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172nd Commemorative Service of the Founder By: Brigadier Saibal Raychaudhuri |
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La Martiniere |
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The School advertisement this year in the Telegraph (India) cautioned the "Old and ex Students" to be formally dressed for the Service and Dinner. Maybe our last report has had some effect. It stopped me in the tracks! Old and Ex Student? OK, I was old, if not ancient, and I was an ex Student. Did it mean that only the old and ancient were to come in formal dress? What about the Young and Ex Students? They could come dressed like a circus? Or was it because the old did not look too good as Punchinellos, in patchwork quilts, as the young ones possibly did! The Principal proposed and I humbly disposed! Mr Chakravarty, the new Principal, is reputed to be a strict disciplinarian, if reports are to be believed, and also a go getter. It would do me no good to be turfed out by the collar if I wore what is the standard 'formal dress' of the times - an unwashed T shirt, hanging out of a pair of equally unwashed and torn Jeans (that had the pedigree of the Gold Rush and rued those days), accompanied by worn out and smelly 'sneakers'! So, out came my blazer, grey trousers, light blue Arrow Shirt with cuffs, black shoes with laces and I was in my Sunday best! I threw in to the altar of formality, my hand tied bowtie to be at my formal best! My school tie was worn out and I could not make it to Messrs Das, the school haberdasher. Given my attire, Mr Charavarty, I am sure, would be elated that the money spent on the advertisement was well invested! This year, the Invitation Card for the Service and Dinner (called Lunch) was classier. The Lunch invitation was clipped on with the larger than life typography. Social butterflies of Calcutta would have died of envy seeing this card, since it was so picture perfect. Class was finally revisiting La Martiniere Calcutta! 13 Sep 2007 dawned on the world. The weather was perfect, though warm and cloudy. Not a drop of rain unlike the year before last torrential downpour. Those, who remember the Indian weather, would know that this is the monsoon time. And the rain actually fell on the Gangetic plain and not in the plain of Spain!! The invitation in the pocket, I toddle off to the school. I made it by 11.25 hours, weaving perilously through Calcutta's turbulently temperamental traffic. I rushed in to get a good seat, lest I got tucked into the rear and in the corner, from where I would have seen nothing but the backs of rather portly folks! Obviously, those who could not attend (being in foreign lands or for some other good reason) wanted a blow by blow account from a ringside seat, as if it were a Cassius Clay vs. Sonny Liston bout. This annual Report I believe fills the void! The crush for the Founder's Day tends to be heavy but this year many an ex student were seen standing at the rear door for the lack of seats. The Principal was good enough to apologies for this. The very helpful Vice Principal, Mr Francis, magnanimously waved me into a seat on the dais, right next to a huge circulator fan. He was very preoccupied with the activities and the melee that occurs when invitees troop in at the last minute. Being No 2 in any organisation, I assure you, is not fun. It is where the Buck actually stops! Jokes apart, Mr Francis is a real helpful person. God Bless him! The lady sitting next to me was not at all amused with the circulator ruining her beauty salon (I think it is so) coiffured hair. As a gentleman, I exchanged seats. There was the possibility that my military crew crop haircut would shield her from further environmental damage. The fan did no difference to my military crew crop and I did not care about haircuts. The last time it worried me was when I was in the Boarding and the 'puff' was the fashion statement of the time. However, you could blow me with a feather because a youngster, during lunch, found my hair 'funky'! I was not amused. Funky, as I understood meant being scared. Catch me being a funk! Catch a funk, knowing nothing about boxing as me, being shoved into the ring by Charnock House, just to squeeze that ever important point for Boxing championship and me emerging with a bleeding nose that did not want to stop! I will never forgive Jeremy Thorpe, my class mate from Martin House, for giving me the bleeding nose when he had promised that he would only give 'love taps' Some love tap indeed! And talk of match fixing falling flat! In so far as my hair being funky, I was later told it was the height of compliment since it was so freaky and cooooool! Mr Peterson * would be turning in his grave! God Bless him! As I moved on the trot to the modern air-conditioned Atmodaya Hall for the 172nd Commemorative Service of the Founder, the verdant and lush green expanse of the playing fields, that has been 'refurbished', zapped me right between the eyes like Captain Marvel in the Beatles song!. No longer are the fields forlornly bald! I did a double take. Bald last year, lush and verdant green this year! A miraculously pleasant change indeed! That was not all. The pathway from the rear of the Technical Block to the Chapel, where we did our Prep (it is no longer a Chapel, having been converted into classrooms) had some of the stone blocks of the Steps, of our times, that had the names carved out! It appears that someone, with a sense of Public school ethos, is trying to restore the history which had been removed by someone who had no sense at all of traditions