SH-Issue 12: 960922

Hi Cathedralites,

Shocking Newsletter Contents

I received the rather shocking newsletter from 93er Vivek Sikri with the unprovoked attack by an individual on 94er Vikram Somaya.

I am glad that it ended with an apology but it would be interesting to know what provoked such an attack in the first place, especially as in all my life I have never ever encountered a Cathedralite who expressed himself as fiercely as this one.

Am I getting too old - or is that what the school system of today breeds. I remember 57er Kashinath Dandekar making a plea to tone down the language as we old-timers probably are not used to such strong verbal presentations.

Missing Persons

I wonder why Vivek has a few well-known missing persons on his list - and in this I particularly refer to the mother of Vikram Somaya, 64er Brinda, and her sister, 62er Ranjini, who I gather are both on the Internet.

Bombay Support

I do hope the Bombay support that 69er Rohet Tolani was proposing is soon in coming, as I have loads of requests for information about various aspects of the school which I am holding on to. It would be nice if Bombay would have its web site up with all the historical data for us to link to and also refer the enquirers to - such as the early history of the school, the relevance of various names, list of principals, words of the school song, etc. etc.

School Buses

In our days in the fifties we used to have BEST supplying the school bus service. A bus used to pick me up from my home on Cooperage Road at 7.45 and proceed down to Colaba Causeway and round behind the Taj and reach school at 8.20. the evening buses used to leave at 16.15 and reach me home by 16.45.

I can still remember many of the persons in my bus round. The monthly charge used to be Rs. 15 - which was a large sum of money those days as the standard bus fare from Regal to school by A4 was about 2 annas or later 12 paisa. I shifted to the public service when I reached the IXth Standard as there were so many things to do before and after school that I hardly could keep to the bus timings. saved a grand sum of Rs. 7.50 as a result which meant I could see a few more movies over the weekend (where the good seats cost 12 annas or 75 paisa). I do remember seeing "Rock Around the Clock" (Bill Hayley and the Comets).

Knowing the explosion of Bombay, I must imagine such a bus service would probably be an impossibility, considering the traffic jams that exist all over Bombay. It would be interesting to hear from some of you what sort of school bus service now exists or do all the students turn up now-a-days on their own flashy Kawasaki 500 cc mobikes!! Just wondering.

End of Reminder Messages

I am afraid that I will need you to subscribe separately to be able to continue to receive these reminders as the whole process seems to have got out of hand with my postings touching about 3000 every fortnight and the number of wrong addresses resulting in returns amounting to about 10% every time. My mailbox is just crammed with returned messages so it takes me a while to get to my normal mail. Most of the returns are people who have registered and then not informed me about change of address, etc.

Our main site has expanded at such a remarkable pace that I am getting fully tied down with getting these three webletters up every fortnight and also getting the mailing list out that it has really not left me much time for the investigative journalism for which my web pages were originally created.

Hence Cathedralites who want to get a reminder from me should send a SUBSCRIBE message to our email address as otherwise from the next issue you will not get any reminder.

Regards

Jacob Matthan
Savage House Captain 1959
Oulu, Finland
The Polar Bear Cathedralite from the Arctic Circle

SH-Issue 11: 960908

Hi Cathedralites,

This week is just a very short memo about how ridiculously small the world is.

A few days ago I received email from the mother of 94er Vikram Somaya, who is known to almost all of you as the maintainer of the Cathedral School email directory. I was a bit shocked when 64er Brinda Somaya (née Chinnappa) asked me whether I was brother of 62er Elizabeth. She went on to explain her connection.

Elizabeth, my younger sister, Cathedral School Girls School Blue House Captain in 1962 (I think) had been the classmate of the elder sister of Brinda Somaya, Ranjini Kalappa (née Chinnappa).

In addition, when my father, the late Kuriyan Matthan quit his post as Chief Engineer of BEST in the mid sixties and joined the Killick Nixon/Bombay Suburban Power Distribution group, the father of Rajini and Brinda, Mr. Chinnappa had asked his childhood friend from Bangalore, my father, to take charge as Engineering Manager of the fledgling Tata Consulting Engineers, a small consulting group which had been formed to engineer and maintain the power projects belonging to the Tata group.

