Old Girl Awardees at our Sesquicentennial Dinner

(please note - this is just a draft in development - hence all the "etc" - I haven't all the info yet, will update as I get it, please provide info if you can help! Or more pix if you'd like to share - Nazu)

Twelve Old Girls received awards at a special ceremony and dinner hosted by the OGA at the Chancery Pavilion on 30 July 2015: 

 Indrani Jaisingh, batch of ..
Legal activist, former Additional Solicitor General of the Supreme Court, etc

 Nandini Prasad Basappa, ICSE batch of 1977. Barton House, Captain of School 1977, ....etc

 Kiran Bir Sethi, ISC batch of 1985 (?), ICSE batch of 1983. Maiden House. Maiden House Captain 1983? ... etc
Riverside School, Ahmedabad,
Design for Change ..
Her TED talk .. (add link here)

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 Gautami Tadimala, batch of 198... , Maiden House.
film bio ..

 Pavithra Nanjappa, batch of xxxx,
Handloom revivalist, ... Vimor etc

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Kiran Mazumdar Shaw ..
Chairman and Managing Director of Biocon ..etc

Pervin Varkey Varma, ISC Year 12 batch of 1983, ICSE batch of 1981. Foley House. Foley House Captain 1981, School Captain 1983. etc .. Ex CEO of CRY, Citizens for Peace, etc

(umm .. if you're wondering why Pervin gets a video it's because she's one of my best friends and so I recorded her speech instead of taking pictures - Nazu)

(Judging from these extraordinary "moving pictures", Pervin is not a Muggle).

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Special awards were also given to Mrs Edna Benn (also an Old Girl!) and Ms Sushma for their many years of service to school administration.

School magazine 1980-1981

Thanks to Susmita Kundu for holding on to her copy of The Girl Cottonian all these years! We now have the precious tattered and moth-eaten pages being scanned and uploaded on a daily basis on a new blog at http://bcgs1981.blogspot.com

Tiny little reunion

Which basically means two OCs got together after ages! Here's a picture of the shortest, smallest OC reunion! Meera Appaswamy and me (Nazu Tonse), when we managed to meet up for a coffee when she was down here a few months ago. We are both batch of 1981 ICSE.

Pervin will kill me for this.

Innocent and earnest Foley House Captain 1980-81 who unwittingly gave an evil friend one of her passport photos as a souvenir.

Twenty years on .. Miss Suares and The Order of Facebook (Part Two)

Left to right: NK Nandini (batch of 1981), Nazu Tonse (1981) Nalini Manasseh (1969), Supriya Hegde (1980), Marjorie Suares (1942), Heera Nawaz (1975) Hazel Suares (1940s), Edna Benn (1951)

Left to right: Anu Kurien, NK Nandini, Nalini Manasseh, Supriya Hegde, Marjorie Suares, Heera Nawaz, Hazel Suares

What a lovely evening it was. There was so much to talk about, so many memories - of school days, sports events, all the people whose lives we had all been a part of. Miss Suares hosted us to a little tea party too.

Miss Suares is going to turn 87 this November - 87 years YOUNG. She's full of life, full of memories of all us girls. She sets a clear example of what a life full of sport and exercise can do for one! Although she's now recovering from a back problem, and wears a brace around her waist for extra support, she's so full of zest and enthusiasm. We must confess that before we met her, we were wondering if we would be meeting a frail bedridden lady, so it was such a lovely surprise to meet her and find her so alive and alert and very much present! As Rajshree had pointed out in an email recently, "She was always indestructible .. "

To be continued ..

Shades of the same person...

The year was 1979, the month was April..2 good little girls dressed in their Saturday best were eagerly awaiting all the food and beer the Fete would bring. Notice the butter won't melt in our mouth smiles... one's at attention, the other at ease! Raj..if we could even be a shade of our former thin selves..guess I should speak for myself :-)

And then this shows up..blackmail material forever, bwahahahaha! Latha Nair and Raj playing dress-up!

pics to go with my blog - the great Madras Choir Competition

The famous Madras Choir competition!