bestowed by history! I wonder where the remainder of those carved names in stone are! All will be pleased, as I was, to note that sports are being given importance of late. Rugby has made its comeback and the School and the School team is playing the local outfits. This indicates that the present Management is attempting to regain LMC's pristine culture, tradition and ethos. The powers that be should chip in with greater zeal. Heady with these wonderful discoveries, I walked into the Atmodaya Hall. The Founder's Day Service commences dot at Noon, without fail, every year. This year it was about 10 minutes late. Someone had blundered! The traffic is bad, but then one must cater for it and come early and have a cup of tea or whatever the school gives to the personage who occupies the front row on the dais. At 12.12 hours, the Procession of the School and House Flags moved in and the personages of import swayed merrily in, to the lilting strains of the Processional Music, "Chorus from Judas Maccabeus" by Handel. This year, every song and every piece by the School Orchestra was heavenly. One does not know if it was because of reengineering of the acoustics of the hall or was it that the student vocalists and musician were of higher calibre than before. Hopefully, the latter! And we can thank Mr Abraham Majumdar, the Music Teacher, for that or so I am told. The late coming of a VIP not being bad enough, the lights went off as the wreaths were being laid at the Founder's bust! Ron Weber's Overtures of G Major "Allegro", magnificently played by the School orchestra, took the tension off. It was immensely pleasurable that there was no panic, and all kudos to the School Administration that what usually occurs when the lights go out during a tightly scheduled programme, was totally absent, and was overshadowed by the calm efficiency that followed. The Vice Principal, Mr Francis vanished in the wings and the power was restored and the proceeding rolled on. It is a tight ship that is being run these days and thank Heaven for that! The Canticle, William's 'Let us now Praise Famous Men' followed. Mr Menezes, our Music Teacher, would have surely endorsed 'has a ear' in every report of those who sang it. They sure had beautiful 'ears', that is, if one who sings can have beautiful ears! I used to always wonder as to why Mr Menezes endorsed this in my report. I have not one ear, but two! It is only later I realised what it meant! Believe it or not, but I was a crooner in a restaurant in Allahabad and it sure proved Mr Menezes right, even though I had a preference to Elvis! Maybe the cats on the hot tin roof liked it and that too after midnight! The Boys' School Principal, Mr Chakravarthy thereafter said the prayers and the audience joined him in the concluding Lord's Prayer, accompanied by the Orchestra. Between the First Lesson (read by a wee girl shorter than the height of the mike) and the Second Lesson (read by a boy so tall that the mike was practically near his belly button) was the First Anthem, Runyan's "Great is your Faithfulness" sung by the Girls School Choir. Mellifluous would be an understatement. It was heavenly perfect! The girls marvelled me by their beauty when I was in school and now they marvel me with their sonorous voices! In short, they still marvel me! Mrs Peacock, the Girls School Principal, led the School Prayer and the Boys' school choir wrapped up the proceedings before the Sermon, with the second Anthem, Malcolm Campbell's, "I will give you Glory, O god my King". The Chorus and arrangement was that of Mr Abraham Majumdar's. The professionalism of the School Orchestra ignited my desire to see Zubin Mehta perform so that I could discern if indeed there was a difference! No offence meant, Zubin but our School Orchestra is really good and our vocalists are as good as Luciano Pavarotti, the famed tenor, who recently died in Italy! The Rt Revd Raju, the Bishop of Kolkata, in his Sermon that followed, compared the shepherd with leadership and compassion. His powerful sermons every year charges me to write, with all honesty, these Annual Reports of the Founders Day. In fact, I write it out immediately, before the reality of life takes over and fiction takes hold! The Hymn this year was "The Lord's my Shepherd" and it was sung with all the reverential lustiness that is the trademark of our Schools. The Blessing by Rt Revd Raju given, the Presentation of the Medals was given. This year I have the Girls school medal tally too, courtesy the kindness of the Lady Principal, who handed me her copy immediately after the Presentation was done. A kind lady indeed, though she with total charm did not allow me to smoke after the Founder Dinner at the Millennium Hall, as I chatted with a Pratt Memorial girl, who is a teacher of English, at the Girls School! Smoking is still not encouraged in school or so she told me. For those who don't know as I did not know, The Millennium Hall is the answer to the Boys' School's Atmodaya Hall and it is located where the Girls' School garages were! As Shelley wrote, "If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?"