Under the guidance of Mr. Chinnappa, Tata Consulting Engineers grew from a small Consultancy Company into the largest private Engineering Consulting company in India with offices in Bombay and Bangalore, the home town of both my dad and Mr. Chinnappa.

When my father fell ill in the early seventies and had to retire, Mr. Chinnappa asked him to organise and set up the offices of Tata Consulting Engineers in Bangalore and be the Resident Manager. So our family connection with the Chinnappa's went far deeper than just the fact that Ranjini and Elizabeth were in school together!

Although much junior to me, I can recall Ranjini and Brinda, both of whom, I understand, are now thriving architects and even architects to our school.

Elizabeth, by the way, finished from Cathedral, did her Masters in Nutrition (I think) from MS University in Baroda, married an Engineer who worked for UNICEF involved with setting up milk projects in developing countries, lived a colourful life in various parts of the world (has two dughters neither being Cathedralites) - Brazil, New York, Kampala at the time of Idi Amin, Nairobi, Dubai, etc., and now, as her husband has retired from the UN, is settled in Madras!

Those of you semi-dinosaur Cathedralites (me, like 57er Kashinath Dandekar, 57er / 59er Bhupinder Singh Anand and 59er Bala Parasuraman are the dinosaur group) who want to establish contact with Elizabeth, should get in touch with me for her address - sorry, no direct email contact at present.

More interesting anecdotes and personality assassinations in a fortnight,

Your Cathedralite friend,

Jacob Matthan
Savage House Captain 1959
Oulu, Finland

SH-Issue 10: 960825

Hi Cathedralites,

My hockey tale seems to have struck a chord in many of you. Thanks for all the nice words. I think I just enjoy writing about these events. I am so glad that you all seem to enjoy reading about them.

The sequel to that drawn game was not too good. The following year we had to travel to Bishops School in Poona to play them on their home ground. Our hockey team was really oriented to playing on grass. The pitch at Bishops was just plain earth and gravel and we could do nothing right. It was just to dusty and messy for us. I had no grip on the ground and was slipping all over the place. All the great saves I made that day, and there were plenty of them, were pure accident.

Hockey Team of 1959
Back Row: Andy Gordon, Mistri, Maurice Belcourt, Arvind Thadani,
Trevor Newnes, Ashok Kapur
Seated: Noel Ezekiel, Vijay Nayar, Jaffar Hussain,
Mr. Jagdish Pande, Viney Sethi
Seated on the ground. Jacob Matthan

I had a very difficult game. I was a slightly better goalkeeper than the previous year, having matured rather well, but even my heroic efforts could not stop us being trounced fairly and squarely - I think it was 3-0. Not a game I would like to remember as it was pobably the largest score line by which we ever lost any game.

That trip to Poona otherwise was really a great one. The Ruias had a guest house in Poona. Our group of about 15 did not stay at the Bishops Dormitories but at the Guest House. It was great fun as it was extremely well equipped and the Ruias had a great vegetarian cook at the Guest House. Ashok and Anil were great hosts.

Do the sporting contests with Bishops and Mayo College in Ajmer still occur or have they been replaced by the school taking part in the local circuits?

Now, the much promised story - about Jesse Owens.

I joined Cathedral in 1954. I had transferred from Bangalore where I had studied at Bishop Cottons, which was great school with plenty of playing fields - we had a first eleven cricket pitch and right down to a fifth eleven playing pitch.

So sports was part and parcel of the way of life of us Cottonians. I was therefore taken aback to find the school in Bombay without a single sports field within sight.

I had asked our class teacher, Mr. Timmins about this. He promptly put me down to take part in the school athletics championships which was hardly a few days hence.

I entered the high and long jump (the days of egg and spoon races were far gone by then) and I was asked to turn up at the CCI for training. Being lanky and springy and having had the benefit of the sports culture of Cottons, it was a piece of cake, except I had to come second, as my elder brother was in the same juniors group. He took the first prize while I came second, both of us breaking the junior high jump and long jump records in the bargain.

This double win by these two brothers from the south made us exteemly popular and we were in great demand for all the sporting events - for Savage House.

Just about that time we heard that Jesse Owens was going to visit Bombay. There was much excitement in the air as we heard that he was going to visit the school. That was a false rumour. What had been arranged was that he would conduct a training session for some of the members of our school at the CCI. Both my brother and I were among those chosen to take part in the training session.

