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

A Golden Oldie from the 1930's!

Isn't this an lovely photo?! This photo with a number of girls dressed for what appears to be a Shakespearean play was taken in the 30s. Clearly we've had a long tradition of drama at Bishop Cottons!


This photo was sent in by Cheryl Irish (1975 batch). In the picture is Cheryl's mum Ida D'Bras who is standing in the back row (second from the right) and graduated from Cottons around 1936. All three of Ida's daughters - Gail, Dawn and Cheryl were Cottonians too!

We'd love to know if anyone has any more information about the event or the other "old girls" in the photo!

Cotton's Teachers circa 1950s

Here's another picture sent in by Celia, of the teaching staff at school during the 50s.

Emily Pharoah (Celia's aunt) is in the middle row, 6th from the left. Mr. Godbole, Hindi teacher is far right, top row, Miss Susheela is top row 3rd from left, and Miss Suares is middle row 2nd from the right.

Just in case the caption is hard to read, here is the list again (if anyone knows the missing names - or has more info on any of the people in the picture, do let us know so we can grow our history book!):

Top Row (left to right): Mr. Ramamurthy, Mrs. Galloway, Miss Sushila, Mrs. Whitbread, T5, Mrs. Pereira, T7, T8, T9, Mr. Godbole

Middle Row: M1, Mrs. Latt, Mrs. Robey, Miss Mortimer, Miss Britto, Miss Pharoah, Miss Mulley, Miss I. Stevens, Miss Stevens, Miss Suares, Mrs. Fewkes

Front Row: Mrs. Arkley, Mrs. Clark, Miss Moore, Mrs. C. Gaughan, Mrs. Schiff, Miss Biddy Scott, Miss Millington, Miss Holder, Mrs. Robinson

Sports Day 1962

Celia (Joyce) Fivash sent in this picture - here she is collecting the cup for Maiden House who won that year. Celia was captain of Maiden House, and she's also one of 10 girls from her batch who are getting together for a reunion of the 1962 batch in Bangalore in January 2009.

Another Sporting Moment!

As Cottonians, all of us will remember our heroes smashing records and winning medals for Cottons at the Inter School Athletics Competitions...For those who studied in the 70's, names such as Nandini Prasad, Hema Shetty, Nirmal Cariappa, and Kala Arasi will strike a chord...Mind you there were hosts of other champs...my apologies..their names escape me at the moment!

The non sporting ones like me sat in the stands of Kanteerava Stadium and cried ourselves hoarse :
"GINGER LIME AND SODA POP...WE WANT COTTONS ON THE TOP"
and "2 4 6 8 ... WHOM DO WE APPRECIATE? .... COTTONS"
or "KALA" (clap clap clap) "KALA" (clap clap clap) "KA la ... SHhhhhhh....Quiet Girls! Swaree says HUSH!!! Don't distract the girls!...."

The competition and rivalry at the School Sports was equally fanatic...our own version of Quidditch...when the 3 houses in those days Barton Maiden and Foley were pitted against each other "in the spirit of sportmanship to the honour and glory of sports"!

So against this background here is a classic... Latha Gowda or GOWDI, as Suaree christened her, from Maiden House and Nimmi Ramakrishnan (not Rao as I first posted, thanks Lakshmi Daniel) relegate Barton House darling and Queen of Sports Kala Arasi to 3rd place in the Discuss Competition in 1977! (...Lakshmi thinks Nimmi was also in Barton)

Face spotters will enjoy the picture of Latha receiving her prize from chief guest Sr Vaughn who was principal of Sophia's. We can spy Miss James, and a bunch of Foleyites - Maya Mathani, Shanthalakshmi, Jyoti Devraj Havilah, Lisa Koshy, and Amina and of course Latha's many Baby Dorm PHANS perched on the parapet!

[btw if you can identify others, please add names to the comments, we'd also love to hear from you if you wish to become a contributor or send us your pictures...you can find most of us through our profile pages or facebook!]

A picture of Miss Suares - from the 1980's

Maya Thomas (1983) sent in this picture of Miss Suares smiling away. Mrs Clarke is in the background, and the teacher seated on the left is Mrs Collison.
Can someone with good eyesight figure what the thought for the day says on the black board and also help identify the other seated teacher please?