! Maybe I am being an MCP. The list of medal winners are available on request or else it will overflow the article. After the Sermon, Mr V Sarogi, an ex LMC boy and MD of Balaram Chini Mills Ltd, who was the Chief Guest, gave his address. It was an address that would have warmed the cockles of any Martinian's heart. It has the nostalgic and was straight from the heart but with a message for the youth! Nice speech, Sarogi! Mr Sarogi, by the way, is a bigwig and a distinguished member of the Indian Industry! I wish someone will call Lt Gen John Mukherjee* to address the Founder's Day since he would know of leadership better than anyone having commanded a Corps in Kashmir! Guess what? John is a Christian but he screwed up the Grace during lunch, when I was in the Boarding! But he is a great chap and loved in the Army since he was straight, honest and fair. Dr Alfred, the Chairman of the Acting Board of Governors (why Acting? No one knew), gave the Vote of Thanks. This time it was indeed a vote of thanks. He thanked all, not in an all encompassing way, but as individuals and entities. A very nice change indeed! Well done, Dr Alfred! He peppered his speech with humour as it should be, since many, at this hour look forward to the tuck in that was in the offing and are sure distracted. This year, the fidgeting was less pronounced and the laughter genuine! The circulator fan, next to me, had overheated and the noise was deafening. I leaned forward to hear the jokes but it was gone with the wind, so to say! The laughs from the audience indicated that there were some good jokes being given and all I was getting was hot air and noise! I love humour and I sure was disappointed missing it. If I were a still a schoolboy, I would have thrown that noisy machine into the bogs! Talking of the bogs, it has given way to classrooms! Imagine that! Classrooms, classrooms everywhere, but not a 'bog's be seen! The only place that is not a classroom is the Round Chapel! The 'Aloo Tak' alcove is also a classroom! I wonder if they still have a Tuck Shop or even Johnny, the Ice Cream man! The School Song and the National Anthem followed with all the reverence and gusto at each's command and then we all moved for the Founder's Dinner. This year there was no mad rush to dampen the stomach growls! It is getting better all the time, as the Beatles would sing. There was a light drizzle on, but by the time we had reached the Round Chapel to go to the Girls School, it had stopped! God has his undecipherable ways! He does look after the hungry and deprived, even if not poor! The Dinner/ Lunch was not as per the Founder's Will and instead was a sumptuous modern day tuck in. Indeed there were real hungry people around, if one gauged it by the overflowing plates that one saw. Old and Matured men and women sure turn hungry little school children on this Day, and with the way the fish fries were in short supply, they do become Oliver Twists working overtime! The Founder's Dinner was hosted at the Millennium Hall instead of the Constantia because it has been leased out. It appears that the Millennium Hall is a better place for having the Founder's Day Dinner. It is bigger and it is air conditioned. It could be that, or it could be that the fare was better cooked and was tastier! This year I allowed all and sundry to go ahead of me as last time my blazer received a 'gravy bath' by an over eager grabber of the culinary goodies on display. Before partaking in the Dinner, the Grace was said and violins accompanied. The Toast to the Founder taken, the fork and knives rattled away more furiously than machines guns at Kargil! However, a better wine would be appreciated than the potable Vinegar that is served for the Toast! One could do it with water instead, as it is done for the President, since the bottled water given for the Dinner, is of quality! The Wine was not. A word about the hospitality of the School. The teachers of both the Schools and the administrative staff were all over and each was busy asking if everything was OK. Now, how many schools can boast of such caring and loveable people? They really are good hosts and a great example to the budding youth in the art of selflessness. This year I witnessed the Football Match between the Old Boys and the School. The School won 2-1. The Boys' School Principal sprung a surprise. He asked me, being the oldest of the Old Boys, to hand over the prize and give a speech! It was a great Founder's Day for me! While I was leaving, I noticed that there are a whole lot of construction activities in the school. The teachers' accommodation next to the Tennis courts of our times (which produced the Indian ace Jaideep Mukherjea) and where the Hennesseys and the Suarezs lived has vanished! Where 20 teachers lived on the premise (if my memory does not fail me), only 4 can be housed around the school now! This view connected with Dr Alfred and his Vote of Thanks, during the Founder's Day service. He had informed us that the School was spreading its wing to Rajarhat (20 acres, was it?) and also on Moira Street! The School was going to be a beehive of prime education! It sure is an interesting phenomenon, where there will be many La Martinieres in Kolkata itself! I could not attend the Old Boys Do in the evening because it had been a very hard and long day for my creaky bones and the tension of the Calcutta traffic does wear me down! Can't afford another car nor am I a Cat with nine lives! Another interesting fact I learnt was that the School had 2483 students and only 46 boarders! I think in our times it would have been about 600 or 700 and the Boarders would have been half of the student populations? The boarders I learnt were the backbone of the school's prowess in sports and games, since after 1.30 PM, the school looked like a ghost town of the western movies. I wonder how, inspite of that, Calcutta continues to defeat Lucknow! Some feat, I must say and all kudos to these Calcuttan Androcles to take on the Lucknow Lions!!
*Mr. J.W. Peterson taught English
and History. |
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