I hardly understood a word of his American English as he talked to us and told us how to do the straddle and western roll - a far cry from today's style of high jumping. But the real thrill was when he showed us how to do really do the long jump. He did not have to talk, but he showed us that as we left the ground we should start pedalling as we if we were riding a cycle. I think within a couple of jumps we were doing a foot more than previously.

To my mind, it was one of the most rewarding evenings of my life having had a chance to spend a couple of hours actually being trained by this almighty individual. I am sure that if Indian youngsters were given this same opportunity today we would motivate them to become winners in the sporting arena.

Your Cathedralite friend,

Jacob Matthan
Savage House Captain 1959
Oulu, Finland

SH-Issue 9: 960811

Hi Cathedralites,

Continuing my reference of last week to Mr. Pande, he was in charge of our hockey team 1st Eleven when I reached the Xth Standard. There was quite a tough battle for the post of goal-keeper between a good friend, the late Ghatge, also of Savage House, and myself.

In my opinion, Ghatge was a better goal-keeper than me. However, I was more regular for practice and I was the more sociable fellow. So I got the into the team.

1958 Cathedral Hockey Team
(59ers unless otherwise mentioned)
Back Row: Maurice Belcourt (61er), Viney Sethi, Ghatge, Arvind Thadani,
Ashok Kapur, Andy Gordon
Seated: Vijay Nayar, Harmindar Uberoi (56er), Jimmy Tata (57er),
Mr. Jagdish Pande (Staff), Jaffar Hussain (58er)
Seated on ground: Jacob Matthan

We had a good team in 1958 with most of the players being from our class. Viney Sethi was centre forward, Ashok Kapur the inside right. Rodericks was a very fast outside right and Trevor Newnes was extremely fast on the left flank. Vijay Nayar (hockey captain the following year) was a solid left half-back. Captain of the side was 57er Jimmy Tata for part of the season and 58er Jaffar Hussain (related to film actress Nargis) for the latter part. We had a great full backs in Arvind Thadani and 57er Jimmy Tata.

With such efficient full-backs I really did not have much work to do except when Mr. Pande or Mr. Zavala, our Peruvian Geography master (he was far better at football than hockey) came pounding down on top of me in the staff versus students match. Tall and sportsmanlike, the late Mr. Salmon, our English teacher, was also a fast staff forward that I had to contend with, although he was more of a cricketer than a hockey player. Mr. Gregory (our Chemistry teacher) was also always attacking and if it had not been for our half and full back line up, we would have been licked thoroughly by the staff side. However, on most occasions our fast forwards were able to keep the score line in our favour.

Mr. Pande used to make me train with my pads on, that is run around the hockey field with the heavy pads strapped on. This meant that I was literally doing double the training of my team-mates. It did stand me in good stead later.

The key match of that year was when the team from Bishops School in Poona came to Bombay. It was an early morning match at the Bombay Gym. I had been warned of the lightening speed of their outside right Dudley (if I remember his name correctly).

Our team played brilliantly but we just were unable to score a goal. The ball never came to me right through the first half. All through the second half we kept pressing but did not get a goal.

It was just a few minutes before the end when, suddenly, Dudley broke loose on the right flank near their 25 yard line, left Jimmy standing and outstripped Arvind just past midfield. As I saw him reach the 25 yard line there was no one but me for him to beat. Normally, I would have charged to the top of the D to cover the angle, but seeing his speed and excellent ball control, I held my ground just advancing a few steps to reduce his shooting angle.

Dudley came hurtling toward the D and was in perfect control. I think he was surprised that I had not rushed out to meet him. As he entered the D, I made as if I was going to rush him but stopped dead a couple of steps in front of the goal-line. This prompted him strike the ball hard and fast into the left corner of the goal, thinking he would catch me while I was moving.

I do not know what made me put out my left leg. The ball smacked hard into the curve of my foot, just below the pad and stopped dead! I think I was more surprised than anyone else. I had been certain that he would try to dribble past me.

I kicked the ball slightly in front of me and hit it hard over of the sideline just as Dudley, looking for the rebound tumbled, on top of me.

There were cheers from all round the pitch. I knew my place for the next year was safe - though it was certainly not my skill!!

