Remembering our loved ones

 Dateline 28th November 2023

(Posted on Jacob's Blog, Seventh Heaven Blog for Cathedralites and Kooler Talk (Web Version) Blog for St. Stephen's College alumni.

Cathedral & John Connon School 59ers have lost many of our ones in the last few years. 

Here is a partial list of those from our 2969class who have passed on. 

(I do not have any information about our lady classmates except dear Farhana. I hope someone will update me on this.)

Ashok Ruia

Bala Parasursman

Dossu Pagdiwalla

Fali Dhondy

Farhana (Kably) Poonawala

Farukh Kanga

Flicky Shroff

Hasnain Chinwala

Indrajit Shah

Jacob Eapen 

Jack Haskell

 Jaswant Ghatge

Kurshed Balsata

Michael Colaco

Murali Balani

Naubir Mohindar

Pradeep Bhakar

Prem Goel

Ramesh Mirchandani

Virat Gidwani

Trevor Newnes

I have deliberately left out from this list, one of our dearest, who was tragically lost  15 years ago, Ashok Kapur.

59erGolden Reunion Directory

Our Mumbai 59ers met as a memoriam to Ashok

At our 2009 Golden  Reunion of 59ers,  Annikki and I dedicated our Reunion Directory to Ashok with these pages:

But besides Ashok, we lost many others during those fateful days, which has been brought to mind by Rajiv Bhatia on his Facebook page.

26/11

Remembering the late - Ajit & Monica Chhabria, Sunil & Reshma Parikh, Sanjay & Rita Agarwal, Rohinton Maloo, Mohit Harjani, Lavina Harjani, Anand Bhatt, Pankaj Shah, Vishnidas-Nilam-Gunjan Narang, Neeti-Uday-Samar-Kang, Rupinder Randhawa, Ashok Kamte, Hemant Karkare, Vijay Salaskar, Tukaram Omble

I also remember one of my other alumni from St. Stephen’s College with this post from our alumni Facebook page. 

None other than the heroic Ashok Kamte:

Ashish Joshi , the Moderator of our alumni Facebook   page posted this.

LEST WE FORGET

This is what my friend & college senior, Gary (Justice Anupinder Grewal), wrote in the memory of late Ashok Kamte (Gary's batchmate) a brilliant police officer who attained martyrdom on 26/11. Late Kamte was a friend & one year senior to me in the College .

ASHOK KAMTE

I have been attending the annual St. Stephen's College, Reunion very frequently ever since I passed out of college in 1987. However, this year on 14th December, it was drastically different as it turned into memorial service for Ashok Kamte and I was entrusted the painful task of paying tribute to Ashok. 

It was a tragic personal loss as besides being my classmate in college and a friend, I had the privilege of living with Ashok and his family at his mother’s Flat in Hira Mahal on the Amrita Shergill Marg for about year while studying law. 

Ashok had joined us at St. Stephen's College for his Post Graduation after he had Graduated from St. Xavier’s College, Bombay. What stood him apart from the rest of the Stephanians was the enormity of his physical stature, which alongwith his quest for academic excellence was a rather unique combination. What surprised many was why is the National Power Lifting Champion pursuing Post Graduation at St. Stephen's. There is no preference for sports persons for admission in M.A. Little did they realize then that Ashok always strove for excellence, whether in the classroom or the playing field. He had single minded commitment to succeed. He was very happy when he was selected to the I.P.S. He used to say that he was meant for action and disliked other civil services for their bureaucratic file work.

While training for the Power Lifting Championship, he would not compromise on his diet. As his mother would not allow him to have more than two eggs, due to its high cholesterol content he would buy a dozen eggs from the market, cook and eat them at his neighbour's house. He had broken three national records in Power Lifting and won half a dozen Gold and Silver Medals. He had also won the Bronze Medal in Junior World Power Lifting Championship. Power Lifting is one of the toughest sport and Ashok would train for hours in complete solitude. Despite his powerful build, he was extremely agile and could sprint quite fast. Besides his love for swimming and squash he would generate amazing pace and bounce while bowling on the rather placid College Cricket pitch at Morigate. He had played an important role in the victory of our team. 