1oth std..at the pinnacle of the school..the choir has been chosen to represent our school at an inter school competition in Madras. Oh..the excitement! What should we sing, how are we going to get there..what are we going to do there..will we win..is there any doubt..we're the BEST! Practices for Doctor Foster went to Gloucester..and the Lion Tamer..lyrics include "crack the whip"..the rest is buried in my mind and cannot be dynamited out. Positions and postures are painstakingly planned..uniforms pressed, blazers and shoes cleaned. The day arrives, we board the train to Madras with MS. SUARES AND HER FAMOUS WHISTLE. (we don't know what we're in store for!) Lots of singing in the train..Pleas from Mrs. Thomas and Mrs. Joseph to conserve our voices for the singing competition. The calmer ones go to sleep, the more rambunctious of us (read Raj, Shobha, Pervin, me and others) ride the rails sitting at the edge of the train door. We reach the famous Mount Road and the Church of South India. Find some hall or other to sleep in, with a graveyard in the back..Beautiful angels of stone..scary at night..Next day we line up to go to breakfast at the Kamath hotel..everyone is clamouring to give the waiter their order...OUT COMES THE FAMOUS WHISTLE..girls, girls, show some decorum..now how many of you want dosas, raise your hands, how many want idlis? Oh no..cringe, the height of embarrassment at that age..(have no clue that embarrassment is sticking your legs in stirrups and showing your privates to the world)..every one's looking at us..even the waiters are laughing..oh MS. Suares, how could you? We eat and get out of there as quick as possible. Go to the place of the competition..practice, practice, practice. Back to lunch at CSI..very hospitable, delicious..except for Shobha(Chachie) gagging from finding a lizard in the pickle..off for showers...sweating outside, sweating during and sweating when we come out...why is Madras so hot! The day of the competition dawns, nerves there but hidden..lots of reassurances that we can do it. On stage, Mrs. Thomas so put together looks absolutely beautiful in her brand new dress..we are so polished and put together, hit every mark, voices soar like angels..Pervin, Sandra and Jill hit every high note perfectly..Raj and I hit every note correctly, Shobha was an alto or tenor..can't remember..we can't lose, WE'RE THE BEST! Come back to the church..time for fun..its late, but there's always time for a walk. OUT COMES THE FAMOUS WHISTLE..line up girls..various states of dress and undress, some of us still in our uniforms, some in regular clothes..ART SIR in his "pyjamas"..blue, black and white striped, with polished black shoes..walk down Mount Road! Yup..we're representin..now! We're cool, we're hip, We're THE BISHOP COTTON'S GIRLS SCHOOL CHOIR..oh excuse the man in the pj's, he's with us, but not with us! We walk to the beach, check out all the stall around it..WHISTLE..Girls, stay away from the water..no, no buying any kachra from the stalls.." WHISTLE..line up time to walk back to the church..Next day we make our way back to the orderly life at school, bragging about the competition, holding it up as a badge of honour, rubbing it in other girl's faces. DID YOU WIN? OF COURSE WE'RE THE BEST! No..we were not, NOT in Madras..we cam 3RD..oh the mortification..we were robbed..they said our singing was too refined..what do they know about songs and choirs..partiality I tell you..all the other competitors were from Madras, of course they're not going to let someone from Bangalore win..

So came to the close one of my finest trips down memory lane...the highlight wasn't the competition or the songs..(of course I break out into Dr. Foster went to Gloucester for my kids now and then) but it was MS. SUARES'S WHISTLE and ART SIR in his Pj's. Now, you tell if the kids of today are not deprived of a well rounded education!

A reunion with Mrs. Seshadri

All praise to Facebook who enabled me to find Gita and discover that Mrs. Seshadri is her mother-in-law! Gita put me in touch with Mrs. Seshadri and finally, after years of wondering how to locate her, I met her on Saturday (16 August 2008). Niru and I (Nirupama Sarma, 1981 batch) took the scenic route (meaning which we got lost and took a lot of u-turns) and eventually found ourselves at Mrs. Seshadri's front door. Some rapid make-up and hair preening to ensure we were fit to face her, and then there we were, exchanging hugs and memories.

It was a wonderful morning - and what a memory Mrs. Seshadri has! It was a truly special time and thanks so much Gita for making this happen. For all the years that have gone by, "Seshu", as we used to call her (not to her face, of course! Far too irreverent! Plus most of us were too terrified and awed to!) has hardly aged. She was surrounded by piles of books and texts, and on a blackboard behind her were scrawled these delightful words: chiaroscuro .. catharsis .. hamartia .. hubris .. it was even a thrill to see her elegant handwriting hadn't changed after all this time. We talked of school, of girls and teachers, of those who are still here and those who have passed on. We talked about our lives, our work, our destinies .. it was such an inspiring morning.

I was even honoured by having my very first cup of coffee ever made by Mrs. Seshadri - so honoured, in fact, that I have taken a picture of it! But that picture goes on my other blog (Art Earth Ink Soul)!

Today I'm yearning to be her student again .. and not just for the coffee!

They don't make them like they used to!

Okay these aren't quite the usual school photos! But Yasmin and I visited school some years back (actually I think it was in the 90s) and found the old name boards stacked in a corner of the old library (what used to be the old hall and what is now the main reception area, principal's office etc).
The names may not be clearly visible here but if you click on the picture an enlarged version comes up.

Oh - and they LITERALLY don't make them like they used to .. apparently the class sizes increased so much that they stopped making these boards by the 90s.

Pervin, Akila, Navaz and me

Got together in Bangalore last month. The reason I am in funny red pyjamas is because I was sick. I don't always dress that way.