Those few seconds of the drawn match were the talking point of the entire school social that evening. The guys from Bishops were a great set of lads and we had a wonderful social that year.

Query from Arnav

This week I had a very nice letter from 91er Arnav Sheth (1980-1991) who sent me a message while holidaying in Bombay. He asked me a question as to whether I could confirm whether the School Song had been written by Rudyard Kipling.

I am afraid, sitting in this Arctic Wilderness, I could not get hold of much of the works of Rudyard Kipling. Maybe one of you knowledgeable Cathedralites could let me know who authored our School Song, and probably also post me the full version so that I can put it on a separate page for reference purposes!

Arnav mentioned that the institution where he studies at in the US, "Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin, is regarded as a mini-Cathedral because at one point in time there were a total of 8 Cathedralites studying there at the same time."

It is great that there is a institution which supports Cathedralites to such an extent. Arnav mentioned that Lawrence is known for the aid it offers to Cathedralites. Arnav says that rumour has it that the Dean of financial aid has said that they almost always give aid to Bombayites (of which 90% are Cathedralites) as we, apparently, have the highest GPA amongst internationals.

Sorry, no room this week to tell you about my episode with Jesse Owens, so hopefully you will listen to that tale in the next installment.

Your Cathedralite friend,

Editor Jacob Matthan
Savage House Captain 1959
Oulu, Finland

SH-Issue 8: 960728

Hi Cathedralites

Thanks for the great turnout in casting your votes about which book I should serialse for the web. Due to a technicality (Finns have been on holidays for the last two weeks) the poll is going to be open for another fortnight, so if you have not cast your vote, please do so now.

I think most of you have been in a holiday mood, as besides filling in the poll form, I did not get a single email comment from any of you out there.

This week I want to share a few thoughts about a couple of very nice teachers.

Mr. Jagdish Pande

Mr. Pande on the right with other retired staff members

Mr. Pande joined the Cathedral School staff after I joined. He was a great guy. I think that of all the teachers of my day, he survived the longest after I left in 1959.

Mr. Pande was taken on by the school sometime in the mid-fifties to introduce Marathi, as the four language formula had just been introduced. He was not very successful at teaching us Marathi, but he was a wonderful badminton player and he also took over in charge of the hockey First Eleven. He played a rough and good game of hockey. I will in a future issue tell you some more about his hockey training methods and a couple of great games.

In our time we had to study Marathi up till the Standard X. It was not important to pass the ansnual exam. Hence, Mr. Pande had a difficult time holding our attention. I think I just about managed to learn the Marathi alphabet in my 4 years. I did go to the house of a good friend, Vinay Dabholkar, to study Marathi, but usually we all ended up playing games like hide-and-seek in his large rambling residence overlooking Horniman Circle!

Our level of school badminton was especially good, not only because of the interest shown by Mr. Pande, but because we had the two Ruia cousins, Ashok Ruia and Anil Ruia, in our class. Mr. Pande organised the quad badminton championships besides our Inter-house competition. I enjoyed a good game, even so that today, with my portly figure I am still able to give my 23 year old son a tough fight when we have a turn.

The father of Anil Ruia was the President of the All India Badminton Association at that time. As a result, we did get to see all the great foreign and Indian players that came to Bombay (Mumbai) at that time.

Both Ashok and Anil were natural players and with the good encouragement given by Mr. Pande, they performed extremely well in the competitions of those days. If I remember right, the younger brother of Ashok, whose name was Bharat, was a tiny little fellow, but he too was a wonderful badminton player.

From what I hear Ashok is now more active on the Bridge and Golf front these days and Anil has busy running his industries. However, I wonder what happened to Mr. Pande?

Mr. Timmins


The late Mr. Timmins, Savage House Master

When I shifted from Bangalore to Bombay in 1954, I was supposed to join Standard VII, but there was just no room. The luckiest thing that happened to me was that Mr. Gunnery gave me a place to repeat Standard VI.

The class teacher in Standard VI was Mr. Timmins. He was also House Master for Savage. As Bala put it in an email to me, all newcomers were shoved into Savage, so I too was shoved into that House. I have no regrets as I did become the House Captain.