Ashok was proud of the fact that he had the blood of two Martial Races the Maratha’s and the Sikhs. While his father is a retired Colonel settled in Pune, his grand-father was in the Imperial Police. His mother Mrs. Paramjit Kamte,, who now lives in Gulmohar Park is from the well known Bawa Family of Goindwal Sahib and is grand-daughter of Late Bawa Budh Singh of the Indian Service of Engineers. Bawa Budh Singh was the 14th descendent of the Third Sikh Guru, Guru Amar Dass. When I called on Mrs. Kamte, she said that though she is proud of the fact that Ashok has become a National Hero yet at times she cannot comprehend that he is no more. He was the only male member in the family whom she could look forward in times of need. He had perhaps inherited his very fair features from his maternal grandmother Mrs.Surinder Bawa (maiden name Violet) an English Lady. His sister, Sharmila, a well known model and a ballet dancer, now runs her famous Dance Academy in Dubai. His wife, Vinita, stays at Pune alongwith his sons, Rahul and Arjun. Besides serving the U.N. Force in Bosnia, Ashok had also trained in Punjab for some time. 

Ashok was known for his high integrity and efficiency which was evident in his earlier stints in Maharashtra especially in Solapur, where he had brought an inflammable communal situation under control within a few hours. I had spoken to Ashok sometime back when as Commissioner of Police, Solapur, was in the news for bringing to book the local M.L.A who was flouting the law for noise pollution. Ashok had personally gone and arrested the M.L.A. from his residence at mid-night after the M.L.A. had earlier roughed up police officials. I had asked him whether he had really beaten up the M.L.A. He replied that if he had done so, the man would not have survived as though he no longer competed in power lifting but maintained regular exercise regime. It was his conscientiousness, patriotism and devotion to duty which made him the target of the terrorist attack at Mumbai. He was the Additional Commissioner, (East) and even though the area around the Cama Hospital(South) did not fall within his jurisdiction, he had reached there as he had undergone specialized training to handle terrorism and hostage situation. He would lead from the front and was not the kind to send subordinates to do risky jobs. He lived for others and had a proactive approach. He made the supreme sacrifice and attained martyrdom in the battle field and made his family, friends and the nation proud. "

Anupinder Grewal

Additional Advocate General, Punjab (Now Judge, Punjab High Court)

Let us each keep a moment’s silence, wherever we are, to honour of all our alumni. Founder’s Day for the schoo was November 1th. That for our college is 7th December. 

May all these dear ones friends 

Rest In Peace.

Ramu Katakam (1961-1964) Article in The Wire

 

I have blogged an article by our alumni Architect Ramu Katakam (1961-1964) about Indian cities which appeared in The Wire yesterday with my introduction to an old friend. 

He was a close friend of my cousin, Mammen Mathew (Rajen), and late Suresh Mehra,  Azar Siddiqui and Anil Capoor.

Ramu and Rajen hitch-hiked from India to London. That was when I was studying in London.

Hope you enjoy the blog entry.

https://jmatthan.blogspot.com/2023/10/an-important-question-about-indian.html

KTWV Volume 15 Issue 5: Gandhi Jayanti

 

The author is Delhi-based senior journalist and writer. He is author of Gandhi's Delhi which has brought to the forth many hidden facts about Mahatma Gandhi)

https://www.bizzbuzz.news/national/a-gandhi-jayanti-exclusive-the-teacher-in-gandhi-always-drew-him-to-schools-and-colleges-1252681?infinitescroll=1

KTWV Volume 15 Issue 4: Nandita Narain retires fromCollegeol

 

I studied in College between 1960 and 1963. Principal Sircar was the one who taught me Mathematics along with Professor Nagpal. 

Later Rhodes Scholar Ranjit Bhatia returned after his taking part in the Olympics and joined the Mathematics Department.

When I started Kooler Talk (Web Version) in 1996, I started to hear about a Maths teacher in college who was changing the scenario.

Later I watched her activity on Facebook and other local media as NDTV.

Each report I heard only made me more appreciative of her work.

Now, after a tumultuous career in our college and also in the University of Delhi, Nandita Narain is retiring.

Although I never had the opportunity to meet her personally, I held her in great respect as she always stood by her principles and also what our college stood for.

Her history has appeared in the media so it is not my intention to repeat what has been written about her.

I wait to see what she will do next as she is a firebrand and will not leave the scene quietly. 

Nandita will always stand up for the right against the wrong.

Well played Nandita.

You are always welcome to share your views on this platform as we respect you as alumni and as an  associate of our college. 

Au revoir Nandita, welcome back Nandita.

KTWV Volume 15 Issue 3: New lady Vice Principal

 This entry is thanks to John Dayal from Facebook. Photograph from LinkedIn.

Congratulations Dr. Gabriel

College is likely to soon see the first woman Vice Principal in its long history.  

