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!)