KTWV02-Issue 10: Email from Principal Wilson

MY SINCERE APOLOGIES FOR MULTIPLE MAIL COPIES TO THE SAME ADDRESS

IT WAS DUE TO A GLITCH IN MY MAILER PROGRAMME

Christmas is upon us here in the North Pole (figuratively speaking) and the snow cover, though there in plenty to lighten the dark days, is not too much so that we have to dig our way out. Not that late sleepers, like me, have to dig our way out as the snow ploughs shift the snow in the city during the early hours.

The last month has been one of consolidation and thanks to the mail from our tireless New Yorker, Sreenath (you can read an interview with S-cubed on Indialine) , who sent us that humourous note about Dr. Anil Wilson's thoughts about our much loved Stephanian corridors (please email me if you did not receive it and I will send you a copy), I established contact with our lively Head of State.

Here is his last message, which includes invitations all round - so I hope that those of you in the vicinity will take the opportunity to join up in the festivities.

From: Dr. Anil Wilson,
Principal,
St. Stephen's College,
Delhi.

Dear Jacob,

Delighted to hear from you and to know about you in some detail.

I have visited the web site and enjoyed what I read there though I could not access the one with your photograph ( Ed: I wonder why - as it comes up without any problem - anyone else had this problem - or is the devil in that picture playing tricks with your computer?).

Regarding the College version of Kooler Talk, it may interest you to know that after I took over as Principal (January 1991) I discovered that quite a few traditions had flittered away which I felt should be restored. In this process I came across old copies of Kooler Talk (Ed: I wonder whether he found the one with the scandulous article by the 3 HEAPS - Big Heap (me), Middle Heap and Little Heap?) but could not find out why it should have been stopped. Hence, I decide to put it back on the rails and asked Dr.Vijay Tankha, (who, as you know is teaching Philosophy here and is also an Old Boy) to become the Staff Adviser. Last year Vijay went off on study leave and now the Staff Adviser is Dr. Christel Devadawson (read English at College then did her Ph.D. from Cambridge and is now on the faculty).

It would interest you to know that the JCR activities, that you initiated, are going strong. Instead of a JCR Evening (Ed: My lasting contribution to Stephenia - I now know I have done at least one valuable thing in my life!!), now we have a JCR Week!! (Ed: If I find my bridge partner Ajay Verma, we will take on anyone but the Rai twins (Suraj and Chander) at a bridge challenge competition!!)

These days College is preparing for the Founder's Day. Normally this is on Dec. 7, but 7th being a Sunday, we are commemorating it on Dec 6, 10.30 am IST.

(Ed: Dec. 6th is the 80th Finnish Independence Day - so we will be watching on TV all the dignatories, including our own Ambassador, Mrs. Kumar, enjoying their fun and frolic in the Presidential Palace in Helsinki.)

Ved Prakash Marwah (distinguished Stephanian) (Ed: Will someone fill me in on Ved and the exploits that have made him distinguished) will deliver the Founder's Day address.

In recent years I have made it a point to invite only Stephanians as Chief Guests for this occasion. B. G. Verghese (Ed: Who married a lady Stephenain of the 50's era, glamourous Jameela, for those who think that women in college is a new fangled sport) was our guest a couple of years ago. Letters of invitation are sent to those Old Students in Delhi whose addresses we have on our files.

(I wonder if there are a good number on the Web Stephanian Directory and if so could that be used to send them this invitation?)

The Old Students Reunion and Lunch is on Sunday December 14. Normally 350 to 400 Old Students turn up. (This too could be notified through the 'net')

In order to make this occasion more meaningful I have added a few things to it, apart from the usual basketball and tennis matches: we put up an exhibition of old photographs and memorabilia which is very popular, we remember the 'dear departed' during the previous year, and invite three of the oldest Stephanians present to speak about their days in College. I have also taken to inviting ten to fifteen Junior Members (the President of the Students Union Society, of the JCR, Secretary of the Social Service League, Shake Soc etc. etc.) to be the 'hosts' and receive the Old Students as they come in and, in general, to interact with them.

Well, there is so much more to write, but let that be for the next time.

(Yes, Kundan Singh (Ed: my absolutely wonderful gyp - who made me drink a glass of milk morning and night - following my mother's orders) is going strong).

Best Wishes,

Anil

Amongst the other letters I had was one from Singapore.

Subject: From a fellow Stephanian
Sent: 26/11/97 01:27
From: Akash Mohapatra, email address provided

Hi Jacob,

It has been a real pleasure to go through the Kooler Talk (Ed: Web Version, I assume). I have been following it since the past year or so.

I am Akash Mohapatra, Economics - 1989.

Presently based in Singapore. It made me so nostalgic.(Ed: It seems our dinosaur from Canada is not the only one is driven into nostalgia by this electronic noise!!)

I had called college last week and Raghunathji is now the Section Officer - Where there was Mr Rampall earlier. I was told that a Girl's Hostel has been opened in college, near the New LCR.

I must say St. Stephens is putting in it's bit for gender equality. I was very happy to hear this. I wonder when the college will have a Lady Principal(Ed: Watch out Anil - Now you have a real unequal threat!!) and a Lady President.

We had a Stephanian get together here in Singapore about 3 months ago and are planning another get together this Sunday, November 30th and I am taking copies of the Kooler Talk and Vepa's History of St Stephen's to share with everyone.

(Ed: If you can rattle up some ad revenue for this rag out there in Singapore from our well-to-do Stephanians - and also from the New York and Washington groups - maybe we can make this webletter into a bundle of joy with some glitzy pictures and video images, some real audio featuring music from Stephanian Jazz and Pop groups, etc., etc.!!)

We are about 25 Stephanians here in Singapore and I shall send you the list.

Regards

Akash

My Address and contact.
Tele:.. 65 - 3567792 (Res) 65 - 2901306 (Off)
Email: akash.mohapatra@chase.com (Work) akash@cyberway.com.sg (Home)
Blk 194, Kim Keat Avenue, # 10-420, Singapore 310194

Joanna (pronounced Yoanna), my younger daughter (a Masters in English Philology from our local university) dumped an enormous book "A Suitable Boy" on my table before she left for a long holiday to India to show off my first grandson (8 months) to his greatgrandmother in Bangalore. She sort of mumbled that it was by a fellow alma materite - Vikram Seth.

Looking at the sheer size of the book - 1474 pages - I told her that I doubted very much if any Stephanian would have the concentration to sit down and write such an elephantine monster.

In my younger days I was a master of speed reading - 1500 words per minute - but with age (bad vision and lack of concentration in matters not of utmost importance and interest - as the latest cricket scores and match reports) it has dropped back to the normal sedate 300 words per minute - so it is going to take me a good, long time before I finish this book - sort of 10 pages a day schedule.

Will someone confirm or deny the antecedents of Vikram - as if he is one of us I will have to indicate that in my Authors and Personalities page where a couple of other Stephanian names (e.g., Arun Shourie, Shashi Tharoor) have found their way into the hall of fame alongside Rabindranath Tagore, Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela, etc....

Now a request from someone who wants to be Stephanian -

Subject: College info
Sent 20/11/97 17:29

Respected (Ed: I am flattered) Mr. Matthan,

You are probably wondering who the hell I am?

Well, my name is Rashmi and I am studying abroad; to be specific in the American school in Athens. My parents however cannot afford to send me to the States for a College education, so I decided I wanted to go to the St. Stephens College in Delhi.

My parents told me it was a very good college in Delhi. But in order to go I really wanted some advice as to what percentage you need to get accepted and what the interview is about. I mean what type of questions they ask you!

So after a lot of surfing (Ed: Must have been wind-surfing - any Stephanian or would-be Stephanian would know that by typing Kooler into any search engne you will land up at this page. :-)) on the net I found this site.

Please guide me - I 'll really appreciate it !

Thanx

Yours Sincerely,

RASHMI

Sadly Rashmi did not give me her email address so there was no point of forwarding her request to the people who could help her. If anyone knows who she is or if she happens to surf by again, please send the correct email address to me and I will ensure that your request is sent to some present day Stephanian who can advise you - sitting on top of the world here in Finland, I am ill-equipped to give any info on the subject.

Maybe Anil will take note and help me put up a web site which has all relevant data about our honoured institution - something we cannot put off for much longer in this day and age. My old school, Cathedral in Bombay, has decided to put up its site - a flashy one with the Princi's picture, splash screen, etc. after the success of my other webletter - Seventh Heaven.

And finally a note from one mini-Stephanian searching for another.

Subject: Do you know Christopher Cecil?
(Ed: Thought it was Christopher Robin :-) )
Sent: 25/11/97 10:57
From: pal@pacbell.net

Looking for an eco honours student who started at St Stephens in 1960. Any info will be appreciated

Dharam Pal Luthra

P.S. I joined St Stephens with him in 1960, became his buddy but then left India

Ed: I did know a Chris - but I cannot swear he was surnamed Cecil, and I certainly do not know whether he was an Eco Honours student - but I am sure one of our many 1960 - 63 crowd (e.g., Sujit Bhattacharaya, Montek Singh Alhuwallia, Rajagopal Narayanan, etc.) should be able to help Dharam.

Surfers have helped fill this issue and my news bank has remained intact for another issue or two. Do please write and tell me what is happening in your area (we have Stephanians in over 70 countries who have been surfing in to this site) so that Stephanians in that region can meet up and take part in events, such as in the Big Apple and Singapore.

Wish you all a Merry Christmas and hope you will join me again to read a bumper New Year Edition on the 1st of January 1998.

Till then, Your shivering frozen editor

(You should read the great tip about how to get yourself a home-made hot water bottle which I use every cold winter night!!)

Jacob from the Arctic

KTWV02-Issue 9: Gossip galore

Another month has passed. Hence, it looks as if the routine of the web version of Kooler Talk will be as a monthly, despite a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth from many of you. It is no stress for me to keep this going at this pace.

First - some of the hot news about a few Stephanians.

Rathikant Basu is again in the news, as he and Rupert Murdoch were asked to appear in front of the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate of Delhi, Prem Kumar, on 27th October for "offensively invading and depraving public morals" for showing 4 "obscene" films on Star TV using cable transmission.

