Brinda Somaya - A great interview

 I just sat through this absolutely wonderful interview of Brinda Somaya.

Brinda is just a fabulous and a fantastic alumni colleague.

Many years ago I wrote an article which was a highly controversial one. It was called "Rural Urbanisation 2010". The original was written in 1976!

It harks back to a paper of the same name that Abraham Thomas (then Managing Director of the building group Southern Investments) and I wrote based on his book "The Affluence Machine" and my experience of running a beautiful farm which had belonged to the late Sir C. V. Raman in Kengeri, near Bangalore.

The technology of creating Rural Urbanisation existed 50 years ago and exists in much greater abundance today. We wanted to reverse the migration of the brural population to urban areas and yet create self-generated wealth in the rural urbanised areas.

Brinda talks in this interview about her experience in an earthquake devastated area in Gujarat where the villagers rebuilt their village based on their needs. 

This is exactly what Abraham Thomas wrote in his book and based on my farming exoerience, could see such development in every nook and corner of India without resorting to "Smart Cities" which will result in the same problems we face in Indian cities of today.

Thank you Brinda for being such a wonderful standard bearer for our school and in the world as a leading lady architect.

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!)

Newsy Notes 008 - Emotional Posting

Hi folks,

1. Fabulous Web Pages of School Renovation
2. Welcome back Noel Ezekiel
3. Sadhana Madhusadan (nee Shah) is also back
4. Cathedralite listedamong Top Asians in TIME magazine
5. Grandparents Club grows
6. 59er Reunion in 2004
7. email received from 54er
8. Photograph of Physics Teacher William (Willie) Shiri
9. Register at alumni.net
10. Petition signing online

I was intending to send out this issue over last weekend - but the
cricket commentary on the 2nd cricket test match between West Indies
and India coming in live audio over the internet from Port of Spain
kept me on my seats edge. I just did not get around to compiling and
sending this issue. (Of course, you can pay and watch the live
internet TV transmission over the internet also - but I hardly have
time to sit glued to a video transmission. By listening to the audio,
especially the very expressive commentary of Harsha Bhogle, I can
continue to do my work with the radio commenatary in the background.
Harsha just described a weak throw from the outfield by Harbhajan
Singh as putting one tea bag into 4 cups of water. Just beautiful. :-)

1. Fabulous Web Pages of School Renovation

I am rarely emotional. However, the mail I received from 64er
Brinda Somaya (nee Chinnappa) pointing me to her companies web pages

http://www.snkindia.com (click on the Projects button)

had me, as a Cathedralite, in raptures. You can see the excellent work
she has done in renovating the Junior, Middle and Senior schools .

I sent my comments to Brinda. She had her internet team make a few
modifications (what I thought were important) and then, voila (I hope
that is right as Mr. Ribi screwed my ears to make me learn this word),
the pages are now sheer magic.

When you visit the site, click on the images and the enlargements will
open up making you feel as if you are where you were 45 years ago and
yet give you the feeling of the wonderful restoration work that has
been done. The flowing colour images are just great and the impression
created made me want to visit school again as soon as possible!!

Well done Brinda.

As I may have mentioned earlier, Brinda is a childhood family friend.
The picture of her shows that she has retained her youth, beauty and
vitalism which is reflected in the marvellous work she and her team
have done for our school.

2. Welcome back Noel Ezekiel

As I was looking at the pictures of the Junior School, I remembered
trudging to the top, as my good friend, Noel, used to stay there with
his mother, whom many of you will remember.

As I mentioned several issues ago, Noel’s email was bouncing. So when
I received a re-direction of my last Newsy Notes, by Viney Sethi to
Noel, I hope I have got Noel back on our circulation list.

Hope he stays there as he has a habit off hitch-hiking all over the
world. I remember him landing up at my house in Shawbury, England,
35 years ago when he had hitched rides on Royal Air Force planes all
the way from Singapore to England!!

