History  | Ex Staff  | Old Boys | 

Ian Stanes  Wilbur Whitwell and Alfy Gordon  (14/11/1953)

The Bishop's School  Class IV- D - 1989 -'90.  Class Teacher - Mrs. Forester

The Book

Bunty Brown, Donald D'Souza & Dudley Brown

Rev. Johnson & Rev. Joe Mullins on the right
at Nasrapur

The beautiful stained glass at the altar of St Mary's Church which was installed in 1874

A.Samuel,R.Khan,M.Patel & G.Saunders

The Players

The School Choir 1972
with Mr K. Aitkins, Mr C. Williams, Mr D.Olliver & Mrs C. Nadkar

 Bishop's Wall of Friendship

Pheroz Pudumjee  (22/1/2009)

Abdul Quader Ganjifrockwala wrote:

This is brilliant. Many thanks for creating this website. It took me back 20 years when I came to Bishops as a boarder standing just 4ft. tall in class 7A. This is no exaggeration but those were truly the best time of my life. This is indeed a priceless gift to all the Bishopites.     '87 -'91

Letters from Old Bishopites

On a Sunday Afternoon while surfing the net I happened to come across this website again. Old memories provide a rejuvenation that is priceless and words cannot describe it. Looking back on the years I felt like I was 15 again reliving my past. I felt a rush that only those innocent fond memories can provide. I urge that we all get together as Ex- Bishopites and make financial contributions so we can make sites like these more interactive and accessible to all. I now live in Northern California and can be reached via email youhanma@yahoo.com

 Please stay in touch Youhan Mubaraki (Irani) VHB 1986-87 Harding House Captain.
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     Hello Gentlemen,
Like many that wrote in your guestbook, I was informed of your website by a fellow classmate - Sachin Hardikar. Attended Bishop's from 75 to 80 (6th Standard/Grade). You have done us Bishopite's an incredible service by putting up the most wonderful and cherished school memories that I personally can think of and relate to. Its ironic that around the time I chanced upon your site I was in the process of looking up my classmates and have so far contacted six of them all who made it to the US. My heartiest kudos to you all for creating this very special place on the Web for all those who attended this very special school.
        Regards,
       Firdaus B. Aryana (Irani)
       Batch of ('75 -'80) 6th Standard

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I was in Bishops' between 1975 and 1980 and just happened to come upon this site. What was extraordinary is that I found a photograph entitled "Year 9/ July 1982" of my old class - these all too familiar faces frozen in time and forever aged 13! I have spent a happy hour trying to fit long forgotten names to faces and smiling at memories- 24 years is a long time! Randeep Khokar, Jadav, Malkhani, Uday Rao and a host of others- where are you guys? I live in New Delhi and hope I can get back in touch.....and thanks for this site..
Vikram Menon '75 -'80

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Just typed in 'Bishop's School Poona' into Google and discovered this treasure trove of memories! How can I even begin to thank you chaps for this absolutely thrilling ride on a time machine. Joined Bishops in 1957 in class III, those were the days when we did Classes I and II in St. Mary's and it was THE BIG DAY when we 'crossed the wall' into Bishops! Left in 1960 because Dad got transferred out of Poona. But it was to Mr.Lunn and Mrs.Deane, Miss Wordsworth and Mr Wright, Mr. Mollan and Mr.Rowe and all the other teachers, and guys like Vikram Bedi, Saleh, Fahim Rais, Anand Somaya, Tarlok Dalal and all the rest of the chaps that I owe literally a debt of a lifetime.

Anol Nath Chatterji '57 - '60

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My joy knows no bounds as I come across MY Bishop's School page ! Nostalgia floods my mind and I am overwhelmed.

From 1961-1967. Nadkar was Head Boy (last I remember. Mr. Lunn -Principal. Mr. Wright-Maths. Mr. Mogre-Marathi. Mr. Karmarkar-Hindi. Mr. Fernandes (Jr. too). Mr. Hall, Mr. Torrick (the Super RAT), Mr. Matthews, Mr. Hunt-History, Mr. Martin, Mr. Mollan-English, Mr. D.Olliver-V.P, Mr. E.Olliver-French, Mr. Cowan-PT, Mr. Bajwa-Boxing, and...and...and...and...and... Ajit Jagtap, Cowas JeeJeeBhoy, Rustam Mehta, Indrajeet Singh, Mukesh Malhotra, Anup Banerjee, Damodar Menon and....and....and.....and...and...and.. Why-Oh-why did all of you come into my life ! The pain of remembering all of you....is such a sweet pain...