How hypocritical can some in Indian society be if they feel that movies can deprave and yet allow all the possible violence to be shown, day-in and day-out, in the Bollywood productions. The suggestive sex in Bollywood films is far more depraving than anything that I have seen on the western screen during my 30 plus years of living in a Western society, but, of course, moralists in India cannot dare challenge the money and power of Bollywood!!

Another couple of Stephanians in the limelight are Pradip Kishen, husband of Arundhati Roy, who was the first home-grown Indian to win the Booker Prize this year, and Pradip's elder daughter Pia (20) - Arundhati's step-daughter, currently a 3rd year history student at Stephen's. Pia is a fourth generation Stephanian, and all the generations have studied history. Pradip is a film director. He has directed three feature films, Massey Sahib, In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones and Electric Moon (facts courtesy Stephanian Debasish Mukerji - special correspondent of The WEEK).

Massey Sahib was hilarious. My better half (Annikki) and I had the chance to convert the script of this movie to Finnish and Annikki read the script over the microphone (microphone interpretation) while the movie was being shown during the International Children's Film Festival held here in Oulu a few years ago. I must admit that is one of the very few movies that I have enjoyed in recent years. I understand that Arundhati acted in Massey Sahib, although I do not particularly remember the cast.

Pradip's younger daughter, Mithva, who is the 12th standard in a school in Dehra Dun, may also become a Stephanian, but maybe not, as she may follow in Arundhati's footsteps as a writer or an architect (?), now that the world is at their feet.

Now let us take a look at a Stephanian who has been in touch with me during the lay-off of this web-rag. I had mail from someone whose address was shown as Inderjit Jhala who claimed to be in Stephen's the same time as me.

Date: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 10:41:56 +0530
From: Indrajit Jhala (email address provided)
Subject: Hi Jacob, Remember Me?

Came across the KT Page , U did not tell the sequel to the Luck story, i.e. the revenge of the Bridge Fanatics, and poor Luck's situation as reported by Kundan Singh. More if I can get a reply from u.

Nirmal

I knew of two Jhala's but no Indrajit, and in my carelessness I had not noted the signature which was in the body of the message. So I sent a message describing the two Jhala's I knew and back came the reply:

Got your prompt reply. First let me make a few small corrections in yr recollection of yrs truly.

* My name is Nirmal Jhala, Indrajit our eldest boy is the holder of the VSNL student's concession account. I only fiddle about with it now and then.
* I am NOT the gent who acquired undying fame as "Mad" Jhala, that distinction belongs to Mahendra Jhala who was also a part of our gang of cricket freaks, Ajit(singhji) being the first member (Jacob: Ajit was my year, - captain of the Stephanian cricket team in our last year 1962-63 and possibly the cousin of Stephanian and Indian wicket-keeper Inderjitsinghji. Ajit was a real gem of a person, always smiling, even when he was out for a duck!!).

He died soon after leaving college, of throat cancer, never having smoked all his life. Incidentally, Mahendra also lives in Cal. He now leads a life of leisure, having quit after a near fatal encounter with a brain tumour. He has a son working in USA.
* Parmar, Jitu - (Jacob: Also a fabulous and elegant stroke-player) has retired to his home town Rajkot. He played Ranji Trophy for a few years.
* Re self, I joined the IAS in '67, Married a fellow probationer, Krishna Dasgupta , (sister of C. S. Dasgupta, History '61, IFS '62 (Jacob: Remember him very well - very prim and proper, he was), Currently at Brussels), Transferred from Haryana to W Bengal in '72, Begot Three boys, IJ, Age 22, first year IIM Cal, Ranjit J., Age 19, 2'nd yr Computr. IIT Delhi, and Sanjit J, 17, hoping to do same this yr. (Jacob: Sadly, like me, no Stephanian genealogy to follow!!)

That more or less sums up the story of my life. Yes, I have been working, if that is the word, for the Govt. of WB and for the GOI for about thirty years now. Not much to show for it ,as you can see from the little story (Jacob: not) given below. Don't send it out on KT (Jacob: Sorry Kooler Talkians, only my privilege to get to see some of the juicy stuff), The Statesman might object.

The Moral of the Story

Nirmal Jhala

Jacob's memory had struck again!!

More next month about some more Stephanians of the past - so keep those letters rolling in!!

Regards

Jacob Matthan,
Honorary Editor,
Kooler Talk (Web Version),
Oulu, Finland

Web Pages of Stephanians

Alumni Directory

As requested by many of you, here is a list of Stephanians with web pages (thanks to Krishna Kumar) unsorted - oldest (used to be me at the top of the list).

Let me know of any mistakes or any missing ones. I shall try to find a permanent place for this list and also try to keep it up-to-date.

Keep your fingers crossed and Click - and hopefully you should reach the page in question.

I am still waiting for our Monsieur from Canada to replace me as the oldest Stephanian on the web!!

Updated as of 2nd August 2005

1. Dr. Anthony P Stone's Staff
2. Enver Masud 1959 B.Sc.
3. Jacob Matthan 1963 B.Sc.
4. Vikram Randhir SriHari 1969 B.Sc. Link Not Functioning
5. Cyrus Mehta 1974 B.A. (Hons.) History
6. Rajive K. Khanna 1974 B.Sc. Passed away Link removed
7. Gautam N. Achanta 1978 B.Sc. (Hons) Physics
8. Anil K. Sahai 1979 B.A. (Hons.) Mathematics
9. Sunil Joel Porter 1979 B.Sc. Link Not Functioning
10. Satyen G. Baindur 1982 B.Sc. (Hons.) Physics 1984 M.Sc. Physics Link Not Functioning
11. Raman Uppal 1983 B.A. (Hons.) Economics
12. Priya Raghubir 1983 B.A. (Hons) Economics
13. Michael Joseph Rebello 1984 B.A. (Hons.) Economics Link Not Functioning
14. Bhala Narayan Ghatate 1987 B.Sc. (Hons.) Mathematics
15. Bhaskar Vira 1988 B.A. (Hons.) Economics
16. Gita Kerstin Lal 1988 B.A. (Hons.) Economics
17. Mandhir Singh Uppal 1988 B.A. (Hons.) Mathematics
18. Amartya Tanay Bhattacharjya, 1989 B.Sc. (Hons.) Physics Link Not Functioning
19. Ram Seshadri 1989 B.Sc. (Hons.) Chemistry
20. Sunil Saxena 1989 B.Sc. Chemistry
21. Gautam Bhandari 1990 B.Sc. (Hons.) Chemistry
22. Radhika Vathsan 1990 B.Sc. (Hons.) Physics
23. Sushmita Roy 1990 B.Sc. Chemistry Link Not Functioning
24. Krishna Kumar 1991 B.Sc. (Hons.) Chemistry
25. Rajiv Krushna Kamilla 1991 B.Sc. (Hons.) Physics Link Not Functioning
26. Sanjay K. Reddy 1991 B.Sc. (Hons.) Physics Link Not Functioning
27. Sreenath Sreenivasan 1991 B.A. (Hons.) History
28. Kaustav Biswas 1992 B.Sc. (Hons.) Chemistry Link Not Functioning
29. Abhishek Begerhotta, 1992 B.A. (Hons.) Mathematics Link Not Functioning
30. Saurabh Saxena 1992 B.Sc. Link Not Functioning
31. Subir Kumedan 1993 B.Sc. (Hons.) Chemistry
32. Arvind Ranganathan 1994 B.Sc. Link Not Functioning
33. Divya Mahajan 1995 B.Sc. (Hons.) Mathematics Link Not Functioning
34. Jhelum Chowdhury 1995 B.A. (Hons.) Economics Link Not Functioning
35. Shymmon Banerjee 1995 Link Not Functioning
36. Rajesh Ranjan 1996 B.A.(Hons.) Economics
37. Royans K Tharakan 1997 B.Sc. Computer Science Great Site!!!!
38. Kanishka Singh 1998 B.A. (Hons.) Economics Link Not Functioning
39. Shashi Tharoor 1975 B. A. History
40. Ali Kazimi B. A. 1982
41. Luke George Haokip 1995 B.A. (Hons.) English 1997 M.A. English
42. Tushar Dev 1985 B.A. (Hons.) Economics

KTWV02-Issue 8: Resilience

Thank you fellow Stephanians for welcoming back Kooler Talk (Web Version) with open arms.

I hope all of you did not mind me sending you the good news about the Cool Site Award given to us for our work on the web, which included this Kooler Talk (Web Version) site.

I promise that these Press Releases, which are usually only for the Press - will not become a habit, but I was so thrilled that I got a bit carried away to get such a solid recognition from SearchPoint, the centre that I personally consider as the most useful to carry out searches on the web.

During the lay-off, several of you have fed me with news and stories which I shall slowly start to unravel and unveil in coming issues.

Please do not stop sending me material for me to keep constructing a readable webletter. Here are a few recent letters - I am working my way backwards.

Subject: Thanks from Rajesh Ranjan
Received: 9/9/97 12:12 pm
From: rajesh ranjan, email address supplied

Dear Mr. Matthan,

I am really touched by your dedication and commitment to the Stepahanian cause (whatever that means).

Sir, you have done a great job by bringing out the Kooler Talk (Web Version).

I joined "College" in 1993 (Economics, presently at IIM-C). I used to write the various "spices" only as Kooler Talk was too much of an "intellectual" affair.

Till 1996, the year I graduated, the "spice" culture was kept alive by few enterprising souls. But I do feel that it is on its way out (they aren't that interesting and exciting anymore).

May be you can think of bringing out one spice (web version, of course). It would be much easier for you to take the initiative as you have data regarding all the Stephanians.

It can cover all the Stephanian glitterati (once agian, whatever that means)!!

Thank you.

Rajesh Ranjan IIM-C

Rajesh assumes that I would know much about Spice - but it happened a long time after my days in college. Being 7000 km away from Delhi makes it also a bit difficult to get hold of the real spicy news!

My knowledge of Spice is limited to what Jhelum Chowdhury wrote in the Kooler Talk Web Version 01 - Issue 5 way back in June 1996, which, to say the truth was very little.

If any one of you would care to send me a few issues (which I agree must be difficult if it was a underground publication) - maybe I can try to parody an issue within this Web Version!!

Subject: Kooler Talk Sent: 31/8/97 9:13 pm
From: Krishan Dhawan email address supplied

I stumbled across the site today and really enjoyed going through it and was disappointed to see that it had been shut down. I will appreciate your letting me know if it resurrects.