3. Sadhana Madhusadan (nee Shah) is also back

Due to an error on my part I was posting Newsy Notes to 54er Sadhana
at an incorrect address resulting in the mail bouncing. When Dara
Dastur wrote to me asking about details of the 54ers reunion, I
forwarded it to Antony and he told me to get in touch with Sadhana
Madhusadan (nee Shah). Instead of using my master list I used another
address book which had the correct address - and so Sadhana is back. I
am awaiting input from her about the 54er reunion, possibly in London
later this year.

4. Cathedralite listed among Top Asians in TIME magazine

As you all will know Sachin Tendulkar made it on the cover of the
recent TIME magazine when he equalled Dob Bradman’s number of test
centuries. But did any of you notice that Cathedralite Yusuf K.
Hamied, Chairman of CIPLA, was in list of top Asians.

In this context of Yusuf hamied I recall an email received sometime
last year from 49er Naval Patel.

Dear Jacob,                               

As introduction, I too was in the Class of 1949, a classmate of Yezad
Kapadia, Benjie Hayeem etc.  I was at Bombay University until 1954,
then read Chemical Engineering at Loughborough College in
Leicestershire UK.  From 1958 to 1990 I was with the ICI Group in
India, then with Tata Consulting Engineers until 1998.  Now my wife
and I have leisure to visit our children at length - our son is with
United Airlines in Chicago - and watch as much cricket on TV as I can
keep awake for.

Regarding cricket, I too was in the School 1st XI in 1949, then played
for the Cathedral Old Boys as long as I was in Bombay.  We entered the
Kanga League for the first time in 1954, in the 'D' Division which was
then the lowest one.  We batted first in our opening match, and I had
the honour to face t he first ball of the Association's competition
participation.  My opening partner was Yukub Hamied, who as I recall
was familiarly called Yuku.  He batted right handed and bowled left,
moderately quick by our experience in those days.  Yuku would have
passed out of School in '52.   Yusuf, I think, was his younger
brother.

We won our first two matches outright i.e. a two-innings r esult within
the six hour playing time.  The second of these matches actually
started only around 1 PM due to a wet ground, yet we won by an innings
after an enterprising declaration by our captain Mehli Lalkaka,
followed by brilliant bowling by him and Bobby Choonavala which
devastated the opponents, all out for 14 in mere 40 minutes!

I do not have details of further matches because I sailed for UK {yes,
actually by sea in those days, 17 days voyage!} immediately
thereafter.  I do know that we topped our Division easily and were
promoted to 'C' Division.  I think we did fairly well there too, in
1955, but perhaps were just short of further promotion.  Thereafter I
lost touch, but I believe migration of the principal players for
studies or jobs depleted the team severely, and they no longer
participated in the Kanga League after being demoted to the lowest
Division.

Incidentally my wife too is a Cathedralite, she was Armaity Mody at
School, a very successful athlete and netball player.

All regards

Naval Patel

I am still a bit confused. Was the 52er Yukub, the elder brother, and
Yusuf, the younger brother, the 56er.

Bobby A. F. Choonavala was in Singapore where he used to head the
Asia Pacific Region for Digital Computers. I think he was Chairman o f
Digital Equipment (India) Ltd. in Mumbai before it became Digital
GlobalSoft Ltd after the merger of Digital with Compaq. Any idea
where Bobby is these days as he must have retired by now.

5. Grandparents Club grows

I was very delighted to hear the 59er Ooky and Rivca have joined the
Grandparents Club. Their Cathedralie son, Akiva and his wife, Leena,
having produced a healthy baby boy. I have conveyed congratulations
to the happy grandparents and on to the parents.

6. 59er Reunion in 2004

Glad to say several have indicated their serious intent to make the
trip. So I have started working on the details and will keep you
informed as we progress. So start saving and let me know when you want
to make the remittances. I will ask Prof. Ajeet Mathur to make the
necessary bank arrangements in due course.