Mr. Timmins was a good maths teacher and a very good class master. Thanks to him, I fitted into the school without the slightest hitch. Within a week I felt as I had never been to any other school in my life. Our classroom was next to the Physics laboratory on the first floor.

Well I guess that is all for this week. Do write as I need some needling and prodding once in a way to keep up this tempo.

Some items to come

Probably next week I will tell you some of the interesting events that made me, and my brother, popular within the short space of a month at the school and also about the visit of Olympic star Jesse Owens to the school.

Regards
Cathedralite Jacob Matthan
1959 Savage House Captain

SH-Issue 7: 960714

Hi Cathedralites

Thank you Bala (Bala Parasuraman - Savage House, Senior Cambridge 1959, A Levels 1961) for putting me straight about the late A. Glynne-Howell. Glynne-Howell was his surname (to be expected) and his initial was A for Alan.

Bala also provided an interesting memory which I too do recall:

* I remember that he used to like me because my map drawing skills were quite good. I also remember a funny incident that took place one day. Farouk Kanga and I used to sit close by in class. We happened to be talking one day, when old Glynne-Howell spotted Farouk trying to pass me something (it might have been a post-card or something). Anyway, Farouk realized he'd been spotted and his hands froze under the desk. Glynne-Howell then remarked in that dry, wry voice of his "Mr. Kanga, remember, all good sailor boys keep their hands above deck!"

And this comment came from Kashinath Dandekar (1957):

Apparently Mr.Glynne-Howell (Geography and Football - Ed:???) carried four handkerchiefs with him. Their purposes were as follows:

One for show,
One for go,
One for any other use, you know
And one for emergency.

This week is not time for anecdotes but for some planning. I had a very nice letter from 69er Rohet Tolani in Bombay: Date: Tue, 02 Jul 1996 23:49:21 +0530

From: Rohet Tolani
Subject: Cathedral Connection

Hi Jacob

Heard about your site from (94er) Vikram Somaya. It has been delightful going through your anecdotes from years gone by. I am involved with the Cathedral Alumni Association in Bombay. Last week we decided that it would be a good idea to set up a permanent official Cathedral Alumni Website. Consequently I started to look around for what already existed on the web and came across pages by (93er) Sikri and (94er) Somaya. I think all of you have done a great job to try and bring together web surfing Cathedralites and we would like to complement that with a site which is supported by the organizational infrastructure we have here.

As starters we would like to make available on the site the entire alumni directory, the association's newletter - "Catcall", news of happenings at the school, news of alumni, profiles of prominent alumni, etc.

I hope to meet with Vikram soon as he is in Bombay for the summer. I would like to get ideas and inputs from people like you and him who are quite a bit more "web aware" than we are in India. So please do give us your thoughts, suggestions and advice how we can set up a really successful site that can help bring together the old boys and girls,

Regards

Rohet Tolani
Class of 1969 (ISC)
Wilson House
Mailing address et al
10-A Bakhtawar, Nariman Point, Bombay 400 021
Tel: 202-6878 (Off); 386-1818 (Res)
Fax: 287-0697 (Off); 387-2429 (Res)

My reply to Rohet was that we should not duplicate what others are doing but to bring it together as a composite under one banner, and that this is very easy to do on the web. Someone should take the responsibility of maintaining the index page of Catcall (Web Version) and have the links to all the web pages with introductory summaries so that they form the pages of a great web magazine.

For instance, instead of starting up another Alumni Directory, the Cathedral School page which already exists on the World Alumini Directory would probably be the best to have as a page in our Catcall. Several of us are already registered there and they have a Bulletin Board, etc. already established - and it will cost no-one any time or money.

Editors for each 5 year period could be established with the responsibility of putting up pages of their period - so that people can go straight to the pages of their greatest interest. Bombay could concentrate on putting up pages about the history of the school, bio-datas about principals, present activities, etc. Some of the pages would be permanent while others would be magazine style like mine.

The web offers so many possibilities to develop this concept and I am sure that we can have the best web magazine up with very little stress and effort on the part of anyone. And it will not be dependant on any one person or organisation - it will run for time immemorial.

In this vein I had a message from 82er Moshin Ahmed

Date: Tue, 2 Jul 1996 18:36:42 -0700
From: Mohsin Ahmed
Subject: Hi, Cathedral

Hi Jacob,

I read your columns about Cathedral school with great delight. I was there around 1977-1982 (8-12th), also taught there around 1986. I liked your style of writing, though I was from a different era. I could imagine the things that happened then.