I was in college and residence in 1973-76 doing a BA in Economics. I was one of KT's editors in 1974-75. I think it was shut down in 75-76 because of the Emergency.

I currently live in Los Angeles.

Regards,

Krishan Dhawan

KrishD came upon the site a day before it was restarted! He was indeed most happy that he could get to the restarted version.

Maybe Krish should read Kooler Talk Web Version 01 - Issue 2 where Amitabh Dubey, son of a Stephanian of the same era as me, Suman Dubey, told us how Kooler Talk was restarted in 1991 by Vijay Tankha (a philosophy professor) and himself and how he was followed by Siddhartha Sivaramakrishnan as the editor.

It was most interesting to hear that KT was shut down because of the 1975 Emergency. Mrs. Gandhi had a novel way of censorship - she cut the newsprint quota to newspapers that did not toe her line. I did not know that KT had such a wide readership during those days to have been affected by Mrs. G's method!!

Subject: Re: Kooler Talk Web Version Reappears New URL
Sent: 28/8/97 7:33 pm
From: Srikanth Rajagopalan, email address supplied

Hi Mr. Matthan,

Please change my ID on your mailing list to:

email address supplied

Congratulations on your work and resilience!

All the best,

Raja

I must admit my resilience part as whatever the troubles, it is my Stephanian spirit and background that has helped me fight back with double vigour. Anyway, beside the cost of web space, a pretty hefty telephone bill as I am not on a direct conection, and a bit of my time, there is not much to do in putting up this webletter so long as I get such excellent feedback from all you Stephanians out there.

Our web page of well-known Indian authors and personalities already features, what I hope is the complete works of, two Stephanians - Shashi Tharoor and Arun Shourie, who as many of you will remember, was my hockey captain. Shashi, however, was just a 4 year-old todler while Arun and I were fighting Hindu Collegeites with hockey sticks during our heady days in Stephen's.

I used the biodata provided by Srini in his info to New York Stephanians as the intro to the works of Shashi (hope you do not mind Srini).

I hope others will let me know the names of other Stephanian authors so that I can list their books on the pages I have created as a tribute to great Indian writers.

I was pleasantly surprised when I got some mail from a company in Delhi called Info Edge who contacted me about a web page they are running for a company called Sanka India Ltd, which is called naukri - a sort of head hunting and placement service.

When I asked for details I found that two Stephanians were among the enterprising souls behind this company - Sanjeev Bikhchandani 34, BA Eco. St. Stephen's MBA IIM Ahmedabad and Surabhi Motihar 32, BA Eco. St Stephen's MBA IIM Ahmedabad.

Seems quite a few Stephanians are following the route to get MBA's after their stint at Stephen's, a sort of change from the days when everyone headed for the IAS/IFS/IPS exams.

More in a month.

Regards

Jacob Matthan,
Honorary Editor,
Kooler Talk (Web Version),
Oulu, Finland

KTWV02-Issue 7: BBC deabate in Stephania Land

Fellow Stephanians,

Here I am again folks.

I hope this time round that I will have input from all you Stephanians out there to ensure that I can keep up this web zine for as long as I am able.

I start with a very nostalgic moment of this week.

I was not able to tune in to BBC World Service at 5 pm last Sunday (24th August 1997) to hear International Youth Debate which was billed to come from Delhi. I had to pick up my better half from work just during that hour. This year she is having a holiday looking after a museum which is open on Sundays during the summer and autumn (she gets to work when she gets home to look after this slob).

Come Monday morning, at 11.15 am on a beautiful early autumn morning, I sat comfortably next to my Sangean digital shortwave set and tuned in to BBC to listen to an edited version of the previous day's debate.

Like International Question Hour (as readers who read the LATE LATE NEWS will know, the programme on which I put a question to Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary General), given a chance I always take time off from my absolutely Stephanian-like schedule (in short - bumming around) to enjoy these well organised BBC listener participation programmes.

The topic of the debate chaired by Britisher - Ms. Sahara Chauhan of the BBC was "50 Years of Independence and Still No Freedom".

(I hope all the characters mentioned here will excuse me if I do not have all the names correct as they were deciphered over the usual radio noise and the general assumption that everyone in the world understands a name spoken over the radio).

I was happily surprised (although I do not know why - after all, from where else can a debate in Delhi come from), just as when someone serves up Sherry Trifle for dessert, when Sahara announced that the debate was coming from our beloved institution, St. Stephen's College, Delhi.

Sahara asked Vinembra Agarwal to put forward the proposition. Vinembra did this in a masterly fashion as only Stephanians know how.

This transported me through time to the lively debates that I had listened to and participated in during the early sixties in the Assembly Hall

(I was never of top calibre debating skill during my time in Stephen's with the likes of Montek Singh Alhuwalia and many Aiyars (Mani, Swami and friends) around, but I had my day when I was later in London where my fast-talking Stephanian PJ skills shone against the rather mediocre mundane natives of England.)

The main thrust of Vinembra's argument was that as 97% of Indians are in the unorganised sector, 30% live in abject poverty, and as the per capita income is just $340, in the main areas of life, economic, social and political, the mass of Indians can by no stretch of the imagination be considered free (freedom being something which is individual-oriented) even after 50 years of independence. Vinembra said that freedom was only on paper. Discrimination of all communities (ironically, presently including the upper classes) was a fact of life and the corrupt political system was so evident that today a politician was able to install an unelected person, his wife, on the throne as Chief Minister when he was being hauled over the coals for possible corrupt practices!

Certainly a strong opening shot. I waited with bated breath for the reply.

Jaideep Bagchi was asked to respond. This was a well-grounded presentation in true debating fashion - not just a reeling off of counter arguments. Jaideep argued that independence is the freedom of the individual to choose. The fact the Indian electorate has on several occasions removed Governments, the most notable being Indira Gandhi after she imposed her emergency for 2 years, showed that India had a responsible and knowledgeable electorate.

Jaideep certainly had the audience moving in his direction with his arguments and elocution ability.

When the topic was then opened to the floor, the question of the literacy level in India came into question. With this came the usual question whether better education would result in freedom. It was here the bourgeois opinions started to tumble out when the elite(?) of society, Stephanians, linked education with literacy?

The arguments were strong and fierce but, in my opinion, they all missed the vital point about what is education?

Is a farmer, who can till his land at the right time using all the correct agricultural practices which have been handed down from time immemorial and not corrupted by present day non-eco type agricultural methods, and who produces bumper sustainable harvests from his small tract of land, but yet is unable to read and write or even sign a piece of paper, i.e., illiterate by standards laid down by the UN, uneducated?

Or, is education only achieved by becoming a Stephanian?

Moving to the second half of the proposition, Abajit Safiriyan was asked to present the future scenario.

Abajit used a very appropriate simile when he alluded to the bribery and corruption that was in place in India and that it was like a cancer which could not be cured by just a dose of chemotherapy. Abajit made a strong case that if India and Indians really wanted to be free, then, like the cancer or tumour, major surgery was required and the offending organ had to be removed by its roots.

Rahul Uspana was requested to respond. Rahul made a spirited attack on the proposers. He pointed out that today, 14 parties were in coalition to form the United Democratic Front Government in Delhi, with many States of the Union having completely different political parties in power, but yet able to form a national framework government. He drew reference to a few statistics, that exports were up 13%, the gross domestic product had increased by 7% and that India's market share of the world economy had doubled since independence. He projected that freedom would continue to increase for all Indians with greater globalisation.

Although there was not a woman debater on the dias, there was much solid contribution from the opposite sex from the floor. Certainly made my mind to wander back to our female-free environment of the sixties!!

The crux of the debate suddenly revolved around the fact that India had taken 200 years to attain Independence and hence 50 years was just a short period of time in a nation's history. As was succinctly put, the British had suggested that India should have independence when the people were "educated" - which undoubtedly would have been on a never-never basis!!

A key issue arose when Sahara posed the question whether everyone considered India was a happy land? Another question that came into the debate was how and when inequalities in society would be eliminated? Unfortunately, no clearcut answers to these questions emerged during the debate.

Sadly, the time flew by so quickly that the edited version of 45 minutes was over before I even realised it, ending in a vote, with 21 for the proposition and 34 against.

Personally, on a debating basis, I would have tied the debate, as all four participants were superb, in their debating skills and the content that they presented. I would have asked the (British) Chairperson to give her casting vote, but Stephanian dry vindictive humour was sadly not to be seen here in that context!!

I must admit that Sahara did a very professional job in the chair, almost as if she were a Stephanian (compliment or insult - Sahara?).

What was so illuminating was that even after a period of just over 30 years, although a generation may have passed, over the radio waves it was as if I was listening all over again to my friends and colleagues debating in the auditorium.

The attitudes and the stances were typically Stephanian in character and roused memories so poignant that as I looked out over the gleaming golden sunlit autumn leaves on the trees which surround our wooden arctic hut, I was transported back to the early wintery feeling of Stephen's as we congregated on the lawn, fringed with a few rose bushes, in front of Mukerji Block to debate the burning issues of our then world - whether the Mess Secretary should be fired for the lousy aloo-gobi served up for lunch, whether Sukhia's barfris were indeed the best in the world or at least in the Stephen's compound (our universe), or whether Deepchand was really the best barber/masseur in Delhi?

Well done Stephanians and thank you for dropping in to my home on that day (and in passing - also thanks to BBC!!). Hopefully, I have taken the mood to all those web surfing Stephanians who missed your performances.

One more news item in this issue that should interest Stephanians is that The WEEK, the Indian weekly from Cochin has come online. The latest cover story concerns none other than, guess who - a Stephanian in trouble.

You will remember not long ago I mentioned how Rathikant Basu, a good friend and colleague in college in the early sixties had been appointed as the head of Star TV India by Rupert Murdoch.

It seems that jealousy has taken hold of the situation and Rathikant is in the middle of a fantastic storm that is rocking the Indian establishment. The WEEK has featured it as their latest cover story. It is a good read.