7. email received from 54er

From: dara dastur
Date: Fri Apr 12, 2002 08:46:30 Europe/Helsinki
To: Jacob Matthan
bject: Old Cathedralite

Hi Jacob,

I was at Cathedral & left in 1954. You had sent an e-mail to my
brother Kavsy in U.S.A, saying that there was going to be a '54 class
reunion this summer in London. I would love to attend, could you send
me details please? I'm retired now & live in the north near Durham.

Thanks

Dara

8. Photograph of Physics Teacher William (Willie) Shiri

Thanks to Chinny Chin Chin (nee Hasnain Chinwalla), as I would say to
my grandson Samu when reading the story of the Wolf and the three
little pigs, Hasnain from Canada sent me a great photograph of our
Physics wizard and master of the 50’s, Willie Shiri. This is now in my
archives.

Here was Willie's most recent input:

Hi Jacob,

Sorry I have been out of touch.....it is just this Age Factor, I
guess.   I haven't really been doing much else either.... except
filling in  Tax Returns for the Canada Customs and Revenue !    Don't
even sing in any choirs, having recently got out of the last one after
a month... their demands on my  time for fund-raising were unending!   

I still  sing... lustily.... in the bath-room  !!  Thought you'd
like to know.. after all, we did once sing in the same choir !!

Pushpa and  I are  interested in  your plans for a 59er Reunion in Finland
in 2004  since it is open to the old staff.    In spite of the
scarry dimentions of those local mosquitoes, Pushpa is inclined to put
aside her inborn mosquito-phobia, and is all eager  to join in !   This
is a spot we have never considered before for a visit.   This will 
give us a chance, apart from seeing some old familiar faces and  some
new ones, --a chance to see the midnight sun !  

We will, however, not rush in with our commitments . Considering the
frailties and  uncertainties that go with our ages, we should wait as
long as we are allowed, to be sure we are still fit enough to venture.   

We may be with  the last few to reserve our places !     

Pl. keep us informed of future developments.

Do you know if there is any special Reunion on the next Founders Day,
Nov.  '02 ?  Say, of the Class of '52  or  '62 for instance ?   Pushpa
and I  hope to be in Bombay between Nov 10 and 20, dates arranged
mainly to attend the Founders Day Service.  With our contact with you and
the Seventh Heaven  and reacquaintance with Nusly Pocha and some past
students via the Internet,  we decided  a year ago that Nov. 14 would be
the day to meet some.  Mr. Mohan Rao, we are hoping, will also be there. 

I expect the date  to be still  Nov. 14.  (?)  and that it is still a popular 
event.  

Well, Jacob, how about asking via your Seventh Heaven, each
of those  who attend school reunions, whenever it happens, to carry  a
period photo of himself ?   We both mean to do it.  I was looking at
some photographs of the Class of ' 60  taken when they got together in
2000.  They look so changed !   A few look amazingly unchanged,  while
a few others look almost my generation !! We hope we get a chance to
meet in Madras either Ranjit or Elezebeth (your siblings ) or both ! 
We will be there later in Nov. 02  I do have their email addresses.
Hope all is well with you in your new home. 

Keep well.  Regards to Annikki. 

Thanks again for all you are doing for all of us !

Willie

9. Register at alumni.net

Many of us are registered at Alumni.net which is one of the oldest and
most widely used alumni net pages. You can either cut and paste this
complete URL given below into your web browser and then register in
our School alumni. (Remove any line breaks when you paste this URL as they
would have been introduced because of the line lengths of this email. There
should be NO breaks.)

http://www.alumni.net/cgi-bin/affiliate.pl?email=findians%40findians.com
&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.alumni.net%2FAsia%2FIndia%2FMaharashtra%2FMumbai_%28
Bombay%29%2FCathedral_and_John_Connon_School%2F

10. Petition signing online

I was forwarded a link by Bhupinder Singh which I think should be
signed if you feel strongly about what is happening in Gujarat. You can find
the online petition hosted on the web by a free online petition service, at:

"Protest Gujarat Government's Behavior During Communal Riots"

See you soon and keep the emails flowing in . I really love to hear from you.

Regards

Jacob Matthan
Savage House Captain 1959
Oulu, Finland