67ers plan their 40th year reunion

I had an email from a fellow 67er, Hira, who had seen a mention of 67er Shobha Jhunjunwalla (née Agarwal) on one of my web pages and asked to be connected to her.

I did connect them.

In return, Shobha sent me an email telling me that she was busy planning the 40th year reunion of their class on the 14th of November.

Some of the 67er bevy of beauties
at their 37th year reunion.

The last time the 67ers had a reunion, Shoba and Anita Watamull sent me some wonderful photographs, some of which I was able to put up in the 37th year Reunion page.

As we reflect on reunions, this last week my mind was drawn to one person who, with humour and dedication, brought together Cathedralites from all corners of the globe - my dear friend, the late 57er Behram Badhniwalla (aka Budhni).

Monday October 8th would have been his 66th birthday.

As the 57ers plan the final touches of their 50th Reunion programme, I am sure that all of them must be reflecting on the life and work of this wonderful human being that they must celebrate for getting them together the way are today.



My heart goes out to his wife, Carmelita. Budhni worshipped the ground she walked on.

May the spirit of Budhni reunite all Cathedralites in the common cause of dedicated service to their fellow men and women with a joyous smile on our faces.

Johnny in the news

I had this query from 49er Naval Patel in Mysore:

Ivo Tennant's account on Cricinfo of the Darrell Hair prosecution now in progress in London refers to "former England batsman" John Jameson "who was called for his expertise on the Laws of Cricket."

Would that be "our" John Jameson, and have you seen any mention of his official position which qualifies him as having expertise on the Laws of Cricket?

Jacob, have you got John on your roster?

Regards Naval

You can find aspects about this case mentioning John in this report cited by Naval at Darrell Hair tribunal, 3rd day: Reverse swinging in the court: Ivo Tennant in London: October 4, 2007

Here is a Profile of Johnny from CricInfo:

Full name John Alexander Jameson


Picture, courtesy John.

Born June 30, 1941, Byculla, Bombay (now Mumbai), Maharashtra, India
Current age 66 years 96 days
Major teams England, Warwickshire
Batting style Right-hand bat
Fielding position Wicketkeeper
Other Umpire, Coach

John Jameson was a solidly-built opening batsman with a propensity to attack rather than defend, and who on his day was one of the cleanest hitters in English cricket. Add into that his brisk medium-pace bowling, a good slip fielder and, on occasion, a reliable stand-in wicketkeeper, and it was clear to see why he was so highly regarded at Warwickshire. His international opportunities were limited and were undone by his habit of being run-out - three of his first four innings ended that way, including the first instance of it happening to an England batsman twice in the same match. In the Caribbean in 1973-74 he top-edged the first ball he faced out there for six over the slips. In 1974 he featured in a world-record second-wicket stand of 465 with Rohan Kanhai, and the following summer was included in England's World Cup squad. He retired prematurely in 1976 to coach at Taunton School (his alma mater) before becoming a first-class umpire (1984-87) , Sussex's coach (1988) and then MCC's assistant secretary in 1989. As late as 1994 he was still playing for Warwickshire's Over-50 side, despite bad knees which left him with an increasingly rolling gait.
Martin Williamson

John is very qualified to comment as he served as an umpire between 1984 and 1988 in English first class cricket and was also the Assistant Secretary of the MCC. He is much respected in all cricketing circles.

John is a Savageite and was one of the outstanding sportsperson while at school. He would have been an international in any sport he chose.

I had a chance to play hockey, football and cricket alongside John. I especially remember one football game at the Oval where, between the three of us, my brother, Ranjit, John and myself, we turned certain defeat in a House Match into a victory due to John leading us from the front. He greatly encouraged my slow right arm leg spin bowling and gave me a sufficient time to get among the wickets. Even as a schoolboy his field placings are something I remember vividly. We won games because of how he handled us.

We Savageites missed him sorely when he left school to move to England?

Yes, John is on my roster.



I have this great picture of John submitted to me by one of his childhood friends, 57er Aubrey Ballantine, brother of the late 54er Pamela Ballantine (Pamela was awarded the MBE for services to race equality, London Borough of Redbridge in October 2000 just a few months before her sad demise).

And if you search through earlier entries of this blog you will find an appreciation of John's dad by 56er Ubi (HS Uberoi). John's father was a great friend of our school in more ways than one.

57er Reunion Programme

Here is what all of you have been waiting for. The letter from the Chairperson of your 50th Year Reunion Committee:

Reunion week – Cat ‘57

Hi Everybody !!

This message comes to you from our Beautiful Bombay !!

We have been working towards finalizing the programme for our Reunion Week. Many suggestions have come in from various classmates, and we thank you for your interest and enthusiasm, which we are sure will really bubble over when we meet in November.

Programme: One of the main suggestions that came from many of you was that the official functions stretching over seven days would leave little time for people to get together in smaller groups with your closest classmates, many of whom you would be meeting after 5 decades. After a lot of discussion, we finally decided to merge the dinner planned for Monday November 12 with the dinner on Wednesday November 14, reducing the official programme to six days.