Since The WEEK is also run by two Stephanians, and is a sister publication of this (our roots are the same as we are all of the K. C. Mammen Mappillai - Malayala Manorama stock), it is worth a read as the back-up Stephanian publication on the web!! [ :-) which means broad smile for some of you not so web savvy Stephanians]

Of course, nothing could replace Kooler Talk (Web Version) as your primary No. 1 Stephanian web magazine - it is your magazine which I am privileged to host!! [because this old badger thought of it FIRST]

I hope all of you will take note and feed me with stories and anecdotes to keep this a lively web site in its reincarnation - something which is quite common for Kooler Talk per se. Do let me know whether you feel it should be a monthly or a quarterly, or God forbid - a fortnightly. I do not want to penetrate your lives too much with too many scandulous stories - but a few contributions would be worth receiving.

Thank you for bearing with me as I have invaded your privacy yet again!! More in awhile.

Your (g)host (PJ of The WEEK?)

Jacob Matthan,
Honorary Editor,
Kooler Talk (Web Version),
Oulu, Finland

KTWV02-Issue 6: Au Revoir

Au Revoir Web-surfing Stephanians and Cathedralites,

The time has come to say au revoir to all of you wonderful web-surfing Stephanians and Cathedralites.

Many of you are probably too young to know how Indira Gandhi effectively introduced censorship of the critical news media during the mid seventies. Besides imprisoning the political leaders and her sharpest media critics, her most effective weapon was to restrict the quota of newsprint to the critical press and also the amount of Government business directed to the outspoken media - very effective ways of shutting them up.

Here, in this western democracy called Finland, the establishment has a very effective method in this tightly run society. All your contracts vanish, making it impossible to survive if you are in conflict with the establishment. Hence Findians Oy had no option but to seek outside assistance to prop it up while they tried to restructure their actvities to be able to withstand the tirade. They attempted to raise sufficient funds to save their three popular webletters. This was not successful. They reached only part of the initially targeted amount.

Hence, the new owners of Findians Oy (Annikki, my better half, and I had to sell out our interests in the company for technical reasons) have informed me that they are returning all the cheques, money orders and cash received from many of you wonderful people out there. This will be done over the next two weeks so as to avoid any loss during the present Christmas postal rush. They will be returning the documents registered post acknowledgement due. If you do not receive the contribution, you so generously made, by the 7th of January 1997, please send me a message.

I have succeeded in getting myself a private email address outside the clutches of the authorities and outside of Finland, and you may like to note this email address:

jmatthan@gmail.com

I am glad that KOOLER TALK (WEB VERSION) and SEVENTH HEAVEN lasted 18 issues. I can honestly say I had a lot of fun putting up these pages every fortnight. During these last 9 months I made many wonderful friends from all around the world from different school and college generations, older and considerably younger to me.

Surprisingly, I did not get a single bad vibe during that entire time, which, as a professional editor, was quite a feat - no, not even a single staff member complained about my abraisive style and content!

I am taking the optimistic view that the alma mater webletters are temporarily suspended till I can raise enough funds to put them up without any assistance from Findians Oy. It may mean setting up my own web server equipment, my own computer with sufficient storage space, etc. which, unfortunately is rather an expensive process and outside of my present financial (and probably technical) capabilities. After all, as you all know I am not one of the present youthful generation and in my younger days we were lucky if we learnt how to operate a calculator which weighed as much as my present portable Mac on which I hammer out my books. My next one, Handbook For Survival in India, which is a sequel to our last local best-seller Handbook For Survival in Finland, is about halfway through at this stage.

Hopefully I can leave the archives on line for some time. If I manage to locate a permanent home for these archives, katy1.html, katy2.html and the one one which will go up next week katy3.html for Stephanians and sevven1.html, sevven2.html and sevven3.html for Cathedralites, I shall move them there and post the location in the World Alumini Register. I will leave the entire index archive as a single entity as koolertalk.html and seventhheaven.html till such time I can restart them.

What pleased me the most and made me particularly happy was that many of you thought me to be of just your generation, although, in some cases, I was at least 30 to 35 years ahead of you at the alma mater. Thank you for all the compliments which flowed like water from all of you.

In a way I am sad that it had to come to an end in this way, for no fault of any of us. Unfortunately, Annikki and I are people who believe in freedom of expression, and we accept criticism as much as we give it. My grandfather, the late K. C. Mammen Mappillai (KCMM), stood for this principle, which saw him suffer many ignoble things, but the foundation he laid has resulted in the Malayala Manorama becoming the largest circulating newspaper in India.

It may be too much to hope, but one of these three webletters may hold a similar position on the web well after my time - and that thought itself spurs me to be ready to hand it over to capable hands that may come forward. Consider that the Malayala Manorama had to stop publication for almost a decade when KCMM was imprisoned and it was restarted only after India attained independence.

Emails still continues to pour in. This week I want to only reproduce one from a current Stephanian - which shows how alive this webletter was:

Fri Dec 13 19:12:46 1996
From: "Shashank Luthra" email addess supplied
Subject: More info from St. Stephen's
Dear Mr. Matthan,

Hi ! Do you remember me? (Ed: Of course I do) I am the boy who is still in college.

Anyway, here are some of the current happenings from college.

Founder's day got over last week. I missed both the day and the Old Boys' reunion due to my CAT (MBA entrance exam) on the 8th of December - Sunday. But it should have gone off well.

This weekend Shakesoc is putting up its annual production of King Lear (Ed: I remember Roshan Seth in the role in 1962-63 - great performace!). It is on 15th, 16th and 17th of December. It is being directed by Arjun Raina. The play has shaped up decently and they finally started practice inside the hall at the beginning of this week. The director has got some new ideas and interpretations of Shakespeare which should make the play exciting.

More news later.

Toodledoo!

Shashank

-------
Please reply to email address supplied
This is my new and hopefully "permanent" address.

So, as you can see life goes on and I wish the play all success and hope it throws up another Roshan in my lifetime!

Your Stephanian/Cathedralite colleague

Jacob Matthan

KTWV02-Issue 5: Stephanian Malayalis

Hi Web-surfing Stephanians,

I was web surfing when I came across the mention in some Indian web newspaper that the Kerala Seafood Exporters were intending to start a stir for something or the other. When I looked down the srticle I noticed the name of one Mr. A. J. Tharakan, who is the Convenor of the action Committee. Bells jingled in my head as I put two and two together!!

This week I concentrate my topic about a couple of Stephanian Christian Malayalees - you can't get away from that crowd, can you!

Who is India's largest sea-food exporter?

He is none other than Stephanian Abraham Tharakan (the same J. A Tharakan mentioned above), known as Abe during his days at St. Stephens, who was in residence along with me in the early sixties.

Abe was one of the few Christian Malayalees at college and was an inseparable friend of Ajit Ninan. (Other Christian Malayalees I can remember by name are Delhi veteran journalist B. G. Verghese who married lady Stephanian Jameela, my elder brother in Chennai Dr. Ranjit Matthan, Bangalore top electronics consultant T. Joseph Joseph, athlete and Indian Army Officer, now Kottayam based Publishing Manager of Manorama Publications, Jose Vallikappan, guitarist Ranjit Jacob (see below), Bombay Cathedralite, Stephanian, Cambridge and Stanford economist, Dr. Peter Phiip, New Yorkian (?) artist, etc. Prakash Joseph, John Thomas (sorry - no info), Kottayam planter and industrialist George Verghese, Trivandrum planter Ajit Ninan, Chief Editor of Malayala Manorama, Ko tayam, Mammen Mathew, Kottayam and Supreme court lawyer Joseph Vellapally, Managing Editor of The WEEK in Kochi, Philip Mathew - and the Arctic jack-of-no-trade, supposedly Plastics and Microelectronics expert, yours truly.) (Others - please inform me!!)

Abe completed his economics degree (along with present Indian Finance Secretary Montek Singh Alhuwalia) in 1963 and joined the Indian Revenue Service. However, he did not think much of being a bureaucrat and shifted as a management executive and tea taster to Brooke Bond. After 10 years he shifted to Kochi and started a small business called Amalgam Foods.

It took him about 2 long years to get his product accepted on the international market. Today Amalgam has a turnover of around US$65 million which is about 8% of the marine exports from India.

Abe started the process of freeze-drying and pre-cooking shrimps. He started the first cooked shrimp factory in India. He then started several other sea-food related ventures and now has factories all along both Indian coastlines.

Abe has set a target of crossing a turnover of US$100 million by the end of the millenium and to do this he has planned a cold-store chain across the country and a large poultry farm complex. I think we wish him all the best to achieve his target.

I do not know whether Abe is on the web as yet, but as a high flyer I am sure that he will soon have to be. It feels good to share in his success.

The story of Ranjit Jacob is also remarkable. He was a classmate of my elder brother, Dr. Ranjit Matthan (who left college in 1960 and did his doctorate on Rubber Technology from London).

I think that it was in 1959 when they all parted to go home for their vacations, that Ranjit Jacob fell off the train on Jamuna Bridge and was very seriously injured. He missed a year at college and returned the year I joined. Although his speech was slightly impaired he was back to all his old tricks being a great singer and guitarist. He used to seranade and entertain us in his room with all the popular melodies of the fifties. Shy and retiring by nature I believe he is now settled in Chennai.

Hope to give you more stories in a fortnight,

Till then, take care,

Your Stephanian colleague

Jacob Matthan

KTWV02-Issue 4: Bulbul

Hi Web Surfing Stephanians,

I was thumbing through some old issues of THE WEEK and I came across an interesting aricle by Sejal Shah called "Mountain magic" under the Art Section.

There was a picture of a bearded artist sitting on the floor with his dog, with a background of what was obviously his paintings. The face seemed extremely familiar - it was none other than Bulbul Singh, Stephanian of the fifties/sixties.

Bulbul was a real character in college. I got him to MC the first JCR evening and he was absolutely great in that capacity. He was a naturally talented artiste and although he seems to have had a very interesting post Stephanian era, Kansas university graduate, an executive in Bombay with Hindustan Lever and Lintas, this Quetta-born Stephanian had the call of the hills when he threw all his high life away and retired to a life in Kulu valley to become artist, poet, farmer and social worker. He even runs a free dispensary for the people of his village.

Bulbul has displayed his paintings and reads his poetry around the world. He seems to have have very prominent friends, as The WEEK has listed Koo Stark of Prince Andrew fame amongst the recent guests at his Himalayan abode.

Bulbul was a boisterous Stephanian and one certainly knew when he was around. It is indeed probably that Stephanian character that led him to his life of peace and serenity in the beautiful Kulu Valley where he can compose his poems and create his artistic masterpieces on canvas.

