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)

 ...

 ...

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

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

 ...

 ...

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).

 ...










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.

Cottons Alumni Get Nostalgic - Deccan Herald, 1 July 2015

Article in the Deccan Herald covering the Open Day held at school on 30th June morning, 2015.

Cottons Alumni Get Nostalgic

Sydney Reunion - batch of 1962

The 1962 batch has been very busy! And very reminiscent! Some of them also got together in Sydney, Australia for a reunion. I think this was taken in late 2008.

Class of 1962 - Bangalore Reunion

Some of the 1962 batch met for a reunion in Bangalore in January 2008. Some of them flew down from other continents (Europe, Australia!) for this! Thanks to Celia and Gail for the pictures! I think they were taken on school premises. They had a great time and even managed to fit in a surprise visit to Miss Suares who was thrilled to see them all.

First pic:

Prema, Miss Susheela (yes, she taught this batch too - 46 years ago!), Jyotsna, Nalini, Arti Kumar, Celia (Joyce) Fivash, Edna Benn

Middle Row: Hema, Gail (Irish) Mendens

Back Row: Dorte Sorensen, Chandrika, Girija Shankar, Rama, Ilana, Usha Reddy

Second pic:

Back row (Left to Right): Dorte, Hema, Gail

"Middle" Row: Prema, Ilana, Arti, Chandrika, Rama, Girija, Jyotsna

Front Row: Celia, Nalini, Princess Franklin (the current principal of BCGS)

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.

The Green & Gold Ball

To All OCs:

The Old Cottonians’ Associations of Bishop Cotton Boys’ and Girls’ Schools
Invite you to the Green & Gold Ball scheduled to be held at the Chancery Pavilion, Residency Road, Bangalore on Saturday, 13th December, 2008 at 7.30 p.m.

It was decided that the OCs who passed out 25years ago (1983) and 50 years and above (1958) will be honored, but only the 50yrs and above will be given the Free Entry for the Green & Gold Ball and dinner and the rest of them will have to buy the dinner coupons.

Tickets are priced at Rs. 1250/- per head inclusive of unlimited drinks and dinner.

Dress Code: Formal

Edna Benn / Asghar Mistry
Secretary / Ass. Secretary
OCA-BCGS / OCA-BCBS

Reunion - batch of 1962

Not bad for us Old Girls (well, we can give the Internet a little credit too!) We have been reaching out and as a result, have been getting in touch with OCs around the world, with news and info and pix hopping about from continent to continent till they arrive here! This picture has travelled from New Jersey to Sydney to Bangalore!

Here's a picture of a "mini-reunion" of some of the batch of 1962, sent in by OC Gail Mendens (also batch of '62) from Sydney Australia. The girls in the picture are (left to right) Arti, Rama, Kala, Nalini and Malini, (sorry, don't know their surnames or maiden names) and the reunion took place in New Jersey USA in September this year.

2004 reunion of some of the 1974 batch

Jane sent me some pix for the blog, of this get-together of 1974 batch-mates at the Bangalore Club - pix taken in July/Aug 2004

front row - L to R - Mina Calla, Radha C V Iyer, Yasmin Tonse, Jane John. Back row - L to R - non-Cottonian Anita (who could not be cropped out of the picture without also chopping Mina's head off), Usha Philips and Sheela Mathew ... all except Sheela (1975) were '74 batch.

"The one with us sitting inside are Mina Calla standing behind, L to R Yasmin, Usha, Jane and Sheela ... "

Thanks for sharing, Jane!

Any other OCs out there want to share your pix with the rest of us? Do get in touch!

Reunion - Batch of 1975

It's been amazing to see the number of Old Cottonians re-connecting with one another on facebook and the blog in recent months! As Kala Lingham remarked recently it seems that the arrival of facebook and the blog coincided with a time when "we 40 somethings are all feeling a little nostalgic for that simple life we had back in the 70' and 80's! .... its been slightly surreal"!!!