Dr Karen Gabriel has reportedly been selected for the post at a time when a Delhi University administration is is trying to block the extension given to Dr John Verghese as Principal.  

The governing body of St Stephen’s  College is defying the university move. 

Karen Gabriel heads the English Department at St. Stephen’s College, University of Delhi. She is also Founder-Director, Center for Gender, Culture and Social Processes at St Stephen’s College. 

She has published extensively on issues of gender, sexuality, cinema, representation, melodrama and the nation-state, which are her core research interests. 

Her publications include “Melodrama and the Nation: Sexual Economies of Bombay cinema 1970-2000”, and the edited volume “Gendered Nation”

She is currently working on a book on dystopia, and one on homosociality. 

Her international fellowships and awards include the Digital Fellowship (2021), World Society Foundatio and the Council for European Studies (CES-WSF) at Columbia University, the European Union's International Incoming Marie Curie Fellowship, Scholar in Residence at the College of William and Mary (USA), the Leverhulme Fellowship at the UK, three post-doctoral Fellowships for Gender Excellence at the Centre for Gender Excellence, Linköping University, Sweden, and the Government of Netherlands fellowship for her doctoral research.

KTWV Volume 15 Issue 2: Living and coping with dementia

 It is heart breaking to live a tragedy unfolding in front of you, day by day. 

This blog entry tells a story of our lives, Annikki and Jacob, as it is today and the history behind it.

As a postscript to this entry, I have added an AI generated essay about dementia.

For the full blog entry please go to:

https://jmatthan.blogspot.com/2023/09/living-and-coping-with-dementia.html

KTWV Volume 15 Issue 1: Ineffective Stephanian at the helm

 When Manmohan Singh was the Prime Minister of India, we had a whole lot of Stephanians who were in positions of power as well as an enormous number of bureaucrats who were Stephanians.

Here is a shortlist of those who were in the top echelons of Government at the time of Manmohan Singh:

1. 68er Kapil Sibal - Minister Telecom

2. 73er Salman Khurshid - Minister External Affairs

3. 72er Ashwani Kumar - Minister Law & Justice, Rajya Sabha (Parliamentary Affairs)

4. 74er R. P. N. Singh - MOS Home

5. 76er Shashi Tharoor - MOS HRD

6. 90er Joyti Scindia -  MOS (i/c) Power

7. 97er Sachin Pilot - MOS Corporate Affairs  

What did these Stephanians achieve globally to positively touch the lives of ordinary Indians?

When I attended the Founder's Day event in College in 2014, where the chief guest was Supreme Court Judge Justice Madan Lokur.

(Madan Bhimarao Lokur (born 31 December 1953) is an Indian jurist. He is a judge of the Supreme Court of Fiji. He is former judge of the Supreme Court of India. He is also a former chief justice of the Andhra Pradesh High Court and Gauhati High Court and judge of the Delhi High Court. Lokur was educated at the Modern School, New Delhi. He later attended St. Joseph's College, Allahabad for his ISC examinations. For his university studies, Lokur graduated in history from St. Stephen's College, Delhi University with honours. He obtained his law degree from Faculty of Law, University of Delhi.

Justice Lokur said that many consider Stephanians to be elite, but he countered this by saying the largest number of Stephanians in civil service were those who served in the field, influencing the lives of ordinary Indians. 

Both ends of the spectrum are true as when these Stephanians climb the ladder, they lose their touch with the common man and become elitist, something they usually have day to day contact with when they are serving in the lower rungs of the Administration.

I did an entry somewhere on one of my blogs taking to task this group of 7 for not being true Stephanians. 

If I was in their position, I would have had a clear strategy as to how to be effective, Stephanian style.

When I was elected President of the JCR in my second year in college, I formed a team of advisors and we changed the face of our activities in residence by making it totally inclusive.

However, none of these 7 were Trumpian type Stephanians who would do chamchagiri to their political masters. I can accuse them of being ineffective. That is very harsh criticism of our college education!, 

However, when I listened to Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, our current Minister of External Affairs, deliver the first MRF Foundation lecture in the College last year, I was shocked to hear a political speech from the podium.

Later, I have heard him speak on several occasions on several subjects and he praises his Master, oblivious that we Stephanians are watching his antics as a chamcha. I have tweeted him several times on his behaviour!

I do not equate him to Jyoti Scindia who threw his political "principles" to the winds to change his political loyalty.

Watching the spat of Sachin Pilot in Rajasthan with his chief minister is equsally embarrassing for a Stephanian.