Hope Bilbul has an internet connection to see that we remember him and wish him well.

Talking of art, the New York Stephanians seem to have had a get together to view the paintings of a Delhi artist Sanjay Bhattacharyya. Sreenath informed those Stephanians who he has access to be email that on Friday 8th November, the New York Stephanians, the present head count being as many as 120, were having their get together at Stephanian Deepak Talwar's Art Gallery. It is nice to see such an active group and this should be a role model for other Stephanian groups around the world. Those of us less fortunate are very happy to get to hear of these events and hope others will keep me informed so as to share the camaraderie with the readers of Kooler Talk (Web Version).

And finally this week, because so many of you have requested a photograph to see what I look like here in the Arctic, here is the picture of the original Finnish Father Christmas taken in summer along with my better half of the last 30 years. Sorry for the quality but unfortunately do not have very good photograph reproduction equipment on hand.


Annikki and Jacob

Hopefully, more in a fortnight,

Your Cathedralite friend

Jacob

KTWV02-Issue 3: History of College

Hi Web Surfing Stephanians,

I received this letter last week:

From: vepaa (email address supplied)
Organization: Huron University USA in London
Date: Wed, 23 Oct 1996 13:45:34 +0
Subject: History of SSC

Dear Stephanian,

I wish to inform you that a compilation of College history entitled "Glimpses of St Stephen's College, Delhi" is now available on the St Stephen's page on the web or at the following address:

http://ase.tufts.edu/chemistry/kumar/ssc/html/sschis.html.

If you any remarks/observations, please email them to the undersigned at: email at site and pass on the info. to other Stephanians.

Regards,

ARVIND VEPA

I promptly visited the site and found a goldmine. I downloaded it, sent a thanks to Arvind and mentioned the KTWV.

Here was Arvind's reply:

From: vepaa
Organization: Huron University USA in London
Date: Thu, 24 Oct 1996 12:26:41 +0
Subject: 3 Cheers for Kooler Talk

Dear Mr Matthan,

Thank you for sending the Kooler Talk addresses. Hats off to you Sir, for maintaining the page. For Stephanians, the world will always remain a small place.

Regards,

ARVIND VEPA

Yes, to us Stephanians scatterred around the world, it is a small place. For then I received this letter,

Date: Fri, 25 Oct 1996 23:14:10 -0700
From: amitcv (email address supplied)
Subject: Hello

Hi Jacob,

My name is Amit Wilson and I passed out of SSC this year in May. In case you are wondering (though I wonder why you might wonder) about how and why and what and when.... I share my surname with Dr. Anil Wilson, Principal on leave of/from SSC, its because he is my father.

Forgive me if you find my letter a little(???) weird but I feel its in keeping with the kind of KTs I have been exposed to.

My e-mail is (supplied)

Try and drop me a few lines. I would love to hear from you. I was in Finland last year in June. I had come to attend the World Youth Assembly held held at Aland (the first "A" is supposed to have a little circle on top of it). I had a good time there though it was a little chilly considering it was the height of summer and the place was awfully empty compared to the kind of crowds I am used to.

Anyway, I'm doing my MBA at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore.

I believe that you send out copies of KT. I would be grateful if you could send me one too.

Thanks a lot. Sorry for babbling on.

Regards,

Amit Wilsom

I had to explain to Amit that the Web Version was a Web Version and that I had even stopped sending out the reminder notices since all of you are now dropping in regularly without any prompting.

Pity Amit did not know of our existence when he visited Finland!

I will not keep you this week any longer but suggest that you quickly hop over to the page maintained by Arvind and really relish it.

I will have more next week and Arvind's page will be a permanent link in the Contents list from the next issue onwards.

I would welcome any comments on the history (especially clarifications, etc.) as presented as you recall the characters mentioned therein. Many are waiting to hear from you through these issues of Kooler Talk (Web Version).

See you in a fortnight, take care

Jacob
Stephanian 1960-1963

KTWV02-Issue 2: Research Visa?

Hi Stephanians and you others,
I was pleasantly surpised to receive this letter.

Date: Thu, 17 Oct 1996 11:38:35 +0100 (BST)
From: wrg1000@hermes.cam.ac.uk


Dear St. Stephanians,

I am a research student at Cambridge University, working on early twentieth century Indian History, focussing on Uttar Pradesh. At the moment I really need to get out to India. Unfortunately, my research visa has not yet arrived, although I applied for it in June. I would really appreciate any suggestions or help that anyone might be able to offer... otherwise I'll be stuck in freezing Cambridge for the whole winter! (Ed: Cannot think of anything more horrifying than that. :-))

I enjoyed reading your page. I hope someone can help,

William Gould

I am sure that one of our 242 readers scattered worldwide - [yes, that is the fortnightly repeat hits we have been getting to Kooler Talk (Web Version) page regularly over the last three months] - can extend a hand to help out our fellow reader in true Stephanian style. The thought of him freezing in one of those digs in Cambridge certainly wants me wanting to help William somehow!

However, recalling for a moment the freezing winter mornings in college, running to have that early morning bath once Kundan Singh had heated that coal-fired water heater just outside my room and drawn the water, in a leaky metal bucket, and then shivering and freezing after it as I returned to my room wrapped in my towel, till I sat down in front of that most ineffective two bar radiant heater glowing red on my room floor, is not the very comforting thought that I want to share with William. I hope things have changed for the better when William goes out to Uttar Pradesh where, I think, the winters can be quite cold and there is no central heating system to be found anywhere.

In spite of this, sitting on the green lawns in front of Mukarji East on a sunny January mid-morning (cutting class, of course), and being bathed in the warm glow of that Delhi winter sunshine, was probably one of the most exhilarating feelings of my time in college. There were then a few rose plants bordering the lawn flowered, as the college gardeners tried their level best to turn that barren area in front of Mukarji East and the JCR into a garden.

The weeds from the open area between this and the then new science block, however, kept making their task seemingly impossible. No doubt, with the setting up of Mukarji West, this must have improved.

The Delhi winter is in sharp contrast to the dry burning heat of mid-May when I felt that I was sitting in a tandoor! One summer I had to stay on in Delhi to do some extra course and vowed never to be in that city again during those summer months, a vow that I have been able to faithfully keep over the last 33 years.

Coming back to William's problem, personally I do not know of something called as a research visa. Whenever I sent out a researcher to India, the Indian Embassy in Helsinki (where we did have a Stephanian - First Secretary S. Tripathi, probably 75 batch, an absolutely great and nice guy who moved to Panamma!!) issued an ordinary tourist visa valid for six months.

Education - What is it?

This week, in my second editorial in Findians Briefings, I tackle the question of Education where I ask the question as to the number of handicapped persons, those who are blind, deaf, dumb, or wheel-chair ridden, who are being used as teachers in schools and colleges. Can any of you name any handicapped person who has been in a teaching or administration position in our alma mater. Just curious! (Don't all stand up and shout that I have just described the average Stephanaian through the ages!!!)

Yesterday, Annikki, my better half for the last 30 years, made Masala Dosais for our son and daughter - but not for me! My mouth was watering as I recalled those delicious dosais I used to consume ever so often at the India Coffee House on the campus.

(The reason why I was denied this luxury of a dosai, despite my begging like a dog, was that she had just enough in the dosai mix packet for the kids. She usually makes the dosai mix up by grinding the rice and dhal in her heavy duty antique coffee grinder - works great, but she was anxious to get to a clearance sale in one of the local department stores, where she and our daughter had agreed to meet to pull the hair out of some other women.)

This meant it was just soup for me. It is not as if we can pop around the corner and have a dosai in this Arctic town. We do not have a single Indian restaurant here, hence Wengers, India Coffee House and the Kamala Nagar Coffee Centre seem like heavenly beacons to me. The only source of good Indian food is my dear Finnish wife!!

I do not know about you, but that is all the nostalgia I can take for this week.

See you in a fortnight, take care

Jacob, Stephanian 1960-1963

KTWV02-Issue 1: Kudos, no brickbats!

Hi Stephanians,

Here are a few letters from regular readers of Kooler Talk (Web Version). Makes life a little difficult!!

---

Date: Mon, 23 Sep 96 14:10:00 PDT
From: Stephanian Indrajit Banerjee
Subject: Re: Stephanian Rathikant hits the Headlines (SUBSCRIBE)

Hi Jacob:

SUBSCRIBE !!!!!!!

I also had to endure Hindi exam (the compulsory one), taught by Dr. Arya.

I was in Delhi in Dec. 1990 and met Dr. Arya. Had tea with him. He was great. Last Oct, I was again in StephenÍs, he had retired a nd moved to Roorkee.

I passed my compulsory Hindi, but in a weird way - Dr Arya had taught us the "wrong" book. It turns out that different books were to be taught according the year's syllabus. But because of people like you (and me) the exam would have questions from different books (to cover student's from different years) and only the relevant ones (depending on year of admission) needed to be answered. However, Dr. Arya, being in the exam committee, taught us the book by Premchand (not for 1971 admission students), knowing full well that the examiner would not check which year we were admitted, or which book we were supposed to be taught.

I almost walked out of the exam not answering anything (seeing I was taught the wrong book). Then something happened and I scribbled something. Dr. Arya said that if I had written some minimum number of pages, I would pass. I did!!!

Good to hear form you. Keep up the good job!!

Regards,

Indrajit

---

From: Stephanian "Monsieur A."
Subject: Re: Stephanian Rathikant hits the Headlines
Date: Mon, 23 Sep 96 15:36:10 EDT

Jacob:

I never groan at getting your messages ... they brighten up my day even if you think you are trying to depress us:))

I am not groaning ... I am bugging you now.

Best wishes

Samuel

---

Date: Wed, 25 Sep 1996 09:32:29 -0700
From: "S. Raja Gopalan"
Organization: Columbia University
Subject: Stephanian on mailing list

PLEASE CHANGE MY ID TO: (email supplied)

THANKS FOR A WONDERFUL MAGAZINE! ALL THE BEST!

SRIKANTH RAJAGOPALAN

---

Date: Fri, 4 Oct 96 16:08:26 CDT
From: "Sanjay Mundle"
Subject: Pl. add to KT list

Jacob,

I just got through reading the excellent "newsletters" you put together from your experiences at Stephens. I graduated back in 84, and appreciate all the background info. you have included in your writings. I would love to be included on your mailing list for Kooler Talk

(email: supplied)

Looking forward to your next issue.

