamelaf Ballantine, School Captain in 1954 and who received the MBE, also features also in the prize lists. (Balsara Prize for English, Scripture and Class Prize, Scripture and Honours Prize).

You will find many names you will recognise in these pages. 

Hope you enjoy perusing them at leisure just as much I have had putting them up.

Sheila got the Anglo Scottish  Education Society Prize and also the prize for the Best Prefect. Naval got the prize for Mathematics for two years as well as the prizes for French, General Knowledge as well as Astronomy.  Yezad got the Baria Medal for School

Captain  as well as the Macdonald Medal for Leadership. 

It is also nice to see such names as Yoku Hamid in these lists.

I get a few of motivating messages and emails from Naval every week. Like me, he is a cricket fan, and so we share a common vice! Glued to our screens when we should be doing something better!

Sheila sends Annikki and me absolutely beautiful handwritten cards and letters that we treasure.

Yezad is a constant virtual companion and his daughter, Ruki,  in Helsinki is an adopted daughter to both Annikki and me.

Naval  and 57er Fleur Ezekiel (our first ever Miss India) and elder sister to 59er Noel, children of Mrs. S.  Ezekiel, a senior teacher in the Girls School, both sent me First Day Covers when the school stamp was released, knowing I was a serious Stamp, Postcard and First Day Cover Collector.

An invaluable  part of my school memorabilia 

First Day Cover of release of our School Stamp in 2010.

I would like to tell you much of my life and episodes in school between 1954 and 1959. However, this is covered fully in my memoirs of this period which will be released in the not too distant future.

But one episode from my school days has to be related here.

 

When we went for a school picnic in 1955 to Vasind River, I drowned in waist deep water due to cramp. I was saved by an ever vigilant PT Master Arthur Morecroft. 

He pulled me out of the water and resuscitated me. I came to life again. 

I remember Mr. Morecroft every day of my life.

When he pulled me out of the river and took me ashore he was holding me upside down from my legs. Viney Sethi called me “Dead Chicken”. 

Hanging in my living room is Annikki’s depiction of this “Dead Chicken” pair.

Annikki’s depiction of Mr. & Mrs. Dead Chicken.

My travels and work since I left school have been exciting. 

In 2009, we had the Mother of all Reunions, the 59er Golden Reunion. Besides over 100  classmates and their spouses who attended, we were fortunate to have Bill and Pushpa Shiri, John Billington and Mr. D’Zousa  attend our reunion. 

John Billington wrote a guest blog for me here.

My interaction with Cathedralites continued when I joined St. Stephen’s College in Delhi. 

Late MP Rahul Bajaj had just finished. But 57er Ashok (Tony) Jaitly and 58er Dr. Peter Philip were there. 

I joined with 59er Sujit Bhattacharya. Although Rahul had left college, he had left a legacy there. Thanks to the support of my fellow Cathedralites, I was elected President of the College Residents in my second year, something that had never happened before and has never happened since.

Several dual alumni members, as Gopikiran Rao and Ravi Nangia were on my list of Seventh Heaven readers. 

I am sure there are others, and I would love for them to contact me.

The greatest tributes that I received for my small contribution to our Cathedral alumni was firstly when in 2009, at the alumni dinner, I was presented with the new version of the school tie designed for the 150 year celebration of Founder’s Day.

The other was when I reached Delhi, 64er Deepak Deshpande held a special meet of Delhi Cathedral School alumni in my honour. and it was graced by the late MP Rahul Bajaj, who would have normally returned for the weekend to Pune. I was so happy to meet my old friends, Ravi, Ashok (Tony) and 1960 School Captain Jyotsna Jaitly. Jyotsna has married my Stephanian year mate, Ambassador HE Siddharth Singh. 49er School Captain Yezad Kapadia, 59er Girls School Captain Harmohina (Rani Uberoi) Malik and 59er Boys School Captain Vijay Nayar were also there to greet us. This group picture tells a thousand words. (Full list of participants is in the link.)

It was a proud moment for both Annikki and me to be so honoured.

 

Over the years, in over 450+ blog entries, from 1996 onwards, I have tried my best to honour my fellow alumni who have achieved so much in their years of professional life and have been a beacon for my life.

But above all are the friendships I have made from Cathedralites from 1941 to the present day.