Many years ago I did do a blog entry telling Shashi Tharoor not to stand for the Lok Sabha as his character was far above that. Sadly he did not take my advice. 

He had the courage to stand for the position as head of the Congress Party. However, I still hold my view that a person of his calibre would have been far more effective outside of main stream politics.

 I am not concerned with Indian Politics and neither am I likely to visit India again because of age and health issues. 

But I do watch the general deterioration of politics in India with no one willing to change the track.

iIn this sort of situation, we will soon see democracy vanish in India as the sort of behaviour seen by Trumpian type Indian politicians is growing day by day. 

God help My India.

KTWV Volume 14 Issue 1: Outstanding Alumni: Prof. Ajeet Mathur

I have started a new feature which will highlight many of our alumni who have achieved their mark not only in Indian but international spheres.

As a first in this series I have chosen a good friend who has a shared alumni with me both in Cathedral and John Connon School, Mumbai, and also in St.Stephen's College in Delhi University.

Considerably younger to me, our paths crossed when he came to Finland in 1993. We struck up  a friendship  which has grown stronger over the last 26 years. 

You can read his detailed biodata and his huge list of publications, research areas, teaching experience and the numerous awards he has been given on his Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, website. Prof. Ajeet Narain Mathur

.

We have worked together on several projects, even writing a joint paper many years ago. In many of his writings he has acknwledged the contributions of both Annikki and myself in shaping some of his ideas. 

In his most recent book, he has given us a great compliment by referencing one of our major writings "Handbook for Survival in Finland" first published in 1994 and updated in 2014. It was the 1994 edition of our book that helped Ajeet to settle down in Finland.

We were especially happy when he wrote a short acknowledgement when he handed over a personal copy of his book for us.

Although this book covers the business opportunities between the two countries, Finland and India, it is much more than that in that his in depth coverage of the socio-economic conditions, political background and the pros and cons in both countries is much better than many other books that I have had the chance to read.

An excellent feature is the listing of the top 500 companies in both Finland and India. A study of these is most revealing in that it shows the typical differences in the structure of these countries.

Those who know Finland will understand why it is among the top countries in the world in several fields as Innovation, Quality of Life, Happiness, Education, Freedom of Speech, Environment, to name just st a few. 

Taken against our last book "The Titanic Calied India" published after our last visit to India in 2014, the stark contrast between these two countries is obvious.

 

When Ajeet was living in Finland, we had regular alumni get-togethers, which were always 100% attendance as we were were then the only two in Finland. :-)

If you are interested in picking up Ajeet's book about Finland and India you can go to these links in either UK or in the US.

Amazon UK Link for "Finland-India Business Opportunities"

Amazon US Link for "Finland-India Business Opportunities"

For your help here are a few reviews of the book which I found:

“ Due to his long and rich experience of working with Finnish and Indian companies and passionate research at IIM Ahmedabad in India , Aalto University, Helsinki and University of Tampere in Finland, Professor Mathur has a very deep knowledge of how to do business in both countries. I think that every company leader who considers starting Finnish-Indian business should read this new book. This valuable new book will help companies entering new markets to flourish by building robust sustainable business relations.”

- Päivi Leiwo, Chairperson Oilon Oy, Lahti, Finland

“This book is a treasure trove of knowledge explaining the business opportunities, policies, cultures, institutions, country trajectories and nuances pertaining to Finland and India. The author has worked in business, government and academia in India and abroad. He has also had a long association with Finland and is able to bring you an insider’s perspective of both countries”

- Ashok Sharma, Ambassador of India

“The author’s deep insider experience in the two countries enables him to make very sharp observations on both sides. This book will definitely help in understanding the cultural differences and in making all interactions and communications smoother. It is also very interesting and helpful to read about the differences in legal structures and where these differences originate from.”

- Iiro Rossi, Managing Director, Holiday Club Resorts, Helsinki

“This book is a delightful and important guide for those who want to do business between Finland and India. It brings you the numerous business opportunities which wait to be availed, and highlights the deep understanding of the author of the culture and institutional environment of both countries. Read this book, learn and be surprised!”

- Niina Nummela, Vice Dean, Professor of International Business, Turku School of Economics, University of Turku, Finland

“This book is a reflection of Ajeet’s penchant for deep research on a topic and ability to structure and articulate content. This will be extremely helpful to both academia and practitioners who want to develop Indo-Finnish business relations specifically and international business in general. Sonata is currently engaged with business in Finland”

- Srikar Reddy, Managing Director, Sonata Software Limited, Bangalore

From the two of us, Annikki and myself, we can certainly say that is one of the best books that has come over our table during the last few years, and it is even more of great honour that it has been written by one of our alumni. 