Regards,

Sanjay Mundle
BA 1984
Houston, Texas, USA

---

It is the several letters like these that helped me continue writing this webletter. We are having several problems as the Finnish Government is extremely unhappy about our hard-hitting editorials and comments that are contained on the main page. We have heard they have tried to put pressure on some organisations to stop our web access. A sort of censorship which would put the steps in Singapore seem like heaven!

In anticipation we are negotiating with some Web Site providers in different parts of the world to host our web pages outside of Finland. Then all I need will be a regular shell account and I can upload the webletters without interference from Finnish Government authorities which are ridiculously sensitive to any form of political satire. They just do not seem to appreciate satire.

What seems to have irked them is that the last editorial on Scientific Fraud in Finnish universities where our rebuttal of the claim that there was a mechanism for detection and tackling of Scientific Fraud in Finland was in existence, got an airing on BBC World Service on Sunday 29th September.

Since I was the first "whistleblower" in Finland, and they just glossed over my complaint about a colleague professor who was stealing the work of my students in our laboratory, this has raised a storm as the Professor's Union, the Finnish Academy, the Finnish Ministry of Education and my own Union, the Finnish Union for Researchers failed to raise a finger to bring the person to book. Well that is life!

I wonder whether in Delhi University and in Stephen's, Professors and Researchers carry out this form of Scientific Fraud, or is it that unlike universities in western countries, very little research work actually takes place in the college or university.

It does appear strange to me after all these years that I do not recall any of our college teachers actually being involved with any original research in Stephens - or is my memory failing me!!

Here is a letter from our New York Stephanian Coordinator

Date: Sun, 6 Oct 1996 15:02:47 -0400 (EDT)
From: Sreenath Sreenivasan
Sender: email address supplied
To: "stephanians (non-new york)":

Subject: SSC #3: our next event


vol 1 / #3: oct 4, 1996

dear stephanians:

a short, occasional newsletter to tell you of our activities in NYC...

the october meeting scheduled for oct 12, 1996 has been CANCELED. (our host-to-be is going to be out of town that day)

instead, our next event, a reception, is now scheduled for nov 8 at the bose pacia gallery in manhattan. a big thank you to deepak talwar (bsc '85), gallery director, for offering to host this event.

date: friday, nov 8, 1996
venue: bose pacia modern
(20th century masters and contemporary fine art of india)
580 broadway, suite 202, soho
212-966-3224 (please RSVP to ss221@columbia.edu or dtalwar@aol.com)
time: 6-8 pm

on display will be paintings by sanjay bhattacharyya, a well-known young painter from delhi.

see you there... pass on the word... if you know of any stephanians who aren't on our list, let us know!

see you there...

cheers,

sree

FYI: anil wilson has taken a three-year leave as principal of SSC to work at himachal univ, and horace jacob is acting principal...

I am still working on a map layout of the college as it existed in 1963 and hopefully in a month I will have it up.

Regards and take care,

Stephanian Jacob Matthan
Oulu, Finland

KTWV01-Issue 12: Rathikant Basu

Hi Stephanians,

It is with a great deal of pleasure that I put pen to paper, or rather hammer away at the computer keyboard this week. I bring you the story of a fellow Stephanian who has hit the big time. My joy at bringing you this news is not only because is he a fellow Stephanian, but also a very dear friend.

Rathikant Basu was in his second year of his BA (Economics) when I joined college in 1960. As another Bombay Cathedralite to join Stephens along with me was Sujit Bhattacharaya (son of the then Governor of the Reserve Bank P. C. Bhattacharaya), a Bengali, Sujit's circle of friends in college became my friends as did mine become his.

One of those who joined our flock was Rathikant, already a member of Mukarji Court and resident in one of the upper storey rooms of T-Block.

Rathikant was a widely travelled individual and added a great deal of spice to our lives. If I remember correctly, he had been living in Sudan for several years prior to joining college. Rathikant had a great sense of humour and his sharp wit used to have us rolling with laughter. Yet he had a very unsupposing attitude and a completely simplistic approach to all around him.

When I finished college in 1963, Rathikant was going on to his final year of his MA and studying hard for his IAS entrance exam. He got into the IAS in 1964 and was part of the Gujarat Cadre of 1964.

In the mid-seventies when I was on a trip to Ahmedabad I accidently bumped into Rathikant. He was then the Muncipal Commissioner of the City. He had not lost his humouristic streak. He was a bundle of efficiency. I watched him go through a day's work with a keeness hardly seen in bureaucratic circles.

Rathikant's success at the helm of Doordarshan is well known. His last IAS stint has been as the Secretary of the Departement of Electronics where he has been busy ushering in the rapid change in the electronics sector in India. I am reasonably sure that the lowering of import duty on software was one of his moves as he has always been progressive in his approach to a problem. India's export boom of software has been only because of this opening of the inward flow of technology.

At the age of 54, Rathikant has now been hand-picked by world media moghul Rupert Murdoch to head the Hong Kong based Indian arm of Star TV, News Television India. Reports say that he has been offered an annual salary of $500000 plus a chauffer-driven Mercedes. Rathikant takes over from Gene Swinstead in October.

Rathikant has been given directives to Indianise the network's programming which presently is highly westernised. There could be no one better equipped for this job, as is well known from his activity under the former Information and Broadcasting Minister, K. P. Singh Deo. Rathikant is a highly focused individual as well as results oriented, so will undoubtedly deliver the goods.

As was succinctly put by THE WEEK in its September 15th issue, "Doordarshan reached its azimuth during Basu's term as Director-General."

Rathikant will liase with the Hong Kong based Director, Gene Davis, but network programming and commercial decisions will now be made in India.

I am sure all you Stephanians out there will join me in wishing Rathikant the very best in his new job. I hope that he will drive his arch competitor, his former paymaster, Doordarshan, to higher standards by bringing in top-notch competition in the Indian TV news spectrum.

End of Reminder Messages

I am afraid that I will need you to subscribe separately to be able to continue to receive these reminders as the whole process seems to have got out of hand with my postings touching about 3000 every fortnight and the number of wrong addresses resulting in returns amounting to about 10% every time. My mailbox is just crammed with returned messages so it takes me a while to get to my normal mail. Most of the returns are people who have registered and then not informed me about change of address, etc.

Our main site has expanded at such a remarkable pace that I am getting fully tied down with getting these three webletters up every fortnight and also getting the mailing list out that it has really not left me much time for the investigative journalism for which my web pages were originally created.

Hence Stephanians who want to get a reminder from me should send a SUBSCRIBE message to our email address as otherwise from the next issue you will not get any reminder.

More next week,

Regards

Your Editor Jacob Matthan

Or as Rathikant would say "Arre Jacob"..

KTWV01-Issue 11: Passing Hindi

Hi Stephanians,

I was one of those last batches from school that did not have to take Hindi for my school final examination. I did English and French, having spent a few years toying with Latin, and having given up Marathi and Hindi as bad jokes.

When I joined Stephen's, Mr. Arya was quick to catch hold of me to impress on me that I had to pass the Compulsory Hindi examination if I wanted to get my final degree. I did not take him very seriously when I heard I could try to get through twice a year in all my three years. I was supremely confident that I would get those 35% sometime during that long stint in the college.

I did make an effort by attending Mr. Arya's lectures a couple of times, but besides getting through the alphabet, I do not think I got much further, despite all the help given to me by my friends. I learnt to speak a corrupt form of Hindi, mixed with Punjabi swear words during my time in college!!

I faithfully sat the exam each year, and faithfully failed it. Of course, during the last year I just did not have much time, as Physics, Chemistry and Maths were giving me enough trouble.

When I finished my final exam in May 1963, I called on Principal Sircar. It was then it dawned on me that even if I got through my degree I was unlikely to be awarded the degree till I passed my Hindi test, and if my plans to go to England to specialise in Plastics was to materialise, I just had a couple of months to learn a language and pass an exam I had flunked four times in the previous 3 years.

As soon as I reached Bombay I decided to solve my dilemma. I located a young Hindi teacher, Mr. Laxman, who was quite different from the usual mould. He promised to sit with me day and night, if necessary. His method was quite unique as he came to the classes with nothing but the Navbharat Times, knowing that I had read the Times of India early morning. With that background he got me to read the editorial, which was about the same as in the English edition, and in absolutely difficult Hindi.

At first it seemed gibberish, but having understood the English editorial a few hours earlier, within a couple of weeks I was quite enjoying reading the Hindi editorial, the references to the Dictionary gradually decreasing. Within 4 weeks I was managing the editorial on my own and even composing a couple of decent Hindi sentences.

I went to Delhi full of confidence in early September and when Mr. Arya met me he seemed confident that now, at least, I would get through. Sure enough, I passed with flying colours. I had already joined the University in England when the results came through and I felt more chuffed at having passed the Hindi exam than actually having passed my major subjects.

I think the trouble I had with Hindi was equivalent to a couple of my classmates who struggled with English - if I remember correctly they were from Modern School in Delhi, and although they could speak English as well as I could converse in Hindi, they were just as word blind as far as English was concerned as I was word blind to Hindi. Poor Rev. Jarvis used to go crazy trying to teach those guys just enough of English to pass the exam.

I wonder if these language exams are still part of the present system?

Editor Jacob Matthan

KTWV01-Issue 10: Patriotism

Hi Stephanians,

Were you ever struck by a heavy dose of patriotism when you were in college?

I recall being overwhelmed by it in 1962 - 1963 when the Chinese invaded India. The father of my neigbour in Mukarji Block, a brigadier in the Indian Army was captured by the Chinese and was taken a prisoner of war. We heard endless tales about the heroic efforts of our jawans and our officers and how the Chinese kept marching onwards, shoulder to shoulder, and how all the efforts of our forces to mow them down were totally useless.

In Delhi there was an air of panic as we felt that if they continued their advance at the pace we could determine from the maps which we had strung up in the block, they would be entering the college gates a few days hence.

Suddenly the Chinese stopped their advance and declared a cessation of hostilities. There were cries of "fight" from all around, bold utterances that India would not give up one inch of land, etc. etc. All hot air as we were in no position to do anything.