Upendra Laxmeshwar  '61 -'67

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LAKSHA THE BULL.(Stories from the past)

 Near the ‘Lowers’ lived the school helpers & their families, one of these helpers was Lakshman, he as all of you remember, always wore clean white trousers & shirt while on duty. His off duty attire was clean dhoti & a white singlet. He was strongly built & we young school boy’s were in awe of him, for he was the right hand man of our School Masters, one complaint from him in one of the Masters ear was a certain short cut for an “up for the jump”, that occurred when the School Masters cane made contact with the errant School boy’s buttocks… it made the young boy leap out of his skin & jump quite high.
 Lakshman was the proud owner of Laksha the fighting bull. This bull was so huge that if it could be said that if we were in awe of Laxman, we were terrified of Laksha, because of his powerfully built body with rippling beefy muscles. His horns were large, sharp & gleamed with a highly polished sheen. He was fed all manner of goodies that most other bulls (& us boarders) would never see on the dining table & he was kept tied to a metal stake that must have been driven at least 5 feet into the ground so that he could not up-root it & get free. Laxman was the only human being that could approach Laksha, all other human beings attempts to approach this beast were dissuaded by a loud bellowing snort with a violent shaking of the head that sent out plumes of nasal spray from the nostrils & some yucky mucous from the mouth. This warning was enough to put off even the bravest boys from straying off the course that by passed this beasts circled range of his domain, even by mistake, for his tether encompassed a circle of about 20 feet in diameter (on their way to the ‘dhobi’ ostensibly for ironing a shirt or something, but in reality for a quick ‘drag on a ciggie but’).
 The shady Banyan tree on the ‘Lowers’ had long tendril shoots trailing from most of the branches, the thicker branches also had thick ropes hanging from them that were used for us boys to climb, as a part of our Physical Training (or PT as it better known). Under this shady cool area all classes of the school performed PT under the care & strict guidance of Mr. Tom Sewell. The class normally faced the vast expanse of the Lowers while ‘Tom’ (as he was affectionately called behind his back of course) normally backed the lowers so as to face us while we were doing PT. The training that he had received from the British Army stationed in India, made him a strict, strong but a very fair master. He always wore Khaki shorts, with khaki woolen stockings, highly polished brown tan shoes & a white shirt.
 When the first class for the day was marched down to the Lowers for PT & paraded, Tom would remove from his khaki short pant pocket a very sharp small folding knife, the original length of whose blade (many years ago) must have been about 2 to 3 inches when it was first bought, but had, from continuous usage been reduced to about 1 inch or less in length. He would, in full view of all the boys of the class, reach out to one of the many roots growing from the branches of the Banyan tree & cut off a length of the root, rub the cut end which dripped a milky white substance in the mud on the ground. Once satisfied that the milky substance would not leak onto his hands, he would swish it around in the air for its sound effects, discard it if he felt it did not make the ideal sound & cut off a new root & go through the process again until he found the right sounding root. This was Tom’s whacking devise, so as to assist him in dissuading any of us boys from not doing their PT with appropriate gusto & vigor he demanded from his class.
One day in the late afternoon when it was my class’s turn for PT, we were marched in double file to the Lowers, paraded there, watched as Tom pulled out his folding knife with the shortened blade, cut his fresh Banyan tree root to keep us on the straight & narrow, listened to its stereophonic swishing sound effects, rubbed the cut end in the mud until the milky liquid had been removed & then commenced to take our class for PT.  Tom called out the start of the exercise, “Arms stretching forward, sideways & upwards … a one a two a three & four…a one a two a three & four” until the class got into the rhythm of the exercise. Since we, the boys were facing the lowers we could see that Laksha had some how got free of his tether & was standing in the near distance, staring at our class busy doing PT with Mr. Sewell giving us the beat & rhythm 
 Laksha soon got tired of watching us stretching our arms forward, sideways & upwards, & began to paw the ground & snort with his head down with a very furious  & angry look in his eyes. This made all of us boys perform our exercise with much less gusto than Tom expected us to do, but he unfortunately could not see Laksha & none of the boys dared to tell him that Laksha was on the loose & snorting behind him on the Lowers, for fear of the banyan root in Tom’s hand making swift contact with the tellers bottom for talking while doing PT. So we continued doing our PT very half-heartedly, with one eye on Laksha & the other on Tom’s banyan switch. Tom  was getting angrier by the minute at seeing the class’s lethargic exercising, “swing your arms you bally hidiots” (Tom could never pronounce the word as idiot, it always came out as ‘hidiot’)…But no amount of shouting by Tom could make us tear our eyes away from the menacing posture & dance of fury that Laksha was performing for our sole benefit behind Tom’s back, & he was oblivious to the goings on behind him. Tom was concentrating on the class’s poor performance of stretching their ‘bally’ arms, “forwards, sideways & upwards”.