Thanks and well done Ajeet.

KTWV Volume 13 Issue 15: Budget Battleground Part 2

NDTV seems to have taken a firm place in our home in Finland.

Today I watched the Budget Battleground Part 2 from St. Andrew,s College, Mumbai. (I reported on the panelists in Part 1 in my earlier blog entry.)

One of the reasons I watched was that 54er/58er Rahul Bajaj, 54er from Cathedral School and 58er from St. Stephen's College, Chairman of Bajaj Enterprises and an Independent Rajya Sabha member was among the panelists. In 2009, when Annikki and I visited Delhi, Rahul stayed back one weekend evening so he could meet up with us in a party organized for us by Cathedralites led by 64er Deepak Deshpande.

I was under the impression that Adi Godrej was a Cathedralite, like his nephew 65er Jamshyd Godrej, who passed through Finland last year with his wife 65er Pheroza. Although I could not meet up with Jamshyd, I had a long chat with Pheroza, also a Cathedrtalite.

Adi Godrej was, however, from St. Xavier's School and College in Bombay.

There was another member of the alumni on the panel that was from my alma mater. It was 73er Vikram Singh Mehta, the Chairman of Shell, about 10 years my junior, but known for his bringing the Royal Shell Oil group back to India. I have not had the pleasure or benefit of meeting Vikram. He came into prominence well after I left India in 1984. Being from the same professional area, I did watch his career rise with interest.

The fourth panelist was one who I have not met but am associated with indirectly as he is the brother-in-law of one of my dearest friends, the late 59er Ashok Kapur, former Chairman of YES Bank. Rana Kapur is now in the top spot of the bank. I do not know him personally, so am unable to comment on his  stature.

The discussion was not very memorable in that nothing new was really thrown up. The focus was on the disinvestment of the Government of India from Public Sector companies as well as privatization.
Certainly, as leaders in the Private Sector, as family run companies in the case of Adi and Rahul, and as a leader of a MNC as Royal Dutch Shell, in the case of Vikram, and as the head of an outstanding private bank set up by Ashok in his heyday, the general opinion was that the Government should stick to Governing while industrialists and professional managers should stick to running businesses professionally.

It was one question from the students that really summed up the situation. Is the outsourcing boom was not far away. I am glad that a young student could recognize this as it will not be long before we see this side of the contribution to Indian growth completely dry up as localities as Vietnam, start to cut into our traditional business strongholds.

You can watch this episode in the NDTV archives.  Hope this link works:

http://www.ndtv.com/video/player/ndtv-special-ndtv-24x7/budget-battleground-what-india-expects-from-pranab-babu/226057

Enjoy.

KTWV Volume 13 Issue 14: Budget Battleground

This post is made in three of my blogs as it of interest to all my readers of Jacob's Blog, and more specifically the readers of my Mumbai Cathedral and John Connon School Blog, Seventh Heaven, and readers of the Stephanian Blog, Kooler Talk (Web Version).
I apologize for this multi-blog posting, as many of you are readers of all the three blogs!
Budget Battleground was  event that took place against the backdrop of my alma mater, St. Stephen's College, beautifully lit in the background, had a selected audience of young economists from Delhi School of Economics, Shri Ram College and St. Stephen's College, three of the many premier colleges in Delhi.
The anchorman was NDTV Managing Director, Dr. Prannoy Roy, who was connected with another good friend, great economist with tremendous wit, the person who turned around Doordarshan in the late eighties and early nineties and then went on to head Rupert Murdoch's Star TV and then his own channel, Broadcast Worldwide Ltd.,  and also a Stephanian, 61er/63er Rathikant Basu.
This is from the Wikipedia entry for NDTV Managing Director, Prannoy Roy:

Controversy
On 20 January 1998 Central Bureau of Investigation filed cases against New Delhi Television (NDTV) managing director Prannoy Roy, former Director General of Doordarshan R Basu and five other top officials of Doordarshan under Section 120-B of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for criminal conspiracy and under the Prevention of Corruption Act. According to the CBI charge-sheet, Doordarshan suffered a loss of over Rs 3.52 crore due to the “undue favours” shown to NDTV as its programme The World This Week (TWTW) was put in `A’ category instead of `special A’ category

