SLOBA
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SLOBA |
We are happy to inform that the number of Life Members is steadily increasing. At last the young as well as the younger member has started feeling it is important to be attached to the Alma mater. This is the only forum at the place where we all grew up together and spent a very large part of our lives and where you can spend two hours a week without selfish interests.
This has enthused us to bring out the second edition of our SLOBA Directory of members on December 05, the day of the AGM/ Reunion this year. We request all of you to help us in getting the latest information about yourself and friends you are in touch with. We need the updates, in the prescribed format as given in this Newsletter by October 31, 1999 to enable us to compile the data by the first week of November. Please forward the details of your friends who you are in touch with.
Since we have the election to the governing body of the association on the same day, we hope our Election Commissioner Sri Brati Shankar Ghosh will not have any objection so far as the date of the launching is concerned. We are expecting a record gathering this year. We assure you that we shall also try our level best to live upto members' expectations. This will be a dress rehearsal for the Millennium Reunion on December 03, 2000.
The activities of the association are also increasing, as is evident from the contents of this newsletter. We are grateful to our President for allotting a separate room for our office. This is the erstwhile fees counter and thanks to generous donors, the SLOBA office now has computers too. We intend to keep the office open on another evening in the week for those who can't to make it to our Robibarer Adda owing to other commitments. Also, the increase in official work is making this absolutely necessary. I hope it will bring us closer to what we were.
The Cricket Coaching Camp run by the members of SLOBA has become very popular. The SLOBA members who have their sons studying in the school are forced to come to school on Thursdays and Sundays at 7 o'clock in the morning. As their sons play cricket, the fathers have started playing football in order to spend time effectively. It is indeed a great sight.
We request all of you to get involved in the activities of the association. With your support, we can make the existence of the association felt to society at large. The manpower now available, apart from a handful of committed faces, is mostly seasonal, and the percentage of change of face is about 80% in June every year. Friends, we have a lot of expectations from you too. On the lighter side, if we don't deliver, we are likely to be thrown out by you, in which case you will in any case have to do much more than what you are doing now !
Ayanava Majumdar :
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Fr. Wavreil s.j.
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Mr. Siddharth Dudhoria
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Mr. Moloy Banerjee
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SLOBA has now taken up the ambitious project of updating the members'
directory and the second edition will be launched on the day of the Annual
Reunion in December. Our appeal is two fold. One of course is generous
contributions from our members in the form of advertisements and donations
and the other is a request to send in your present address, telephone number
e-mail etc. in the format printed. Also, if you have information on friends
and batchmates, do drop in a line by October 31, 1999. The cut off date
for acceptance of advertisements is November 15, 1999. A separate
mailer is being planned in about another 15 days' time. Kindly address
all queries to either the SLOBA office in the school or by e-mail to the
secretary Sri Amitava Gupta at a_gupta01@usa.net.
You may also send an e-mail to sloba_cal@oocities.com
or electronically send in your data from the SLOBA web site. Please hurry.
| Bhattacharjee sir, Michael sir and Rozario miss passed away in this time. Michael sir's death was particularly shocking. Bhattacharjee sir breathed his last after a brief illness on Saturday June 19, 1999. He had taught in the school from 1959 to 1989. A condolence meeting was held in the school in his memory on Wednesday June 23, 1999. Rozario miss passed away quietly on July 07, 1999. The funeral mass was held in our school on July 09 and all the teachers paid their homage. Michael sir, the quintessential athlete had a brief chest pain after returning from his customary morning exercise and died on the way to the hospital the same morning. This was the morning of July 06, 1999. He leaves behind his wife and two children. A special prayer service was held in the school under the guidance of Fr. Wavreil, the headmaster of the school and President of SLOBA. |
The next meeting of the federation was scheduled in Bangalore in September. The West Zone had already formed the zonal council in Mumbai. The northern zonal council is all set to be formed in Delhi in the North Zonal Jesuit Alumni Conference on September 10-12. Registration fees are RS. 500/- per head and RS. 800/- per couple which include free dormitory stay and all meals. Cheques and D.D. are to be marked in favour of St. Xavier's School, payable at New Delhi. It is expected that Central Zone will follow suit in October and form its own council. All the best to all the zones!