 Mass panic sets in & chaos reigns, I who is close to one of the ropes (used for climbing), shimmy up that rope as fast as a monkey can go & shoot right to the top of the rope & sit on the branch to which it is attached, from here I have a safe & fantastic view of all the pandemonium that is going on below me. Some others also climb the rope, but there is only so much safe room on the length of rope, those at the bottom know that Laksha’s horns will definitely be able to reach their bottoms, so they move lickety spit on to some other higher & safer ground, there are boys sitting balancing themselves on the ‘pull up’ bars like crows on a wire, the senior & intermediate pull-up bars are at a safe height to sit on because Laksha’s horns would not be able to reach that high, but the juniors & younkers bars are too low & definitely within reach of Laksha’s sharp pointy horns, so those boys sitting on those bars move with amazing speed on realizing this fact, to frantically search for some other higher or safer ground on which to perch or hide, there are not many hidey holes left, so the only place left is to hide is behind the trunk of the huge banyan tree. Since there are so many boys left on the ground at the level of Laksha’s attack, the tree trunk is swarming with a queue of boys who could not find a safer place, in the midst of this long serpentine queue of boys holding each other’s hips & buttocks in a bent posture stands our dear Mr. Tom Sewell, holding onto the waist of the boy in front of him in the long queue
 Laksha by now is upon & amidst the deserted PT ground, it bears a deserted look, with the entire class dispersed wherever they could do the disappearing act, some on the climbing rope, & some sitting like crows on the pull-up bars, but alas the majority of them together with Tom (for want of any other safe place) are hiding behind this large banyan tree trunk.  Laksha seizes the situation, looks up into the trees, on the climbing ropes & the pull-up bars & realizes that that part of the class who were the object of his anger are beyond the reach of his horns, so snorting, pawing, horns gleaming  & eyes full of hatred he spies the serpentine queue behind the tree trunk, & moves in that direction
Tom in the middle of the snake like mass of boys shouts out “move to the right you bally hidiot, move to the right”, but the boy who was in the queue first & had found that hiding place & was holding onto the tree trunk, decides to move to the left & the whole queue has to move, whether they like it or not  (including Tom) in a snake like movement in that direction, as the Banyan tree trunk, was their only protection between them & a very mad Laksha.
 The line sways like palm fronds in the breeze, the tail end trying very hard to catch up with the front & snaking its way, with Tom (in the middle of this melee) shouting out orders as to which direction the lead boy should move his butt so as to avoid Laksha, none of these orders were obeyed, by the boy in the front since he was closest to Laksha’s burning eyes & sharp long menacing horns. In between Tom’s bellowing out instructions on which direction the queue should move, he was also shouting to the ‘bally hidiot’ Lakshman, to come & restrain his ‘bally’ bull Laksha. The boys also chorused this shout to Lakshman in between bouts of moving left or right around the tree trunk, from on high in the tree tops or between keeping their balance seated on the rounded pole of the pull-up-bars…all in an effort to avoid being horned in the nether region by Laksha the bull.
 Lakshman’s story to us after the incident was that he was in the midst of his afternoon nap, when he felt he could hear “Sewell Saab” calling out to him, he felt it was only a bad dream because he knew that there should be no reason for “Sewell Saab” to call him at this hour in the afternoon, he turned around & went back to sleep. Then in his dream he heard the school boys calling out his name, he was satisfied that it could only be a very bad dream, since none of the boys would want to call & awaken him from his well earned afternoon snooze for fear of dire reprisals … but when, as he claims, the very bad dream persisted he awoke from his afternoon siesta only to realize that in actuality “Sewell Saab” & the boys were shouting his name & that this was no dream but harsh reality.  He rubbed his sleepy eyes ambled out side only to see that his beloved Laksha was attacking & menacing a whole PT class with “Sewell Saab” stuck in the middle of a long queue. Mr. Sewell upon seeing Lakshman awake & about shouted out “You bally hidiot, put a rope on that ‘bally’ bull of yours, you bally fool”…
 Lakshman after a great deal of “AAH AAH AAHing” to Laksha to put him at ease, managed to put a rope around his thick neck & took him away from a very scared & worried bunch of my classmates & I also think Tom. I climbed down from my branch in the tree tops, the others got off their perches on the pull up bars & the serpentine queue broke up & breathed easy. However Tom did not forget that “bally hidiot” of a classmate in the front of the tree trunk who never obeyed his instructions to “move to the ‘bally’ left (or ‘bally’ right)” as directed by Tom, & for his disobedience to orders was whacked with the banyan tree root (that Tom had managed to retain throughout the entire attack) for all his troubles
 The classmate who got whacked for disobeying Tom’s orders, claims that that was his hiding place from the attack, & Tom nor any other classmate had the right to hide in the same spot nor to attach himself to his waist & butt thus endangering his life & limbs, he contended that it was an unfair punishment especially since none of the serpentine body of boys who exploited his hidey hole, nor Tom, had been injured by his wise & judicious decisions, despite Tom’s instructions which he took to be only ‘advice’ from a guest sharing his hiding spot, & his judicious moving left or right around the tree as his instincts demanded. He claims that since he was the in the immediate line of fire of Laksha’s large & sharp horns & the finder of the place to hide, he was therefore the leader & Tom was just a part of his following, if it was not for the queue that attached itself behind him he might not have been noticed by Laksha & hence been spared the whack by Tom. As for me sitting on top of the tree, I thought it was a funniest sight to witness my other classmates with Tom who were on the ground, swaying like a snake to avoid getting ‘butted’ in the butt by the horns of Laksha the fighting bull.