I am planning to add similar material sometime on my page at:

http://www.cs.albany.edu/~mosh/

~mosh/Cathedral is just starting out.

Did you know, a friend of mine here (a few doors from my office) played the school song on his flute. I wish I could record it and put it on my home page. Did you have the hymn book then? I have one at home in Bombay and I miss it here.

- Mohsin.

This characterises my point that his page would form one stone in our Catcall magazine. A student and a teacher, Moshin will certainly have a lot to contribute in his web page.

On the other hand I did have a message from Hormuz Minina:

Date: Thu, 4 Jul 1996 05:11:00 -0400 (EDT)
From: Hormuz Minina
Subject: Re: Cathedralites - Issue 6 of Seventh Heaven is UP

Hi Jacob,

Well as feedback I suggest you e-mail the news letter.

Cheers,

Hormuz Minina
(http://www.eyedrum.org/index.asp)

I pointed out to Hormuz that mine was not a newsletter but a webletter to which he replied:

Date: Thu, 4 Jul 1996 06:03:30 -0400 (EDT)

From: Hormuz Minina

Yeah, but I don't see the difference. You are mailing everyone to tell them that the new Web letter is out... Well, then why not just insert it? ;-)

Cheers,

Hormuz

Well I do not want to get into an argument, but maybe someone can explain my reasons for keeping it as a webletter rather than as a newsletter - I am sure many of you are more competent at that considering what I have suggested above. I would like to stop sending out those annoying reminders, which would be possible if all of you used some good reminder service as URL-minder.

However, the opinions expressed, both by Stephanians and Cathedralites (as well as my hundreds of regular readers of Findians Briefings) was almost unanimous and is summarised in this letter from 90er Vinay Jayaram:

Date: Thu, 4 Jul 1996 02:29:08 +-100
From: Vinay Jayaram
Subject: RE: Cathedralites - Issue 6 of Seventh Heaven is UP

Hi Jacob,

Well, here it is, perhaps your first Cathedralite reply. Unfortunately, I am walking out of the door as we speak, so I cannot talk. But here are my vital stats:

Vinay Jayaram
Completed 10th in 1990
. Wilson House
Famous teachers who taught me:
Kuriakose, Hallegua, Lewis, Nepali, Kapur (Geography), Chatterjee/Singhal (Hindi), Paulose/Sharma (Chemistry), Nagia, and many others.
My new e-mail address is vinay@ibm.net

Please continue to send me updates.

Vinay

So the web is the meeting place, the communication point, the information point - and not just a dumb one-way newsletter as we can interact so much more on the web.

Please do not forget that I am an old foggy and my views may be archaic - so, you can just stop reading my web page if you do not like my style and never know anything about us on crutches, or you can join us by sharing your experiences.

I am hoping that Vinay will tell us about all those great teachers as I do not recognise a single name in his list.

I seem to have overrun my space quota for this week, but I think we have got the system of Seventh Heaven working thanks to all of you who do take the trouble to communicate. And do visit my main page if you have some time to spare. Please also take some time to visit and register in GOPIO - the new link is now operational as Professor Thomas Abraham from Columbia University was pestered by me so much so that he changed the site address and put up the page where it works. The register button was not functional but you can register by email.

Regards
Jacob Matthan
Savage House Captain 1959
Oulu, Finland

P.S. How many of you feel I should change the name of the page from Seventh Heaven to something else - it has a lot of meaning for the 1959 crowd - but not to anyone else. I would appreciate your comments on this.

SH-Issue 6: 960613

Hi Cathedralites

(sorry to Kooler Talk (Web Version) readers also visiting here for some duplication),

Ad at the top

You may have noticed an ad at the top if you are using Netscape. It is part of a contract with a Portugese group that all my web pages will carry a rotating ad at the top. If it offends anyone or affects your access time or download time, please do let me know. I shall reconsider whether I keep it at the top of the Seventh Heaven page. (Ed: I have to try to earn some money sometime - I am not very successful at that task!)

