Explosion in Mukarji Court

Mukarji Block (R, S & T, Dec. 2014, Photo by Jacob Matthan)

In my first year in college (1960-19661) I was in Mukarji Block Room S2. Mr. Summerscale was our Block Tutor. 

He was a real gentleman and would regularly host us for a cup of tea and biscuits and discuss any problems he or we had. As he was also in charge of the Shakespeare Society, there were regular sessions where a few of the girls from Miranda House would come to his study and there were readings from Shakespeare plays.

I was not really into Shakespeare, but occasionally joined in as he called us to be part of the session. Tony Jaitly, a Cathedralite like me), twins, Roshan (who acted as Gandhi in the film) and former Indian Ambassadoir HE Aftab Seth and advertising producer Zaffar Hai are those I recall who used to be regular participants.

Kundan Singh was my gyp (all three years) and he would make sure we had sufficient snacks for all of us including plenty of  Sukhiya's barfis and samosas!

Transistor radios were forbidden in residence. Mr. Summerscale knew that I had a Short Wave radio and I would tune in to BBC World Service in the late evenings. 

He checked with my immediate neighbour (I think it was Ramani) if it disturbed him. He said it did not, so he let me keep it but advised me to use it with headphones! Occasionally he would drop on on sSaturday afternons to check the sports news. 

I do not think he took part in College sports but he did look like a cricketer!

In our second year, Rev. Luck, a Canadian pastor, who took over from Rev. Jarvis, was our Block Tutor. 

On the whole he was pleasant personality, but he did have a temper, as can be understood from this incident.

I had exchanged rooms with my friend Rajagopalan Narayan, so I was in Room S8, a room on the verandah side. I do  not know why Rajen wanted to change, but for me it was good. (My speculation is conveyed in an earlier blog entry!)

I closed the corridor door permanently and only used the verandah side door.

We had a habit of playing bridge late into the night outside my room on the verandah. Several guys used to come and watch and there was a lot of chit chat after every rubber.

One night we were unusually boisterous. Suddenly, Rev. Luck arrived from the garden side of the verandah. His face was flaming red. He stormed onto the verandah, and without saying a word took the entire pack of cards and ripped them apart dead centre into two halves and stormed off,

Not a word was said, but the message was quite clear. We had obviously disturbed his beauty sleep. 

We all dispersed, all mad at his behaviour.

The next day there was a lot of discussion as to how we should retaliate.

Some suggested flooding his room by connecting the garden hose and pushing it under the door. This idea seemed to excite everyone till I quickly shot it down.

I said it would be pointless as the one who would suffer would only be Kundan Singh who would have to clean  up the mess.

As I was the JCR President and I had the keys to the JCR, we decided that our bridge sessions in the night would be moved to the back room of the JCR. We could use it as late as we wanted. I got permission from Princi Sircar and Dean Rajpal, so was born the Bridge Club of our college. 

Regular players were the Rai twins, Suraj and Chandra, Tich Arun Agarwal, and Swaminathan Aiyar (Economic Times financial correspondent and younger brother of Mani Shankar Aiyar).

Ajay Verma, my bosom friend, when
he visited us in Oulu.

My regular partner was late Ajay Verma.

In the first ever JCR Bridge Tournament the finals was between the Rai twins and Ajay and myself. 

It was cliff hanger and it went to the last deal where Ajay and I bid 7 clubs and the Rai twins bid 7 spades, a quite unbelieveable bid that only the paranormal communication between the twins could call, and they made it!

Rev. Luck could, therefore, enjoy his beauty sleep!

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..

KTWV 11 Issue 19: History of our College

I have written about the book authored by 61er Ashok (Tony) Jaitly for the 125th Anniversary of our College. Tony, like me, was a 57er Mumbai Cathedralite and then a Stephanian. The character of both these great institutions he graced do come through in this book.

Tony joined the college for exactly the same reasons as me - to save a year! Little did either he or I know at that time that we were joining to the most prestigous educational institution in India!

Yesterday, I completed reading his treatise for the third time. Although quite a slim book, it is crammed with the most interesting facts about our alma mater, that I have not been able to absorb it all in just one or two readings.