54er Gracie (nee Hayeem) Lerno

Late 56er Harminder (Ubi) Uberoi

Persons as 54er Rumi Kapadia and Gracie Hayeem, late Harminder (Ubi) Uberoi,  59er Bhupinder Singh Anand, 71er Prof. Ajeet Mathur, are just a few  examples, but there are thousands who have interacted with me over the last 38 years. Gracie and Ubi were constant sources of information for me.

Each one is not just a name but each is a personality from whom I have learnt the value of being a Cathedralite.

As years progress we are growing old and we sadly lose our friends year by year. 

I restate that the reason I started this blog was that when I reconnected to my classmate Bala Parasuraman in 1996, I was really enjoying our many connecting emails. He took leave of me to go for a kidney transplant, never to return.

My pledge that day was to reconnect with all my classmates and alumni so that we can share our live's values together.

 

Whether I have succeeded is in your hands to pass judgement. Annikki and I have tried to do our best.

The Gang of 18 showed me what true friends are made of. 

We have lost two of them recently, with the passing of my constant online companion, Chinnie, (who was my worldwide photographer) and later dear Jack (whose music will live on forever). We also lost Arvind’s wife, Gita. And then dear Bill left us. 

,

But it is not just the Gang of 18 that has kept my juices flowing. Three 49ers with their ever presence, Yezad Kapadia, Naval Patel and Sheila (nee Contractor) Vaney, have made life so beautiful. 

54er Gracie Hayeem from California, late Sadhana (née Shah) Madhusadan from Pune and 56ers Primla (née Kapur) Madhok, Joan (nee Rees) Austin, late 57ers Budhni Badhniwalla and TonyJaitly, 64er Rustom Dadabhoy, Deepak Deshpande, Anil Kapur, Kishore Shivdasani and Rajiv Ved, 67er Shobha Jhunjunwalla and Rajiv Bhatia and 69er Barbara  Rossi Monteveichi from Italy, are amongst those with their constant feedback, have rnade sure that I was in touch with the world around me. And from the alumni association Rohet Tolani, Rajiv Bhatia, Viral Doshi and Shyla Boga Patel, have kept me in the loop over the years, making me feel wanted. 

Not to mention dear 64er Brinda (née Chinappa) Somaya in my list eould be criminal. I have several past entries about her and her son Vikram on this blog!

Little Barbara in the school Kindergarten.

When Barbara was a tiny little girl  in the kindergarten, Gracie Hayeem taught her as her nursery teacher. I was able to connect them! And this is their and our wonderful memory!

Barbara’s kindergarten book signed by Gracie Hayeem.

They are still both dear friends. 

Gracie was my absolute rock as she was able to put me in touch with many past as Kim I.

I must thank all the Cathedralites who have taken the trouble to travel to remote near Arctic Finland so we could meet, even if it was only for a few hours! Annikki and I have enjoyed sharing our fellowship with you.

49er Yezad Kapadia, 54er late Sadhana  (nee Shah) Madhusadan, 57er Sunil Sahni, 59ers Elijah (Ooky) Elias, Viney Sethi, Narayanan Acharaya, 64ers Kishore Shivdasani, Brinda Somaya, 71er Prof. Ajeet Mathur, 04er Ashwin Kumar,

Let me be honest: One of my greatest pastimes is just going through my posts on my Seventh Heaven blog as it brings so many wonderful memories to my mind. There have been inputs from so many of you documented here that I could link almost everyone mentioned here to a specific blog entry that I had made. The list is endless. At this old age, it is one of the best pass time hobbies. 

If you have any memories to share, do send it to me.

On this Founder's Day I find  the words of our School Song resound loudly but I, from Oulu, Finland, shout instead "World skies"!

“Play up the School" Let it rip! Let it thunder!

Let it resound to our Orient skies!"

 

Cat 64er Brinda (nee Chinappa) Somaya

Cat 64er Brinda (née Chinappa) Somaya

Brinda

Anand and Brinda

I just saw on Facebook a post by Brinda (née Chinappa) Somaya about the renovation of Thomas House on DN Road in Mumbai carried out by her company, SNK, one of India’s leading architectural companies.

Brinda, born as the second daughter to Mr. K. M. Chinappa and Ganavati, who were close friends of my parents from their Bangalore days when my dad and Ganavati were childhood friends.