The two in the hot seats were 63er Montek Singh Alhuwalia, who was very much present in St. Stephen's College during my three years there, and Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen (difficult to say whether he is an Indian or Bangladeshi as both countries have laid claim to him).
One can never forget 63er Montek, not for his knowledge, but for the unique way he wore his turban and certain mannerisms (the nervous laugh when he knows what he is saying is not what he believes), which have not changed, even as of today. The way he argued a point was always from a point that he could not be wrong, although many times, he was and is!
I give below three extract from the autobiography of Amartya Sen (Copyright © The Nobel Foundation 1998). In these extracts you will see the mention of a name - Mumbai Cathedral School 59er Sudhir Anand, my classmate who is Professor of Economics at both Oxford and Harvard, a brilliant economist and undoubtedly a brain who influenced Amartya Sen considerably more than a three time  mention in his autobiography.
59er Sudhir was from our Mumbai Cathedral and John Connon School. Although unable to make it top our 50th year reunion in 2009, he was very much there in spirit.

"I was also fortunate to have colleagues who were working on serious social choice problems, including Peter Hammond, Charles Blackorby, Kotaro Suzumura, Geoffrey Heal, Gracieda Chichilnisky, Ken Binmore, Wulf Gaertner, Eric Maskin, John Muellbauer, Kevin Roberts, Susan Hurley, at LSE or Oxford, or neighbouring British universities. (I also learned greatly from conversations with economists who were in other fields, but whose works were of great interest to me, including Sudhir Anand, Tony Atkinson, Christopher Bliss, Meghnad Desai, Terence Gorman, Frank Hahn, David Hendry, Richard Layard, James Mirrlees, John Muellbauer, Steve Nickel, among others.) I also had the opportunity of collaboration with social choice theorists elsewhere, such as Claude d'Aspremont and Louis Gevers in Belgium, Koichi Hamada and Ken-ichi Inada in Japan (joined later by Suzumura when he returned there), and many others in America, Canada, Israel, Australia, Russia, and elsewhere). There were many new formal results and informal understandings that emerged in these works, and the gloom of "impossibility results" ceased to be the only prominent theme in the field. The 1970s were probably the golden years of social choice theory across the world. Personally, I had the sense of having a ball.
From social choice to inequality and poverty
The constructive possibilities that the new literature on social choice produced directed us immediately to making use of available statistics for a variety of economic and social appraisals: measuring economic inequality, judging poverty, evaluating projects, analyzing unemployment, investigating the principles and implications of liberty and rights, assessing gender inequality, and so on. My work on inequality was much inspired and stimulated by that of Tony Atkinson. I also worked for a while with Partha Dasgupta and David Starrett on measuring inequality (after having worked with Dasgupta and Stephen Marglin on project evaluation), and later, more extensively, with Sudhir Anand and James Foster."

Later he says in his autobiography:

"During my Harvard years up to about 1991, I was much involved in analyzing the overall implications of this perspective on welfare economics and political philosophy (this is reported in my book, Inequality Reexamined, published in 1992). But it was also very nice to get involved in some new problems, including the characterization of rationality, the demands of objectivity, and the relation between facts and values. I used the old technique of offering courses on them (sometimes jointly with Robert Nozick) and through that learning as much as I taught. I started taking an interest also in health equity (and in public health in particular, in close collaboration with Sudhir Anand), a challenging field of application for concepts of equity and justice. Harvard's ample strength in an immense variety of subjects gives one scope for much freedom in the choice of work and of colleagues to talk to, and the high quality of the students was a total delight as well. My work on inequality in terms of variables other than incomes was also helped by the collaboration of Angus Deaton and James Foster.

Readers of Seventh Heaven will remember how I have written about Sudhir and the Nobel Prize awarded to Amartya Sen!
The discussion was lack lustre. Montek took the view that he could not discuss the Budget (the whole point of the programme) and gave no real answer for the blazing question how the poor of India had not improved their lot during the time he has been at the head of the Planning Commission. (At one point he says "We have said, the Government has said,…." )
Montek minced  words as only a political chamcha can do!
Roy was not hard-hitting in his position as Anchorman. He was being pleasant to his guests!!
Amartya Sen was his own self and wanted to be nice to everyone.
Not a receipe for a successful  discussion, but for me, being in the setting of our beautiful college was good enough to sit through the 45 minute discussion!
Anyway, it was good to be away from the depressing media coverage of our hallowed institution which has been plaguing us for almost half a decade!

