September 17th, 2006 - The D-Day!
The D-Day (School Re-Union)
I was in Mysore by Friday night and I couldn’t wait for Sunday afternoon to happen. I started excavating my old wardrobe and drawers for anything and everything I could find related to school. I finally found a box with all my certificates and marks-cards for each year. I spent the whole of Saturday morning reading my old report cards and going through each and every remark teachers had given me. I could see that “Must improve in Maths” is something most of the teachers said most of the times. I don’t think that ever happened. How ever, I realized how much of personalized attention teachers would give during those days. Sujaya mam today was mentioning that kind of personalized feedback culture doesn’t exist anymore. She had in many instances appreciated in my progress cards things, which were not related to academics but were a part of the school in a strong way(Extra-curriculum).I met up with Panduranga and Nisha that evening to discuss a few things about the D-Day. We had quite a few decisions to take and make sure most of the things would be in place. With a lot of excitement I was waiting for the clock to strike 1pm on Sunday. It happened at last.
13:00hrs, 17th September 2006, PlanetX Premises.
Sukumar, Ravindra and Sreenivasan were the first ones to be there and I had no choice but to request them to man the Reception center. I could also see some of the staff/teachers of the school already on their way to the hall. Mr. Jayarao was the gang leader this time and he led the party towards our hall.We quickly arranged the reception table and people started pouring in. The last time I counted someone in the list of registrants on Friday afternoon, the count was hanging around the 210 mark with 25 teachers who were expected. In the last two days my phone wouldn’t stop ringing and people kept on pouring in. Though it was not the greatest things to happen it was really amazing to see how the word of mouth was spreading so fast in the last two days. (We had to have a number to organize this event, but I even had to take entries at 12:30PM today – The last minute entry buffer has to be quite a lot)
Pooja, Nirmala, Ashok, and yet another Pooja from the 1998 batch were one of the first few people to enter the hall and their punctuality was not really complimented. Within minutes there was a tsunami of people who once studied in this magical institution called CFTRI School Mysore. Being smart we had the name display cards in place, which would help people identify others at least by seeing their names. Believe me, some of us have changed beyond recognition. After all its been more than a decade for many of us since we saw each other.Students of the 2000 batch were probably the most number of ex-students from a particular batch and I can proudly say, students from my class were the least. Three out of 47 is an overwhelming number. I was really thrilled by the attendance of my classmates in my own way but nevertheless, I was glad I had plenty of others from different batches pouring in. Boys and Girls who were in primary and higher primary school when I graduated out of school were all handsome young men and gorgeous women of Mysore.
In the next few minutes, the stars of the school descended over to this happening place. Parvathy aunty was one of first few teachers to drop in and everyone who came in would be pleasantly surprised and excited seeing her. One amazing thing was, we had alumni members who passed out in the 70s, 80s, 90s and the recent half a dozen years. A couple of elderly men who were from the 70s batch amazed me and I was so happy to see their love and interest for the school. I wish many such people had participated in the event. But most of them would surely take more time for their children’s school day than participating in their own school function by now. That’s quite understandable.
Just then, Misses Hema and Sujaya walked in to the party arena. Not surprisingly they were greeted by most of us who were near the reception area. It was nice to see Hema aunty’s husband taking time for her and bringing her along. Just then the superman of the school uncle Ranga showed up and he was immediately mobbed. Veena Murthy, Atma Jyoti, Prema, Susheela, Anne, Jameela, Sati, and others joined the party. While I was wondering why didn’t a few other teachers turn up I saw Aunty Geetha joining us and she is supposed to be one of the oldest teachers present in the school as of now. Imagine the students who passed out of the school in the 80s and in the 2000z still going to one teacher and talking to her about their school days. Aunty Geetha to me still looks strong to go for another decade without any hassle.
I missed sighting Tanuja Aunty in the party and wonder why she didn’t turn up. I tried many a times to push people in to the hall from the garden but in vain. My super brain told me to ask uncle Ranga to do what he does best: Move the crowd! Uncle Ranga commanded in his bold voice “Dayavittu…yellru olage barbeku” (Request you all to come on in) and within the next few minutes the crowd was inside the hall. People jumping in joy, excited to see their old pals, beloved teachers and their seniors and juniors in all shapes and sizes was a sight to experience and not talk about. Emotions were running high and many of us couldn’t believe something like this could happen some day. All our respective batches and classes have been meeting time and again but I doubt if anything of this magnitude and scale has ever happened.