When my dad moved from the post of Chief Engineer of B.E.S.T and joined as Engineering Advisor to Killick Nixon, of which Bombay Suburban was part, K. M. Chinappa, who was a Board member of Tata Sons, requested my dad to get the Tata Engineering Consultancy Services (TECS) which was a small operation of Tata’s working out of a premises at the dockside end of Carnac Bridge 

Dad took on the challenge. With a handful of young engineers, TECS  was soon moving. They started with power plants. Within a few years TECS became the leading engineering power consulting company on par with the Government owned Engineers India. 

Dad’s office moved to Bombay House near Flora Fountain, but he spent most of his time with the engineers at their office. 

TECS was initially involved with setting up all types of power plants, especially thermal and nuclear, all over India. With the steady guiding hand of Mr. Chinappa and the executive engineering experience of my father in power generation and distribution, there was no stopping this team which grew quickly to 400 top quality engineers of all disciplines in Bombay. (Later. after his retirement, my dad started the Bangalore operation of TECS which grew from a handful of engineers to over 500 engineers.)

Chinappa and Ganavati were regular visitors to our home in Bhaktavar at the end of Colaba Causeway. The building was owned by the largest private shareholder of Tata, the building group, Shaporji Pallonji. 

The fabulous apartment was a perk which went with dad's job. Our immediate neighbour were the parents of the late Cyrus Mistri, Pallonji and Pat Mistri. Pat was a classmate of my elder brother in Cathedral School.

But I digress, as the children of Chinappa and Ganavati were also regular visitors to our home. The elder daughter. Ranjini, was a classmate of my younger sister, Elizabeth. The younger daughter, Brinda was a lovely little girl.

School photo of Brinda who is on the extreme right. (Photo from Brinda’s Facebook site)

Our paths did not cross for many years until I connected with Brinda's son, Vikram, who was studying in Yale University in the US. He had started a list on internet which connected Cathedralites. (Presently Vikram is SVP, Chief Data and Analytics Offcer in PepsiCo and a member of the Board of Directors of Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment.)

Because of Vikram's pioneering hard work, I started the Seventh Heaven website connecting Cathedralites world-wide with nostalgic stories from our school past. 

Our readership grew by leaps and bounds. It was later turned into this blog. Out of this I started the Seventh Heaven  Google Group  in 2005 for my 1959 classmates, known as the 59ers. 

“This Seventh Heaven Google Group was set up in 2005 by Annikki and Jacob Matthan (Moderators). It had been meant for 59ers from Cathedral and John Connon School, Mumbai, India, to discuss issues which would lead up to the 50th Year Reunion in November 2009.

Their 50th Year Reunion is over. It was the Mother of All Golden Reunions. It was 7 days of fellowship, fiesta and frolic and fun in Mumbai and Alibaug.”

This Google Group is still going strong as we move to our 65th Reunion, which I hope will be absolutely novel.

I hold the group together. We are now still 67 strong.

Beause of this bond, we were able to organise the Mother of all Golden Reunions in 2009, attended by over 100 classmates and spouses with a week long of events and dinners, and Annikki and I brought out the Coffee Table Directory and we also hosted a Findians evening.

59er Group photo taken at Madhu (w/o Ashok) Kapur's Alibaug home. (Photo Novcember 2009 by late Hasnain  Chinwala, )

Just before that, in October 2009, Brinda and her husband, Anand, a leading cardiovascular doctor in Bombay visited Helsinki. Annikki and I drove down From Oulu to meet them and shared a very pleasant evening with them and Ruki and Devinder Kumar. (Dev had been instrumental in the launch of Nokia Mobile in India and then moved to Nokia Finland.) 

 

49er Yezad Kapadia, his late wife, daughteer Ruki and her sister. from New Zealand, in Helsinki.

Dev's wife, Ruki, is the daughter of Yezad Kapadia, Cathedral School Captain in 1949, who was a regular reader of my Seventh Heaven website and also a member of my Google Group for 59ers and later also this Seventh Heaven blog. 

Brinda was so kind to hand over two books to me, one on her company, SNK, and another on the traditional architecture of Coorg, one of the most beautiful parts of India.

In this blog I will concentrate only on the work of SNK as far as our school is considered.

Many years ago, when Brinda and her team did the renovation of what is now called the Senior School, what at our time was the Boys School, they discovered something hidden.