We do know that many of you have planned your arrivals according to the original programme, but as so many have said, it will give you all an opportunity to touch base with each other on Monday 12th and also to catch up on your memories of the Bombay you knew.

Attached is the final programme summary. Timing of each function and some final venues will be confirmed later. Apart from the lunch on 14th Nov, which is for classmates only, your spouses are invited to all the other functions.

Function hosts will also be inviting Cathedralites they know well from other years.

Church service : Since the school can only reserve a limited number of seats for our class, we would all need to arrive early to be sure of getting seats. If not, we are all still young enough to stand if we have to !

Class Photo : All the “boys” should bring a jacket for the photo.

Catalumni Function : Everybody would need to communicate directly with the Alumni Association about their participation in this function on Friday. The details would be available on the Alumni website. It will be fun for you to catch up with Cathedralites from different years, so do join in. We hear last year's event was a big blast.

Budget : There is now only one contributory function, the lunch (for classmates only) at the Bombay Gym on November 14. The expenses for this lunch, together with other expenses to be incurred for the souvenir book, photographer, photo discs and other incidentals are estimated at Rs 1500 per classmate.

Dharini (Bhogilal) Anand has been appointed as Treasurer for collection of funds, her tel no is + 91 22 2281 3353. Those who live in Bombay are requested to give the money to her after 15 October, as she is currently out of town. Those who are arriving from out of Bombay or from overseas can give her the money on arrival in Bombay. If any funds are left over after the accounts are completed, it is felt that we should donate it to the school for an appropriate use.

Participation Form : Many of you have already sent in your RSVPs on the website created by Billoo Bhatnagar and some of you have sent it in various e-messages.

Unfortunately, the website has run into glitches (as many websites tend to do !). Also, Billoo had some surgery recently. He is much better now, but unable to sort out the glitches. We, therefore, request you all to send your RSVPs again, and sincerely apologize for the inconvenience, but we do need it asap to put the numbers together for each function.

To make it simple, we have attached a participation / contact form - pl fill in the number of people attending each of the functions (keeping in mind that the Lunch on 14th November is only for classmates) and mail to avantico@bom4.vsnl.net.in - even if you are not participating at all, please do send us the completed form.

Once again, apologies for asking you to repeat this exercise, but all of you would have had your own experience of website glitches and how they can mess life up !

Best wishes from all of us in Bombay, we will be in touch with further info.

Pramila

I have set up special web pages of the PROGRAMME and the PARTICIPATION FORM that Pramila had sent by email. But she informed me that many emails bounced.

You can see, either by clicking on this link, the detailed PROGRAMME or by visiting this URL:

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=djgrxzs_4ff4bvm

You can see, either by clicking this link, the PARTICIPATION FORM or by going to this URL:

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=djgrxzs_3fzw6hq

Please act fast to remove the suspense of the Organising Committee who have done a grand job of getting this far.

Some of you are Oh so...

Today, I had an email from 54er Sadhana (née Shah) Madhusadan from Pune.



Gopa (Sadhana's daughter), 54er Sadhana, me and Timo (Gopa's husband)
at the Pailin Thai Restaurant in Oulu when Sadhana visited us here in early summer.

Some friends have found it very delicate to send an email to me to find out if I was OK.

54er Gracie (née Hayeem) Bent Lerno sent an email to Sadhana asking "Do you know if all is OK?"

And that was because she had received this email from 56er Doreen (Feibusch) Heimlich which said:

Dear Gracie,

Trust you and your family have been keeping well; --

We've been forwarding each other all sorts of interesting things lately, but I've been wondering if you've had any Update(s) from Jacob?

The last entry on his cathedraliteheaven blogspot is from June 26th.

Has something changed?  Can you please let me know?

Love

Doreen

Doreen, Gracie - you are both so sweet. Love you both.

I guess that the next time I go off line for a period, I should put up a broad sign on all my blogs.

The single most important reason I did go off was that comment from the Anonymous Commenter asking me to get a life, away from my blogs, not knowing that all you wonderful friends out there ARE MY LIFE!

I had inadvertently forgotten to add Ranjit Mathrani to the list of 57ers. (I am sure it was not Budni's fault but mine.)

Not only is he very much around, he will be hosting one of the events for the 50th Year Reunion of 57ers in November.

My sincere apologies to Ranjit, whom I remember so well, for leaving his name off the list.

Emails to two 57ers are bouncing.

One is that of Pop Pharoah's elder daughter, Marguerite (née Pharoah) Sparks. The other is Shireen Desai.

I have sent an email to 61er Claire (née Pharoah) Knight to find out about her sister.

If someone could clarify the situation about Shireen, I would be grateful to help me put the Master List straight. (It is possible that in Shireen's case there are 2 "e"s in her email address user id.)

I tried to speak with 56er Ubi on Skype yesterday. Although I got through, the speech was breaking up and finally the connection got cut. This seems to happen between my computer and calls to India. Anyone give me an explanation?

Ubi seems to be enjoying his retirement in the same vein as me. Wish he would start blogging as he is a wealth of info about the school, and he is on the spot.