Ministers and Army Generals were being castigated in public. I do not know whether the expresso coffee machine scandal came up at that time - the accusation being that Krishna Menon had converted our defence factories to produce coffee machines rather than weaponry.

It was indeed a trying time. Panditji happened to visit college one evening - I am not sure what was the occasion, but he looked flushed, red and drawn, and a beaten man. He appeared to me as someone who had been badly betrayed by all around him - the Chinese, not to say the least. I had seen him a short while earlier when Queen Elizabeth had visited India and he had then looked radiant despite his age.

The following Republic Day we were still smarting from the defeat which we had been inflicted, when it came about that the NCC had organsed that all the Stephanians who wanted could take part in the Republic Day Parade and march down from Rashtrapathi Bhavan to India Gate.

My bosom pal, Ajay Verma was in the NCC naval wing and brought me the news. Almost all of us in Mukarji Block, as a solidarity to our soldiers and army officers volunteered to take part in the march.

We assembled very early in the morning in front of the JCR and waited, and waited, and waited, till finally some NCC trucks came and picked us up and deposited us somewhere behind the Rashtrapathi Bhavan.

After another interminable wait we were told to march, and we non-NCC group sauntered down the whole way to India Gate with our few NCC friends trying to keep some semblance of order by marching in step.

Desperately tired at the end of the road, we again had to wait for several hours before being picked up by the trucks and then safely transported back to the college - a feeling of accomplishment passing as a warm glow through all of us.

Ajay did join the army, he fought in the Pakistan war and recalled to me how one evening, while sitting in the bunker, decided to go out for a smoke. He had hardly gone a few steps out of the bunker when a shell landed dead centre on it and destroyed the entire construction. Ajay was the sole survior of that incident and made up his mind to quit as soon as his commission was over.

He married a Danish girl, set up a small Indian boutique in Sweden at Malmo, just across from Copenhagen and had a couple of lovely children, but he still recalled that fateful day as a nightmare when a cigarette save his life. Unfortunately, he has now moved and I have lost touch with him. If anyone knows where he is, please do let me know.

Editor

Jacob Matthan

P.S. Seems our New York group is very active and enjoying their reunions. Do keep us all in mind when you are having a great time. I am sure that given the opportunity, we all would love to join you. Are any other groups out there holding similar activities? Do let us know as we love to hear of your reunion dos.

KTWV01-Issue 9: Stephanian Authors

Hi Stephanians,

I have restructured the page slightly so that it loads quicker on your browser. I will limit the kilobyte size of this page by keeping it to a maximum of six issues. I will move the old issues to archive files, each of which will contain six issues.

I have also included a link to the World Alumni Registry Stephanian Page. You can click there and register your Stephanian connections.

I have also linked other web pages and lists maintained by Stephanians so that you can visit them if you desire. If any of you have a web page which has something to say to Stephanians, do let me know so that I can add your link at this site.

This week has been rather uneventful as far as email from all of you out there. Maybe all of you that took the trouble and filled out the poll form on my main page (thanks) were so exhausted that you took a break from sending any other mail!

Picture of Montek Singh Alhuwalia

The latest issue of THE WEEK has a nice picture of Finance Secretary, Stephanian (1960-1965) Montek Singh Alhuwalia (also a Rhodes Scholar), standing at the side of the present Finance Minister, Mr. P. Chidambaram, just before the presentation of the recent budget.

Montek has changed his turban style to the more conformist type. He used to have a unique and fascinating way of tying his turban when he was in college. It was nice to note, that like me, Montek has filled out with age, although unlike me, he has not become grossly overweight with a pot-belly.

Stephanian Authors

I am still looking for information about Stephanians who are authors, the intention being to compile a web page as part of this site of these names along with details of the books published by them. I have a few additions to my list.

Stephanian Amitav Ghosh teaches at Columbia University, New York. He has written three novels, "The Circle of Reason", "The Shadow Lines" and "The Calcutta Chromosome", plus one non-fiction called "In An Antique Land".

Stephanian Upamanyu Chatterjee published the book "English August: An Indian Story" which has been made into a film. His latest novel is "The Last Burden".

Stephanaian Sashi Tharoor has written "The Great Indian", "Show Business" and "The Five Dollar Smile", which is a collection of short stories.

If any of you out there can give me details about these writers, any other books that they may have published, as well info about any other Stephanians that you know who have published books and can be considered to be authors, I would be most obliged.

My intention is also to have reviews of the books authored by Stephanians available on the web page. If any of you can send me reviews of the books that you have read by Stephannian authors, they would be most welcome.

In the context of authors, could someone out there confirm or deny whether economist author Ravi Batra at the Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas is a Stephanian or not. I had a Ravi Batra (from Assansol) as a classmate in college. Before we parted he gave me snap, on the back of which he had written:

To Jacob with fond regards

sd: Ravi Batra

Born: 1943

Died: _____

I saw a snap of the author Ravi Batra in the TIME magazine a few years ago, just after his book "The Great Depression" had hit the headlines. These two Ravi Batras either are twins as they share all the same features, a very stocky face structure and bushy eyebrows or, by some quirk of fate, are look-alikes with the same name!!. I remain puzzled so please put me out of my agony!

I guess, that is all my ramblings for this week.

Editor Jacob Matthan
Oulu, Finland

KTWV01-Issue 8: Ranjit Bhatia

Hi Stephanians,

This last fortnight, other than casting your votes in droves for which book I should serialise for the web (for technical reasons the poll is continuing for one more fortnight - so you can still cast your vote), all of you, except Indrajit Banerjee have been very quiet. Indrajit sent me a message about Chinmoy Banerjee (who I had mentioned in my last issue - Smoking Tea Leaves) along with the email address of Chinmoy in Canada. Thanks Indrajit.

Rhodes Scholar Ranjit Bhatia

I thought this week I would share thoughts about the return of Ranjit Bhatia to college in 1962-1963. Ranjit had been to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar and was chosen to represent India at the Olympics in a long distance event - I am not sure which distance (was it the 800 metres or the mile?). Hence his return to college as a lecturer was much awaited by all of us.

Principal Sircar had been our mathematics teacher till then, and although he was a great guy, he was not much good at teaching mathematics to an idiot like me. He would come into a packed class room, mumble along for an entire hour, scribbling on the board, and that was the end of the lecture.

When Ranjit turned up, he took over this role as our maths teacher. He was infinitely better at it than good old Sircar. Within a couple of weeks I started to get a hang of the subjects, as vectors, matricies and analytical geometry and proceeded to more exotic and interesting subjects, as astronomy.

Ranjit was also a great socialiser with us students. He mingled with all of us, who, in turn, looked up in awe at this wiry superstar amongst us. I do not remember of which block he was the tutor. He frequently joined us for the after dinner coffee. Although he did not play "thumbing the matchbox" he certainly appreciated the mathematical probablity of the game.

Wonder where Ranjit has got to by now?

The Cafe

Talking of the cafe, I wonder if the quality of the mince cutlets and scrambled eggs (with tamatar) has been maintained. There was quite a quality difference in each speciality depending on whether it was Ganga, Shelly or Dolly who served up the choice, so much so that our choice was usually dependant on who was waiting on us. There was another youngster who started his career in the cafe at that time - was he called Sebastian? I personally loved the scrambled eggs from Ganga, the mince cutlets from Shelly and the vegetable cutlets from Dolly. The coffee was uniformly good from all four. I did not care too much for the tea (although today I am only a tea drinker - I have not been put off by the dire warnings of this habit which have been scribed by P. G. Wodehouse). The iced sweet lassi from Sebastian was out of this world. Not much difference in the fresh lime, however!

By the way, was the name of the guy who sold the Barfi at the cafe door Sukharamji?

And till when was Deep Singh the barber who gave us those atrocious haircuts but great head and body massages?

More in a fortnight,

Regards

Stephanian Jacob Matthan - 1960-1963

Oulu, Finland

KTWV01-Issue 7: Holi Dunking

Hi Stephanians,

What I said last week seemed to have prompted some life into a few of you. Besides wishing my father-in-law a happy birthday, about a dozen of you have actually responded to tell me not to stop those reminders. It is no hassle as it takes me only a minute. I have rather a good email program (PopMail by Dave Johnson from the University of Minesota) on my ancient Mac PowerBook in which I keep all my mailing lists and update them as details come in. (Wish I could afford a PowerMac to bring some colour to this page!)

Many of you who wrote were wondering why you get the messages without a long list of names. I learnt this trick of putting only a couple of names - usually headed by our oldest web-surfing Stephanian from Canada, Samuel O Alexander, while the rest of you go into the Blind Carbon Copy space. So you do not get a message with hundreds of names to scroll through. In my Findians Briefings mailing list there are a few hundred on my mailing list. It does take a while for the post to actually be sent as I still use only a 2400 bps modem, but as the Mac has always been a multitasking machine, I am usually busy doing something else, or busy web-surfing, while the mail is being sent out.

Well Sree in New York thanked me for all the nice things I wrote about him. My contact paid off as he was able to put me in touch with a nephew of mine in New York, son of a Stephanian. I also got rid of the extra "A" in SAJA - the error had emanated from The WEEK. Think our New York crowd will be enjoying their get-together meal as I am writing this.

Holi Dunking

Has that absolutely filthy habit of dunking everybody in the slush just outside the dining room on Holi come to an end. After being flung in and sloshed with muck in my first year (and losing a lens from my spectacles), on subsequent years I was up early as a bird and went and sat in the muck so that I would not get thrown in. Of course several thought the whole affair was hilarious. I seem to remember that I was so early in my second year that it was probably me that turned on the tap to make sure that the slush would be formed. Since it was March it was still miserably cold to roll about in that murky water.

After the mud bath many of us would proceed to the residence of Principal Sircar who always had barfi ready for distribution and also some colour to throw at us students. He seemed to enjoy being part of the celebrations. I got the feeling that he would have been disappointed if we did not show up at his doorstep.

One year we even went on the VCs residence - It was C. D. Deshmukh, if my memory serves me right. He too was quite jovial and took part with good spirit although we did not get any barfi from him. Typical attitude of a Finance Minister!! Hey Montek, are you listening?.

Masala Dosais

Are the Masala Dosais (that was how it was spelt on the Kamala Nagar menu) at that dingy restaurant at Kamala Nagar and the Coffee House still up to character. Now-a-days Masala Dosas are available everywhere but in our time to get one in Delhi was like receiving manna from heaven.