When I joined school, it was in the 6th Standard. Next to us was the Physics Laboratory. When they started to do the renovation, they found a room between the 6th Standard and the Physics laboratory which had be boarded up many years ago and forgotten. It was a small chapel with beautiful stained glass windows. It had been boarded up to prevent damage due to war.

It was a great find.

There were several other photographs shared which brought back fond memories of our school.

Front entrance

Name plaque

First floor lobby

Inaugural Stone

Chemistry laboratory

School Hall

Staircase to heaven

School quad

School quad

Classroom

Chemistry laboratory

Pictures of the Middle School (formerly the Girls School) and the Junior School (formerly the Kindergarten) were also outstanding pieces of renovation work. These are documented in the SNK publication.

The latest renovation that Brinda posted on Facebook was of Thomas House on DN Road. I produce these pictures I retrieved from Facebook

Brinda and her team.

I am not putting any data of Brinda here as there is a wonderful Wikipedia page about her to which I can add nothing. All I can say is that she is  tribute to Indian women who have succeeded despite male chauvanism and the patriarchal society that has prevailed in our country for generations. 

Compliments to her wonderful late parents and the amazing Coorgi community, which I know so well and who have served our nation in so many wonderful ways.

Special thanks to Brinda's son, Vikram, who put me on my way to be of some small service to our wonderful Cathedralite Community.

(My very first issue of Seventh Heaven in 1996 is a thanks to Vikram Somaya!)

Living and coping with dementia

It is heart breaking to live a tragedy unfolding in front of you, day by day. 

This blog entry tells a story of our lives, Annikki and Jacob, as it is today and the history behind it.

As a postscript to this entry, I have added an AI generated essay about dementia.

Please the full blog at:

https://jmatthan.blogspot.com/2023/09/living-and-coping-with-dementia.html

Outstanding Alumni: Padma Bhushan 54er Rahul Bajaj

My second choice for my Outstanding Alumni Series, Padma Bhushan 54er/58er Rahul Bajaj, is another person who shared two alumni with me - Cathedral and John Connon School in Mumbai and St. Stephen's College in Delhi University.

Rahul was appointed as a Prefect in Standard 10 in school, an honour whim ch two 59ers, late Ashok Kapur and me, share with him. Like me, Rahul was also House Captain - of Savage House! 

Unlike me, he was also brilliant in studies. I was certianly deeply interested in sports but I was a very average student. I was fortunate to do well in my studies. I was no where near becoming 9th rank in the whole of Bombay State, as did Rahul! This is well evident in that Rahul has used his academic brilliance to build his industrial empire and received the Padma Bhushan in  2001 and in 2016 stood 722 in the Forbes List with a wealth of around $2.4 billion!

This is a revealing quote from Rahul which appeared in 2008:

"1946, we shifted for business purposes from Wardha to Mumbai. From then, till I passed out my senior Cambridge, I was in Cathedral School.

I did very well at school and passed out in 1954 with a distinction securing 9th rank in the whole of the then Bombay state. I learnt a great deal at Cathedral. The teaching methods were very good and there was a lot of personal touch.

I became a Prefect in Standard 10 and a Prefect and House Captain in Standard 11 and my classmates always wondered how I could be so good at studying and yet fulfill all these responsibilities. I was also the School Captain in table tennis and boxing. I also debated." (India  Today April 4th 2008.)

When I  arrived in Cathedral School from Bangalore in January 1954, I observed many of my seniors. Being my House Captain, Rahul was an immediate hero in my life. 54ers Antony Ramsinh, Ravi Jaitly and School Captain Sonawala were three others that made a deep impression on this new Cathedralite!

When I joined St.Stephen's College in 1960, when I told the staff, including the then Principal Sircar and Dean Rajpal, that I was from Cathedral School, Bombay, they all told me that I had big footsteps, those of Rahul, to fit into!

Rahul's accomplishments are recorded on the Wikipedia page about him.

I was greatly honoured when I visited Delhi with Annikki in 2009, 64er Deeepak Deshpande organised a get together of Delhi Cathedralites as a token of his respect for me. It was well attended, but what was the greatest tribute was that Rahul, then a Rajya Sabha member, who normally returned to Pune for the weekend, stayed on to attend this evening event. Rahul took the time to ask me a few pertinent questions about my life in Finland and also what India could learn from this small country which was then considered to be the most Innovative in the world!