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.

KTWV 9 Issue 14: The ever youthful Rahul is 70

Young and dynamic Rahul Bajaj in 1986
Copyright The Hindu

At the top in 2006, Rahul Bajaj
Copyright The Frontline

“Do whatever you think best, but be best at whatever you do.”
– Member of Rajya Sabha Padma Bhushan Rahul Bajaj

Like a handful of people of the 1950’s as 57er Ashok (Tony) Jaitley, 58er Dr. Peter Philip, 59ers Sujit Bhattacharaya, and myself, 54er Rahul Bajaj was a Mumbai Cathedralite and a Delhi Stephanian. (There is an earlier blog entry on both blogs listing several more who share this common heritage.)

Ashok Jaitley, Tony to most of us, wrote a book about St. Stephen’s College. Rahul released the book where Mani Shankar Aiyar, another Stephanian of our era spoke. Here is a quote from Tony’s book:

"The same spirit of striving for the best was infused in all other activities despite the cultivated air of nonchalance that Stephanians have always sought to project about themselves. But this has not deterred the real achievers from being clear about their own perspective. Rahul Bajaj, one of the most innovative and successful captains of Indian industry, recalls his days in College as the second most powerful influence after his school in Bombay: 'It was the first whiff of freedom...and as the Cat Stevens number goes, "the first cut is the deepest." The notion of a performing elite was imprinted in my mind at College. We are all here to make a difference and we should be very good at something, is the essence of Stephania."

Also like Peter and me, Rahul was a Savageite and also House Captain. There, however, the similarity ends, as Rahul is one of the topmost industrialists in India and also ranks extremely high in the world.

It is reputed that Rahul was a sportsman. He was an outstanding boxer and won his weight most years. He is remembered as being part of the School Table Tennis Team. I also remember him as an long distance athlete. As I was just a newcomer to school in 1954, the year Rahul graduated, I am not fully and personally conversant with all his accomplishments at school.

The Bajaj Enterprise started as a sugar manufacturing factory in 1931. It has now grown to become one of the country’s largest business houses.

Rahul took over the running of the Bajaj Auto company in 1965. Activities encompass the manufacture of a whole range of products.

In 2001 the Bajaj Group had a sales turnover in excess of US$ 1,300 million. The Net Assets were worth US$ 1,333 million and the Net Profit was US$ 58 million. It was ranked as the 5th largest business family in India by the Centre for Monitoring Indian economy (CMIE).

It has under its umbrella over 25 companies and a strength of over 25000 employees.

It’s core strength, however, is the unshakeable foundation based on its tradition of trust.

Rahul's most recent interview with Chris Morris from the BBC was about the small car of Bajaj Auto, in relation to the Tata Nano. It can be found at this link.

The interesting similarity between Ratan Tata and Rahul Bajaj is that when Ratan was Chairman of Air India, Rahul was Chairman of Indian Airlines. (I do not remember Ratan as a Cathedralite but younger brother, Jimmy, was a 57er and played hockey and cricket with us.)

Rahul received the Padma Bhushan in 2001.

Cathedralite 54er and Stephanian 57er, Independent Rajya Sabha member, Chairman of Bajaj Group, Rahul Bajaj will turn 70 this Tuesday.

I hope as many of you that can will wish this outstanding Cathedralite / Stephanian and wish him many many more years of service to our nation.

(Many thanks to Cathedralite 56er HS Uberoi and Cathedralite / Stephanian 57er Ashok Jaitley (and his brother Ravi, Rahul’s classmate) for their valuable contributions when writing this tribute.)