KTWV Volume 13 Issue 13: First time

Dr. S. Y. Qureshi

In my almost 70 years and over 48 years as an adult with deep interest in politics, this was the first time I actually spent a few hours, in Finland, watching an election process in India.

In the 70s I was close with many politicians of all parties and knew exactly how corrupt all of them were. So I kept my distance.

Votes appear to have been cast this time in 5 States over a period of time and today was the counting and declaration of the results.

Results were announced from Goa (1.5 million), Manipur (2.7 million), Punjab (28 million), Uttar Pradesh (200 million) and Uttarakhand (10 million).

Over 240 million people were choosing their local politicians to serve them for the next few years.

It was a mixed bag of results with the National Parties less successful than the regional parties.

Watching on an Indian internet TV Channel, NDTV 24x7, I was quite intrigued by the mixture of languages being used by the participants.

Since I know English, Hindi, Punjabi (a bit), I wondered whether this channel was watched by the majority of Indians who are only familiar with their regional language.

Obviously not.

Quite a few of my juniors from my alma mater, St. Stephen's College in Delhi, were on the box, either as politicians in different parties, as tv anchor men or women, or as "experts". It was quite easy to recognise them as they had a different air about the way they handled the subjects.

I thought to myself whether I was the same!

I hope not, as I consider myself as individualistic rather than moulded by my alma mater characteristics, especially with regard to politics!

On the whole, following the election was an interesting experience, especially as I could view it from a distance and not be involved with it in any other way.

The main thing that struck me was that several corrupt politicians fell by the wayside.

The independent Chief Election Commissioner, Dr. S. Y. Qureshi, is also a product of my alma mater, about 10 years my junior. His interview on NDTV was very interesting as he has to keep his head above the murky waters of Indian Politics.

This experience was also followed by an interesting news item I noted in an Indian internet newspaper which said that the top two jobs in the Indian Administrative Service and in the Indian Police Service were also filled by Stephanians. These are IAS officers Pulok Chatterjee, the Prime Minister's Principal Secretary, and Ajit Seth, the Cabinet Secretary, and IPS officers, Nehchal Sandhu, Intelligence Bureau Chief and A. B. Singh, Central Bureau of Investigation Chief.

Many of my classmates and those who were in College during my years there, have served in very senior Government positions (62ers Mani Shankar Aiyar, Rathikant Basu, Ashok (Tony) Jaitly) and also as Ambassadors (62er Niranjan Desai, 63ers Siddarth Singh and Aftab Seth, etc.) in different parts of the world. They have also served in the United Nations, 74er Sashi Tharoor, the Commonwealth Secretariat, 62er Kamlesh Sharma, the World Bank, 63er Montek Singh Alhuwalia and 62er Sarwar Lateef, the Asian Development Bank, 63er Karthik Sandilya, and many many more such world bodies.

It would be interesting to compile a Who's Who of Stephanians!

KTWV Volume 13 Issue 12: Not again!

When is our college going to be free of being treated so shabbily iny the mainstream media.

Today, I was woken up by the drama that is playing out about a sexual harrassment case lodged by a lady employee in the college against her boss.

I am not interested in hearing the merits or demerits of this case.

What I am concerned with is purely the fact this case shows up our alma mater in a negative light.

Any competent leader would have resolved this issue before it went to even Stage 1, the complaint being filed with Delhi University.

When are we all going to understand we have incompetence at the top in our alma mater!

KTWV Volume 13 Issue 11: Mind is on food still

I certainly have good food on my mind. My dear wife dished out a great and very colourful pasta, accompanied by a spicy sauce and a meat ball dish for dinner. I am stuffed.

I never felt stuffed after any meal in College. I am not fussy about food and did not mind the college cuisine. I used to spend time in the kitchen talking to our gyps / cum cooks.

One comment to my last blog entry was especially interesting. The writer said he could hardly remember what he had for breakfast the previous week, so how in the earth could he remember what he had 45 years ago!

That is the best part as he actually did remember what he had 45 years ago, and even remembered the parathas that  were served for the vegetarian breakfast on Sundays in our College Mess.

His post did bring back a lot of memories as I used to alternate between the non veg and veg breakfast every morning. The eggs were sometimes quite cold, so I did not fancy having them every morning with the bread, butter, jam.

The roti was far more appetizing.

A few more posts about the food in college. till I have fried the subject!

KTWV Volume 13 Issue 10: Breakfast in College

I had alluded to the fact that when I woke up in the morning, usually around 5 or 6 am, I used to see Princi Sircar walk to the Chapel at 7 am. I used to be sitting on the verandah facing his home, usually with a glass of hot Horlicks or Ovaltine brought to me by Kundan Singh and reading the newspaper, as I had my own copy of the Times of India delivered under my door the first thing in the morning.