Annoyance

In the last issue I asked whether my annoying reminders should stop - I have a posting of just over a hundred messages to Cathedralites. I received a total of 0 replies. Well this split the response 0/0/0 (undecided), so I am continuing my reminders. Any of you that wants out should let me know.

GOPIO

May I please direct you to the Global Organisation of People of Indian Origin (GOPIO). You can read the letter from Prof. Thomas Abraham from Columbia University in the Letters to the Editor on my main web page. Do take a break and visit it and the appropriate link.

The late Mr. A. G. Glynne Howell

Well a few words about Glynne Howell.

I came upon this absolutely delightful gentleman when I was in the VIII Standard and decided to take up Latin as one of my alternate languages. Anything to get away from the throttling hold of Marathi and Hindi. Glynne was a great teacher. He started off the first lessons from a book called "Ora Maritama" or "The Sea Shore". That is probably the present limit of my knowledge of Latin, as although I was interested, with so many things to do in school, I had little time to mug up a dead language. (Anyone interested in sending me the words of the School Song?)

When I entered the IXth, Glynne Howell was our Classmaster. His special subject was Geography. He was meticulous in his presentation of the subject, immaculately written on the blackboard. He fostered my interest in the subject so that I went on to get a distinction in it at the Senior Cambridge examination.

Glynne Howell was always dressed to perfection with a creaseless suit, starched white shirt with appropriate armbands to hold up his sleeves so that the chalk dust would not make them dirty, perfectly pressed trousers and tie and a neatly folded handkerchief in his top pocket. His attendance register was a work of art. He never permitted anyone to take attendance in his absence as he did not like his register messed up.

He was quite unlike Stan Pharoah who was always dressed in a sloppy grey cotton coat and equally baggy white trousers. Also, unlike Stan, Glynne Howell was an intensely personal individual. I never ever had the opportunity to meet or know his family.

Secularity


School Prefects 1959:
Back Row: Chainani (58er), Noel Ezekiel, Vijay Nayar, Ramesh Mirchandani, Ashok Kapur, Andy Gordon, Neelam Lakhani
Center Row: Elijah Elias, Nuabir Mohindar, Balani, Arvind Thadani, Peter Miovic, Abe Stevenson (58er), Armeane Choksi, Vijay Shivdasani, Nalin Dharia (57er)
Seated: Michael Colaco (58er), Viney Sethi, Bhupinder Singh Anand (57er), Principal G. G. Gunnery, Abe Hayeem (57er), Jacob Matthan, M. André (58er)
Seated on Ground: Ashok Advani (58er), Trevor Newnes

The IXth was a year in which we really had a lot of fun before we got the serious task of getting ready for the Senior Cambridge. We were a truly international and secular class. I the A Section we had an American (Bobby Anderson), a Baharaini (Wabhir Zayani), Britishers (John Beddoes and Jimmy Jameson) and a Yugoslavian (Peter Miovic). We had Hindus (Bhakley, Chadha, Dhabolkar, Ghatge, Kapur, Kurma, Nayar, Ruias (Anil and Ashok), Sethi), Parsees (Choksi, Cooper, Kanga, Mistry, Modi, Moos, Singara, Shroff), Christians (Colaco, Matthan, Rodrigues, Singh), Muslims (Ahmedbhoy, Chinwalla, Currimjee, Hoosein), Sindhis (Lakhani, Thadani), and also three Indian Jews (Solomon, Hayem and Haskell - it was the year before Elias (alias Ooky) joined the school) and others - must ask Jangoo to rattle off the attendance register. The B Section was equally secular.

We all lived in total harmony. (Forgive me if I forgot anyone - 40 years is a long time to remember all your classmates names. Some like Bala Parasuraman and Narayan Sesachar got added between the IXth and the XIth while a couple from this list moved to the B Section or left. The A Section was the Science stream and the B section the Arts stream.)

Many a time I have been asked whether being a Christian in India had been a handicap. In truth, we were so secular in our approach that I never once thought about the religious background of any of my classmates, especially as a comparative factor. The only time I realised there was a difference was when we stripped our shirts for PT class and the Parsees would have their special type of cotton vests which no one else had.

I do not know whether this secularistic attitude is the case in most schools, but my secular and international attitude for life was definitely sown during the time I was in Cathedral.

More in a fortnight

Jacob Matthan
Sacvage House Captain 1959
Oulu, Finland