 |
 |
|
|
Usha Athreya
The year was 1998.The venue was my office at Churchgate, Mumbai. Sitting in front of me was my long time friend and classmate, in fact benchmate, S. Kashinath. Our rambling conversation included reminiscing about school days, the batch of 1971, as we often did whenever we met. Each time we talked about organizing a meet. This time the determination was much more…to meet before the turn of the century. We were only one year away from 2000. We decided the date, 25th January 1999. And that is how it all began. Kashinath, resourceful as he always has been, called back in a few hours with the telephone numbers of a handful of classmates. K.G.Ananthnarayan, whose number I had was amazing with his networking. Jagdish Bhutta spontaneously offered to host the evening at his residence. Within a few weeks, the telephone at home rang incessantly, all classmates calling to touch base. The excitement and eagerness was so apparent. Some of the teachers who had taught us in the 10th standard - Mrs.Diamond D'souza, Mrs.Kocha and Mrs.Nalini Kamath. The evening was a guessing game as each one entered the room - connecting names to faces after 27 years. From a class of 80, we were 30 of us who met. It was a memorable evening. Not only because we had a chance to meet and reminesce after all these years, but also to make up for the invaluable network we had not availed off in all the many years. And there was also a renewed feeling of a cohesive effort to give back to our Alma Mater, what we were so fortunate to receive.
Silver Reunion of the 1977 Batch
Suchitra Ramani
We, the class of 1977 are proud and privileged to be the first batch of the students of Our Lady of Good Counsel High School to celebrate our silver jubilee reunion in the year 2002. It was an event that will always hold a special place in our hearts for all the years to come.
It was Sudhir Ranshevre's idea to hold a Silver Jubilee reunion of the 1977 batch and it goes completely to his credit that he took the first step of obtaining a list of names from the Maharashtra State Board. It was the next step that he took that was even more important. Armed with this list he contacted Mrs. Tulsi Kocha and our team could not have had a better leader and co ordinator who brought few of us together in her house in early august, 2002. This set the ball rolling.
The immediate bonding that the few students felt on Day 1 of meeting each other after 25 years, was so wonderful that we decided that we must contact as many of us as possible and put together an event to remember. It was a collective and comprehensive effort of several students some in such busy and high profile careers that brought about our reunion on December 21st and 22nd 2002.
Spread over two evenings, the event brought our teachers from their homes back to the school and it was our privilege that we were able to honor them in our own small way. On December 21st we had a semi formal event in the school premises and it was great fun to move up and down the corridors of our classrooms albeit with weaker knees and tired feet.
December 22nd was party time and we had a wonderful party sans our teachers, our spouses and kids and we really had a great time. The best part of our reunion was that we were able to contribute about Rs.1 lakh to the school as a small token of our commitment as being the students of OLGC high school forever.
That was our Silver year and we now look forward to the Pearl reunion in year 2007!
And it finally happened !
Mrs. Tulsi Kocha (Teacher)
After celebrating reunions with the 1971 and 1977 Batches, it was time for the 1974 batch to meet….but this time it was to discuss the formation of the Alumni. And so the ball was set rolling with a meeting on September 22nd 2002. Numerous meetings later with a large number of ex-students across different batches, helped us to organize an Alumni Bash on December 20th 2003. The beauty of this event was that we had ex-students of the 1950's at one end with those of the 1990s and 2000s at the other end. At the close of that day we were convinced that the Alumni just had to be registered.
In keeping with the spirit of the Alumni and its proposed role of being a body with social responsibility as well as looking after the cultural needs of its members, we decided to organize a Blood Donation drive.
Finally by the end of Dec 2004 with the know-how and contacts of two key persons… Dr. Madan Nikam and Sashikant Tari, supported by a team of members, we got the Alumni registered. A long and arduous journey had finally come to a conclusive end. We are also thankful to Fr. Titus and Fr. Karlos for their strong backing right through this journey.
Our dream had finally become a reality. However, we have miles and miles to go before we sleep. We must draw large numbers of ex-students who have passed out across the decades to come and join the Alumni. We must network with each other to grow as good human beings celebrating life for the good of OLGC school, the society we live in and ourselves.