Before reading the newspaper, i used to do the crossword, something I had been doing in Bombay, beating my dad to the newspaper every morning.

I did not complete the crossword in the morning, and I would usually try to complete it by the time I went to bed. I loved the anagrams.

Besides the sports column, (AFST was really humorous besides touching on important issues), I was an avid news junkie in that I read all the news in the paper from cover to cover. Except for the Tender Ads (no pun intended) and the classifieds, I usually spent more than an hour or two reading all the news.

In those days I was not compelled to write Letters to the Editor, although I held strong views on what was fair and right and what was justice.

I hated the cold bath, even in summer, as the cold water made my spine to shudder and shiver. In winter, Kundan used to make sure a bucket or two of was made available, and as I was usually the only one awake so early, I managed to get the piping hot water before anyone else. (If I went for sports practice, I usually had a bath in the evening as well.)

After Chapel, I used to come back to the room and then gather with one or two of others from  R, S or T Block and trudge for breakfast.

I cannot remember, for the life of me, what we got for breakfast, but it was an important meal as we had to last till lunch with that. (Toast, Butter, Jam, Eggs??? And the Veg breakfast???)

Maybe someone can remind me what was served at breakfast!

KTWV Volume 13 Issue 9: Meeting operational Costs

Two of my 19 Blogs

Now that Kooler Talk (Web Version) is back on line regularly, establishing 16 years of service to our alumni, I am now a pensioner and keeping this afloat with my pension is quite difficult. Thanks to so many of you, I was able to install a dedicated server.

I have just 3 ad places to offer on this page, two at the top and one at the bottom.

If any Stephanian would like to help support this Web Version and would be prepared to advertise to the 3000+ Stephanians who visit this site at every update, I would be most grateful.

This is not a broad general audience, but a very very limited one.

Anyone wanting to reach my broader readership can advertise in Jacob's Blog, which is a very popular site, should look at Annikki's and my larger community called The Findians

Proposals can be sent to me at jmatthana (at) gmail.com.

KTWV Volume 13 Issue 8: Joy unlimited

There are many forms of joy. Family, friends, acquaintances, achievements, all create different sensations of joy.

When I received an email today to approve a comment which had been posted on our Kooler Talk blog, it was another feeling of joy, one which I had been waiting to experirnce for many years.

When I shifted from the web site version of Kooler Talk (Web Version) to a blog, I was looking for a suitable picture for the masthead of the blog.

Father and son, Princi Anil and son, Amit, sent me an ariel photograph of the college. They also gave me permission to use it as the masthead of this blog. Unfortunately, neither of them gave me the name of the photographer.

The joy I experienced when the photographer identified himself in the Comments was quite different to the joy I have experienced in other situations. A joy of relief so I could acknowledge him on the masthead, the joy of knowing how and when the photograph had been taken, and the joy of knowing hiw unique this photograph was, all added up to a great feeling of satisfaction. To top it all, it has been taken by a Stephanian!

"Dear Sir,

Great. True many of these photos were given to Dr Anil by me through Dr Tara Chand. These were one of the first of many pictures which I captured while I was in Air Force and had an opportunity to see the college from air. Another air effort was made much later to have video, as well as stills, to make a blowup and then present to college on its 125th foundation day celebration.

Well, I joined SSC in 1975 and went for M.Sc (Phy) after graduation. I was not in Res and was not part of either the volleyball team of Arvind or cricket team of Kirti.

New science block, Dr TC, Dr Swami, Dr Mathur, Dr Bhatia, Dr Garg and so on were my guides and engagement. Then I joined IAF to serve for 28 yrs and took voluntary release in 2008.

For some time I was Head (HR) with one corporate before I went to a Mgmt Institute as HOD (Mgmt). Now I am on the visiting faculty with few other MBA institutes apart from providing Counsultancy for Org Growth to companies

Looking forward for synergy with you.

Regards
Dr Gp. Capt ATUL JAIN
SSC (Phy) - 1976-81
e-mail - azadione (at) dataone.in
M-091-9013779006

He had given this photograph as one of many to the college through Dr. Tarachand..

Thank you Atul, a physics postgraduate from our college for capturing this and sharing it with the alumni through me.

And I acknowledge your contribution and hope you will share some more of your photographic talents about our alma mater with the readers of the blog, which is greatly obligated to you..