Almost everything that we need to know about the history and character of our college is included. The author has not blown his own trumpet in the book. He is an outstanding personality and was, during his time in college, on several fronts - on the sports field, in the theatre, in studies, and also as a Stephanian in Rez.

He has also not blown my trumpet ;-) , as although I get a mention as the 1961 JCR President and also the publisher of this outstanding blog (!!), he failed to mention that I was the only 2nd year student ever to be elected to the JCR Presidency, the organiser of the first JCR evening made up wholly of our internal talent in acting, music, comedy, and also the organiser of the first JCR indoor tournaments - chess, carrom, bridge, draughts, table tennis.

In fact, other than mentioning my JCR Presidency, Tony, covered almost every other institution in the college,  but forgot that the JCR existed as the main centre for the residents in college, the main meeting point for all residents in the evenings and also for day scholars who had to pass the time of day between lectures. The JCR President was the Head of all residents and served on various Committees including the all important Mess Committee! I did a lot of campaigning to change the quality of our food in 1961-62, but it fell back to old standards in 1962-63!

I was lucky to have Shanky (R. I Shankland) and Sircar (S. C. Sircar) supporting all my efforts and 62er Sarwear Lateef on the JCR Committee, who used his diplomatic skills to get many things done. We installed the first gramaphone in the JCR during that year. We installed colourful curtains. We allowed students to stay after 10 pm so that they could listen to Test Match Commentaries from places such as West Indies.

As I mentioned in an earlier blog entry, the present JCR is quite a morbid place compared to absolutely electric atmosphere we enjoyed there in 1961 - 62. When 63er Norval Prakash (Sherwood College, Nanital), my classmate, succeeded me at JCR President in 1962 - 63, he did not have the same hectic agenda as he was busy with his final year studies!

Coming back to Tony's book, it is superb on all fronts except where it was outside his control - the publishing. The sequence of pages in my copy is as follows:

102; 109, 110; 107, 108; 105, 106; 103, 104; 117, 118; 115, 116; 113, 114; 111, 112, 119. 120: ...

Whether it is a simple binding error in my copy or one which has been carried in all other copies, certainly is a spoiler in an otherwise brilliantly written book.

The book is also lacking an all important Index and Bibliography, which are most important for any book purporting to be "A History". That again is not the author's responsibility, but the publishers! In this age of computerised editing, these should have been a couple of the easiest tasks to accomplish!

The amount of research Tony has done, not only from written matter, but meeting and talking to Stephanians of all ages, has been a heroic effort. His comments, like a true diplomat are guarded, but the importance of our college as a secular institution from Day 1 comes through.

I would advise the present Principal, Valson Thambu, to read this book to understand something about the college, as almost everything he has been doing for the last 5 years is diametrically in contrast with the hopes and wishes of our founding fathers and all the Prncipals that have preceded him.

Valson Thambu would do well to remember that the first four students of our college were 'Hindoos' (Sansar Chand, Har Gopal, Kirpa Narain, Ram Lal) and the fifth a 'Mohammedan' (Sajjid Mirza).

I was certainly not aware of the involvement of many of our past staff and students with all the drama that India went through during the last century.

I was certainly not aware that the massacre of Jallianwala Bagh was condemned by, in writing in the Stephanian 1920, by the editor C. B. Young!

As a public institution it is our duty to avoid taking sides on strictly political issues... (but) we are in emphatic agreement with the condemnation bestowed on the action of General Dyer... as Christian missionaries we cannot avoid the duty of forming and expressing a judgement on such a deed of horror as the slaughter in Jallianwalla Bagh.

All the characters that I knew are portrayed with great accuracy throughout the book and it is a credit that Tony was able to write it without causing offence!

I was not aware of the close connection of our college to Mahatma Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore and many more historic personalities of the world stage.

I will be using this book now to put many of my blog posts in context, in future. It is something which has been at my bedside for the last 3 months, but has now been moved to my office table so as to be of service to the rest of you.

I recommend that you get yourself a copy, also! Certainly worth every rupee I paid for it - just Rs. 365 (€ 6!)  in New Delhi. They had to order it from the Publisher and I was able to pick it up just hours before I left the city.