Dady J. Mody Head Boy 1959

                                                   A HUMBUG TALE
                                                                  BY
                                                        PETER LUNN.

                  I remember once a bus load of boys went on a trip to Mumbai
                  (Bombay) and it was getting rather late on our return. There
                  were just three people in the front seat of the very crowded
                  bus. Mohammed Ali Taherboy, my father and I.
                  There is one particularly exceedingly steep hairpin bend just
                  as you come upon the viaduct that leads into Lonavla. My
                  father always stopped there on this bend, so he could get out
                  and look at all the twinkling lights of Bombay now thousands
                  of feet below. Only three of us alighted from the bus, the
                  rest of the boys were all sleeping in the back seats.
                  We sat on the wall and were looking down as my father once
                  again complained about these young people lacking a sense of
                  adventure, you take them out and they prefer to sit in a tin
                  box rather than view the awe inspiring panorama down below. I
                  was a very quiet night indeed, the air was still and the night
                  was inky black.
                  Suddenly there was a strange mechanical sound that went *thug,
                  thug, thug* then stopped and I remember asking what that was.
                  Then there it was again *thug, thug, thug* and it was clear
                  that it was coming from the bus. Then it started again, only
                  this time it did not stop *thug,thug,thug,thug* as it quickly
                  became clear what was happening, the bus was in gear and it
                  was the very steep slope fighting the compression of the
                  switched off engine as the old bus began inexorably rolling
                  backwards down the hill.
                  Master Mohammed Ali Taherboy and my father raced over and
                  grabbed a headlight each and began a tug of war in an effort
                  to arrest the motion of three and half tonnes of moving metal.
                  Needless to say they were being dragged by the vehicle which
                  was now increasing its speed and in a few more feet it would
                  have broken through the low retaining wall on the roadside and
                  everyone on board was about to get a really quick ride down
                  the hillside.
                  I watched them in amazement for a moment realising the problem
                  I raced over to the side of the bus and opening the door leapt
                  into the drivers seat and slammed on the brakes then started
                  the engine and drove the bus back up the hill.
                  It is the only time my father said, "Thank God, you were here
                  son, it seems only one of us had any sense at all."