The primary thrust areas now are the 3rd National Congress in 2002 and the World Jesuit Alumni/ae Congress in Calcutta in 2003. Mr. Kalyan Chowdhury, our representative in the World Union has already set the ball rolling and the ALSOC Millennium Meet in London in June 2000 is widely seen as a platform for the kick off of the World Congress globally. A web site of the Federation is being put up and all details will be available on the net shortly. In retrospect, the role of SLOBA in the organizing of the 2nd National Congress in Calcutta in January 1999 was exemplary and the newly formed camaraderie among the three alumni/ae associations in Calcutta is inspiring and motivating, to say the least. It is the ardent hope of the governing council that SLOBA keeps up the momentum of participation in the organizing of the World Congress in Calcutta in 2003 A.D.
A small post script. The Federation too will publish a newsletter. Members
are requested to send in any material they deem fit for publication in
this national newsletter to the SLOBA office. And the SLOBA Newsletter
in every issue will carry news of the Federation.
Ms. Christina Rozario, who had taught me my first lesson in St. Lawrence passed away a few days ago. Perhaps we remember her stern manner more than what she really taught us, but even a casual introspection will reveal how great has been her influence on several generations of students in the school. She was an institution by herself and the core values of life, namely humility, concern, excellence and discipline were all carefully nurtured by her in us, her pupils. Little did we realize then that she was one of those rare few who practised what they taught. Despite all her seriousness in class, a smile on her face on a chance meeting long after I had left school removed all barriers of formality in one moment between the teacher and her students. I somewhat realized what pride a first grade teacher feels when she sees a small child she had taught grown up to face the world.
The first death that we saw in the school from close quarters was that of Fr. Pinto in 1975 if memory serves me right. Fr. Pinto, I am told (I did not study in class 7A) was much more than a teacher. He was slight in build but enormous in presence. And I remember that his affection was unlimited, there was not a single child in the school who had not been inspired by his disposition. By all means, my not studying under Fr. Pinto in class 7A should have been a matter of great sorrow. But it was not as I had the great fortune of having had Michael sir as my class teacher in class 7C.
Michael sir was the first flamboyant man in my life and that is a treasure from my schooling that no one can take away. Those familiar with Rabindranath's "Jeeban Smriti" will recollect how the poet was mesmerized by the phonetics of the first vowel sounds he learnt. Michael sir provided that magic which mesmerized me. He was at times stern, but mostly he was close to my heart. In whatever interaction we had, I always felt that he cared. I remember there was this custom of detaining students who made trouble after class hours. Once in his class I had mistaken his concern for his students as a general permission for indiscipline and had to be detained after classes got over. He took the trouble of sitting with me throughout the two extra hours and at the end of it treated me to a sumptuous meal of masala dosa from a restaurant nearby. Needless to say, I stretched my capabilities to get detained more often. In the end pragmatism ruled and the futility of this mode of punishment dawned on him. Sadly, one year was now over and I moved on to class VIII.
This entire year I had spent almost an equal amount of time at his home as in class and had shared with him the excitement of his first motorbike and the preparations for the first ever group picnic to Nurpur from the school. Subsequently came an excursion to Nepal. Although I was not allowed from home to participate in either, the thrill was contagious.
Long years passed and now I have had the opportunity to come back to school as an alumnus. But Michael sir had changed too. I was once close to him and it pained me to feel the bitterness inside him. I longed secretly to invoke magical powers to get back to my memorable year with him back in 1975. Alas, it was not to be. Michael sir's passing away has left a void in my life which no one else can fill.
Anirban Banerjee
H.S. 1981
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