My first visit to the Kamala Nagar restaurant was with a group of second and third year students who took a few of us newcomers there after dinner to be ragged. They did do some ragging but they were kind enough to buy us a cup of coffee after the ordeal.

I remember tall and lanky Kamlesh Sharma (now an Ambassador somewhere, I guess), stylishly attired in his traditional robes Chinmoy Banerjee (who tried to convnce me that smoking tea leaves was the thing to do), and Lalit Mohan (probably busy editing a newspaper somewhere in Punjab), then in their first year MA, met up with me on that first visit to Kamala Nagar - and so I even got to eat a Dosa, paid for by my mentors..

Ragging

Talking of ragging - does this still take place? I remember some of the excellent ragging that I was subjected to - it was sheer mental torture, but when I later ran through the episodes in my mind, I had actually enjoyed being ragged by a few seniors who a few moments later became good friends. Of course, there were the crude and physical raggers which was distasteful, but those who knew the art of ragging really had us freshmen quaking in our shoes - something like a good April Fools Day joke.

Maybe some of you could fill us with stories about your best and worst ragging experiences.

GOPIO

Hope you have registered as members of GOPIO - the web link was not working for a good part of the last two weeks, but I kept hammering away at Professor Thomas Abraham. He finally got a new web address and I can confirm the site is working although it is not yet possible to register as his FORM mailto is not yet functioning. I , however, sent email to register.

Holiday

I am off on holiday next week - enjoying the lake district in Eastern Finland right next to the Russian border - and considering my editorials in Findians Briefings of the last two weeks - I half suspect Yeltsin and Lebed to be waiting for me across the border with their Mafioso friends while the Finnish President Matti Ahtisaari makes every effort to push me over to the other side!!

Regards and take care,

Yours in a holiday mood,

Stephanian Jacob Matthan

KTWV01-Issue 6: Variety is spice

Hi Stephanians

(Sorry to Seventh Heaven readers also visiting here for some duplication),

Ad at the top

You may have noticed an ad at the top if you are using Netscape. It is part of a contract with a Portugese group that all my web pages will carry a rotating ad at the top. If it offends anyone or affects your access time or download time, please do let me know. I shall reconsider whether I keep it at the top of the Kooler Talk (Web Verson) page. (Ed: I have to try to earn some money sometime - I am not very successful at that task!)

Annoyance

Last issue I asked whether my annoying reminders should stop - I have a posting of just over a hundred messages to Stephnians. I received a total of 2 replies, one saying not to stop them and the other asking what was the URL-minder. Well this split the response 50/0/50 (undecided), so I am continuing my reminders. Any of you that wants out should let me know.

GOPIO

May I please direct you to the Global Organisation of People of Indian Origin (GOPIO). You can read the letter from Prof. Thomas Abraham from Columbia University in the Letters to the Editor on my main web page. Do take a break and visit it and the appropriate link.

SAJA

In keeping with the message about GOPIO, I thought I would share this tidbit about another Stephanian from Columbia.

Sreenath Sreenivasan, who is the active Stephanian in the Big Apple, is also an Assistant Professor at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. Along with a friend, he decided to form an informal organisation of South Asian Journalists, calling the organisation South Asian Journalists Association (SAAJA) (Ed: Sree, where does that extra A in the middle come from?).

Sreenath is reported, by Laviana Melwani (India-West) whose article "Brown-Skinned WASPS" was run in the 21st January 1996 issue of THE WEEK, as recalling that

"A few of us would see each other at press meets and say, we should get together. So we made a list - we thought there would be about 20 Indian journalists in New York. Actually, there are about 200."

As you would have read from earlier issues, Sree is also active in organising the Stephanian meets in New York. In fact just as I was writing this I received his "SSC new york newsletter". Truly amazing that there are 115 in that city and that as many as 45 attended the get-together. It seems to show the love and attachment we have for our alma mater.

Just for posterity I include the list of those which were mentioned by Sree in his newsletter.

Anil Kumar (eco'60, CFO of Population Communications Intl), Gaurav Laroia (chem'93, studying at NYU medical school); Brij Raj Singh (former professor who left in 1972, professor at Hostos College); Priya Ranjan (a.k.a. PRJ; eco'89; left in 1992, completing his eco PhD at Columbia Univ); the senior-most woman Stephanian: Padma Rao (eng'78, reporter with ADR German TV).
I feel we should all join in wishing him a great success in developing SAJA, as well as making the Stephanian group of North America, popular rallying points. From the Arctic wilderness, presently blazing in summer sunshine, I wish him the very best and thank him for having mentioned this fortnightly webletter.

Hey Sree, any other Stephanians among your SAJA group reading our Kooler Talk (Web Version)?

Other sites mentioned by Sree are:

Krishna Kumar (chem'91; Phd at Scripps) runs Global Alum Directory
Montek Singh - son of Prof. G .S. Bhatia (who, I think, was my Physics Lecturer in 1960-63); spent the first 21 years of his life on campus; did physics for a year; now computer science PhD at Columbia maintains Pix and Info from NY Events.

Rev. Jarvis/Luck

Going back to my college days, does anyone out there have any information about Rev. Jarvis. He was the Chaplain for the first two years of my time (till summer 1962). He was replaced by Rev. (David or Dennis) Luck in my last year. Rev. Luck was a "bigun" from Canada and did not like much noise in Mukarji Block after 10 pm. He did not have much luck (PJ - if you did not notice) in keeping the peace.

One night, around 2 am, he stormed into a lively bridge session and ripped the packs in half. He apologised the next evening to the group and the block for his lack of understanding and patience. I think he even replaced the packs. He knew if he continued his demonic show of brute strength, he would probably have got twice in return. Kundan Singh had warned him of the plots being hatched behind his back. Poor Kundan would probably have had to clean up the mess!

Stamps

Rev. Luck (I would be glad to know of his whereabouts) gave me my first Canadian Stamps and rekindled my childhood interest in that hobby. Now I am an active Stamp Dealer with a very good Finnish and Indian collection in which I trade using the web. So any of you having stamps to buy or sell, please do let me know. I have connections with over 250 reputed dealers worldwide. (Anyone know if the stamp of our college is around - I have many of St. Stephens Hospital.)

Yours in nostalgia

Jacob Matthan
Editor Kooler Talk (Web Version)

KTWV01-Issue 5: Feedback

Hi Fellow Stephanians,
This week I give way to the oldest and probably one of the youngest web-surfing Stephanians as well as probably one of the most active:

Date: Mon, 03 Jun 96 13:22:02 -0700
From: Samuel O Alexander (email supplied)
To: Jacob Matthan
Subject: Voice of the remote past!!

Hello Jacob:

Thanks for carrying on the torch bright and proudly! Ha... what nostalgia ... If I die of nostalgia, you will be responsible!!!!

Principal at your time: Mr S.C. Sircar (pl note the spelling). In my time it was Mr D. Raja Ram. Mr S. C. Sircar was the Head of Mathematics; and Mr Walker was the V. Principal. Later Mr Walker went to Peshawar to become the Principal of Edwardes College there ... probably in 1955 or so.
Mr R.I. Shankland was the next V. Principal. His wife was Mrs Elspeth Shankland ... very active in the SSC plays and in the cultural life of Delhi theatre (English). She was decorated with the CBE for her efforts.

Mr Shankland taught History and when discussing the "Committee of the Whole" (i.e., the whole house after the speaker stepped down from his chair and the mace was removed) ... he always spelt the word "whole " in case it could be mistaken or misheard!!!!

I think Mr Shankland also was decorated with an OBE !!

Best wishes.

Samuel


Some interesting facts from Jhelum (Econ. 1995)

Date: Tue, 11 Jun 1996 17:41:09 +0500 (GMT+0500)
From: Jhelum Chowdhury (email address supplied)
Subject: Re: Stephanians Web page

*On Tue, 23 Apr 1996, Saurav Sen wrote:

*Katy and Kooler Talk were/are the same, aren't they?

I have recently had the pleasure of perusing the Feb 1996 edition of Kooler Talk. To answer Saurav's query, Aunt Katy, with her collection of gossip, is the fictional narrator of Kooler Talk, who, I was entertained to note, has not lost her touch - "age has not mellowed her" or Stephania, if I may add.

Dr. Vijay Tankha, of the Philosophy Dept. oversees the publication of Kooler Talk. The editors of course, are drawn from the current undergraduate students, although I noticed that the latest edition has acknowledged its debt to an ex-editor, who had pitched in with his counsel.

However, Spice would really qualify as an "underground" mag. It comes out about twice a month on average. Since "writing Spice" depends on the initiative of individuals or groups, one can never predict the appearance of Spice with its shocking revelations of activities, whose participants had considered their heels well covered. The writers of Spice take great pains to remain incognito, slipping the sheet under the doors of sleeping rez students in the wee hours of the morning. Indeed, guessing the identity of the writers is no less entertaining than reading the latest edition of Spice.

Jhelum Chowdhury


And the last item is courtsey Sreenath who is doing a great job whipping up Stephania madness in New York and keeping me informed. Thanks Sree and also thanks to Wajahat for this information.

Date: Mon, 10 Jun 1996 17:04:18 -0400 (EDT)
From: Wajahat Habibullah (email address supplied)
Resent-From: Sreenath Sreenivasan (email address supplied)
Resent-To: Jacob Matthan

The Indian Embaasy has a number of Stephanians including yours truly (History 1965, MA 1967). Others include Shiv Mukherjee and Arvind Dave, to whom I have passed on copies of your message regarding the get-together on 12th June. I will not be in a position to come, but would suggest that you keep in touch with Stephanians in DC through me or others in IMF and World Bank in case you have the e-mail addresses. Otherwise, let me know and I will register as many as I can collect. I have registered with the Web Site mentioned.

We here are planning a get-together of Stephanians on 27th July. Let me know if you'd like more information.

Sincerely,

Wajahat Habibullah


Well I guess I can thank the contributors for this issue. Do keep the letters coming and I will fill in with the reminiscences whenever necessary - I have plenty of stories still to tell!!

Regards

Jacob
Oulu, Finland - where our glorious sunset is now at 0030 hours and sunrise at 0200 hours
Happy Midsummer - and, believe it or not, I now use a table fan (Made in Taiwan) here in the Arctic - Global Warming?