Panduranga took over the preceding and briefed everyone about the plans we both have for this Alumni association and he also re-iterated about this blog and how we all should be using it when ever possible. Due to scarcity of time, we invited only Ranga Uncle, Hema Aunty and Sujaya Madam to speak a few words and the crowd went mad. I was prompting those wonderful words Hema mam would use to try and put some mathematics in to my brain. Some of them were “Dirty pigs”, “fool of an ass” etc. That made the crow cheer for her, while she walked down towards the microphone. She said a very few lines but was really touching. At the end she said, “good that this has happened and thanks for remembering us and I hope you will not forget us at least till when we are still breathing”. Why their breath! I can assure her that, we would not dare to forget these teachers till our last breaths. I mean, how can we?
Sujaya Mam and Uncle Ranga appreciated this kind of a response and gathering and then it was time for us to have lunch. I apologize it was already quite a delay. We finally got to talk to our best friends about the lovely days we spent at school. I could also see some of the ex-students celebrate a birthday of their friend in a very popular way. Everyone had a smile of their face. I hope the lunch was good and most of us enjoyed it.
I wouldn’t forget this for many decades to come as I am ending it with a lot of good memories. Though I wish I could have met a few more friends of my class and some of my beloved teachers like Yamuna, Tanuja, Lalitha Umapathy, Varini, Vijayavalli, Chinmayee and others, I am very satisfied by the way this event has happened. The food and beverages department of PlanetX gave us a count of 290 Ex-students and approximately 40 teachers’ attendance. I think this is a great number and am very happy and grateful to all those who kept their promise and enthusiasm in the right direction. It would have to be only CFTRI School Mysore and its “Aunty” rich culture to drive this kind of interest and love even after years. I believe students no more call the teachers as Aunties in the school, but it was nice to hear from the teachers themselves that they too feel Aunty is something they felt nice being addressed as.
Its all our luck that we find a great enthusiastic alumni member in Panduranga Shenoy who not just appreciated my initial idea of all these but also blew it out of proportions and took on a lot of responsibility and the sponsorship. I hope this kind of enthusiasm would exist in the forth-coming years in all the other members too. By the way we are checking out the possibility of registering a formal body called the CFTRI School Alumni Association and taking things forward.
I would be glad to hear from the interested members if they would like to be of some help in the thought process and organizing such activities. Hope to see more pictures from the cameras of others and I hope you all enjoyed it. Please write back with your feedback and suggestions about this event and the Alumni association in general. It was a dream come true to meet you all after so many years. You all are still happening! and thanks to all the teachers who were kind enough to make it to this event. “Teaching is the profession that teaches all the other professions.”
Jayanth Sharma(jayanth.sharma@gmail.com),
http://www.wildlifetimes.com
6 Responses to “The D-Day!”
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September 18th, 2006 at 11:37 am
Hey Jayanth/Panduranga,
Sunday was an awesome gathering and take a bow for making it happen! Its good that you guys are thinking of forming an official body. Curiosity to meet up with long lost batchmates can get big crowds for the first meeting but may fizzle out a couple of years down the line if there’s no pupose for these meetings.
Cheers,
Sundeep (Batch of ‘91)
September 18th, 2006 at 11:49 am
I missed it. I missed it. I missed it.
Well, as usual I bunked it. I was notorious for bunking since my schooldays itself! But this time I wasn’t playing TT or volunteering for some event, I was sitting at home! (Since, I might cry if I continue typing this, I shall stop here and allow you people to relish the moment! Maja maadi…)
But there are photos that have been sent to me by my classmate Sutejas. We are from the batch of 1995. And from the photos I gather that my batch is the #2 going by number of people attended! Great going guys! (Jayanth, please don’t correct me if I am wrong! heh heh!)
How much I would have liked to be a part of this get-together! But then, there’s always a next time, right? Right Jayanth?!
Say yes! You have no other option!
Blame Sutejas for the quality of photos!
Check it out here.
September 18th, 2006 at 4:35 pm
Even though,I was not there for the gathering,Jayanth’s writeup says everything.
I was overwhelmed.I couldn’t believe it when I read about the magical figures – a gathering of 290 ex-students and 40 teachers!!
It was a prefect making of ‘School Re-Union’ – well planned,organised and timely executed.
My applauds to Jayanth’n Panduranga. Good Show!!
Regards,
Chandan@91
September 19th, 2006 at 12:23 pm
ORKUT OPINIONS :
more opinions on the get together can be found there.
September 29th, 2006 at 4:32 am
Hey Jayanth,
Good work dude , probably we dont know each other but to introduce myself to you guys, i was a student of this WOW school and passed out in the late 80 s dont remember the exact year hehehehehe ,let you know guys which year next time around. Somehow i missed out on this big happening in mysore though stayin in mysore how ???? hope to catch up with guys from the batches which passed out in the late 80s .Great work guys keep it up.
December 1st, 2006 at 12:20 pm
[...] How much I would have liked to be a part of this get-together! But then, there’s always a next time, right? Right Jayanth?!
Say yes! You have no other option! [...]