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.

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

Pictures from the 60s

Leena found this website made by an Old Cottonian from the 60s, it has some lovely old black and white photographs of the quad etc. Click the link below to go there:

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/2960/cottong.htm

Lights... Camera... Action

Remember the drama of all those school concerts, plays and Inter House Dramatics Competitions.... the hours spent in rehearsals, preparing costumes and props...all leading up to the big production?!!!! Well here's a sample of those momentous occasions in the next three posts.

The Shoemaker and the Elves - Standard II, 1971.

This item was presented by Mrs Dickson’s class in 1971. I can’t remember all the names…but here's a shot -

Front Row: The Shoemaker's children: Madhu Matta, Kumuda, ?, and Marina Joseph; the Shoemaker’s wife Viji R, The Shoemaker: Nalin?, Queen: Nurith, King:Bobby Gupta, Prince: Thomas?, Princess: Firdaus, The Six Elves: ? has their head down, Suja Philips?, Shiney Ninan, ?, ?, Leena.
Back Row: Other Customers: John Arul, Sandra Marley, ?, Nina Dhruve.

Barton House presents Sganarelle, a play by Moliere - 1978

Barton House performed this play in 1978 and went on to win the competition that year. Notice the amazing props that were painstakingly put together by all the Bartonians in the boarding! ...and don't you just love Sganarelle's (Lakshmi Daniel) head gear?!

Cast (picture on the right)

Standing: Sganarelle:Lakshmi D; Sganarelle's wife:Madhu; Celie:Sumathi, Celie's betrothed Lelie:Sharmila, Celie's father:Anuradha.
Seated: Lelie's servant:Krishnamani, Celie's Nurse:Leena

Also in this picture is one of our favourite places at Cotton Girls - the tree in the middle of the Quad

The Dear Departed - Prize Day 1979

I'll bet they've lost track as to how many times this one's been performed!!!!

Cast: Elizabeth Jordan:Sumathi, Henry Slater:Vijaya, Abel M (the grandfather):Malika, Victoria Slater (the granddaughter):Firdaus, Amelia Slater:Christine, Ben Jordan:Leena

Cottonians - 1960

Padmini Janakiraman's batch - picture of a picture taken during a party at Nergis (Batliwala) Sabawala's home.

(We had originally listed this as Malini Jairam's batch .. but I just got a mail from Padmini's sister Malini who corrected me - and also informed me this pic was taken in 1960 - Nazu, 15/10/08).

Relaxin n Chatting

Here's Mrs. Seshadri relaxing and chatting - taken a few years ago

Another picture from 1979

This is another picture taken on the day of the sponsored walk for the International Year of the Child. If my recollection is correct, the banner was being passed from institution to institution on its way from Kanyakumari to Kashmir!

Class of 1980

This photo was taken sometime in 1979 before the class set out on a sponsored walk as part of the International Year of the Child

In this picture:

Seated: F1Chandra, F2Nusrat Shah, F3Amina, F4Veena Sadhwani, F5Rajini, F6Kalpana, F7Lalitha S, F8Geetha Velayudhan,F9Shoba M, F10Mary A, F11Mary I, F12Kalpana K, F13Hiriya

Standing 1st Row: M1Sandhya R, M2Roopa, M3Kumuda, M4Nalini, M5Jayanthi, M6Anita John, M7Sudha Kurup, M8Latika Bali, M9Nina Dhruve, M10Leena Athyal, M9Prema Furtado, M10Kajal Nagpal, M11Nandita, M12Anita Koshy, M13Jyoti C.

Standing 2nd Row: B1Sheela Nambiar, B2Supriya Hegde, B3Gowri, B4Seema Sood, B5Christine Marley, B6Tripti Sinha, B7Luxshmi Soundernayagam (head only), B8Vijaya Ramachandran, B9Nandini Doreswamy, B10Firdaus Hashim, B11Gayatri, B12Sumathi Bedi, B13Gita Sanadi, B14Brigitta George, B15Suja Philip, B16Ruth, B17Mita Panjwani (head only), B18Gina Ramachandran, B19Dipali Mukherji, B20Rajalakshmi D