Well here's a bunch that have stayed in touch over the years...The batch of 1975! This photo sent in by Sheela Mathew, was taken a few years ago. We hear the gang continues to meet regularly in Bangalore!1st row - front - Janaki KV, Shobana Swamy, Vijitha Reddy and Sandhya Seetharam
2nd row - back - Sudha Rao, Sandhya Vani, Roopa Rathnam, Sheela Mathew, Hema Shetty and Heera Nawaz.
Thanks to Ameetha V (unfortunately not in this picture) for helping out with the names...

Twenty years on .. Miss Suares - Epilogue (Part Five)

After writing that last post, I've been getting into Sentimental-Weep-Mode .. and I made a little phone call to Miss Suares to see how she was. She told me that there's been nothing but talk of our little visit, all morning. Even the maid and cook were all agog (plus quite fascinated by the sudden appearance of "Gladys" with her red nose, funny voice and of course, the bubbles!)

Miss Suares has read through all your letters and said it was so wonderful to reminisce and visualise all the girls who sent the letters - she remembers you all.

"It makes you feel .. " here she paused, ".. different."

What made it extra special for her, she said, was seeing that not all the girls who came or wrote were active in sports. She hadn't thought that she meant anything more than a sports teacher. I think that, reading what we had written, how we had held on to her words all these years - eyes front, hold those heads high, backs straight, lift those feet - made her see that she had done more than train champions and coach teams - she had influenced the lives not just of girls but the women we've become. I think she knows now that she was more than she thought she was.

She also said that now, her own words were coming back to her at a time when she needed it, to give her the inspiration and motivation to keep going. That's a nice harvest, don't you agree?

I think now she does understand what she was, and is, for Cottons. I do wish my poor Professor Snape could have had what we gave Miss Suares yesterday.

Twenty years on .. Miss Suares and One Final Hogwartian Analogy (Part Four)

(Any Harry Potter fans who haven't yet read The Deathly Hallows? This post contains spoilers!)

With all the Harry Potteresque echoes to this whole Facebook revival, how could I resist not taking it further? And I love analogies, as anyone who's had the (mis)fortune to witness me once get going on my philosophical meanderings will confirm.

We have our own version of Platform 9 and 3/4's. We have our house rivalries and our midnight escapades. We are Cottons Girls and the rest of the world, poor dears, are Muggles.

Two incidents from yesterday's visit to Miss Suares stay with me, and give rise to this One Final Hogwartian Analogy, as yet unrevealed:

She told us a story about how, when a chief guest was with the then-principal Miss Hardy (this must have been in the 50s or 60s) in the auditorium (not the new one - the original hall which allegedly had a secret tunnel under the stage that led to the boys' school!!). The girls were, of course, making a racket, but suddenly fell silent.

"What happened?" the chief guest asked, for the change was drastic. Miss Hardy smiled and pointed out to him that Miss Suares had just entered the room.

Fear? Maybe. But respect too. There was something about Miss Suares, a presence she had that absolutely no other teacher was ever able to match. At one point, during the telling of these stories, she clasped her hands together and said, "I always thought, oh God, these girls must HATE me .. "

That's when it struck me. A little voice in my head whispered, "Good Lord .. Miss Suares is Professor Snape .. "

Now those of you who aren't fully into the Harry Potter books, or who perhaps haven't read all the way to the end, may think this is a horrible thing to say, because for quite a while there, JK Rowling made us think he was the villain of the story.

But those of you who DO know the whole story - and who also know of my utter devoted worship of Professor Snape - will understand that this is the greatest compliment I could pay anyone, and not a statement I would make lightly.

So who was Professor Snape? A hard, determined man with rather an iron-fisted attitude to his students - striking terror into Neville Longbottoms everywhere. An ex-student turned teacher, brilliant at what he did, bitter perhaps, but keeping his pains secret. Loyal, so loyal to Dumbledore and what Hogwarts stood for, at the cost of taking lives, and of giving his own too. Harry Potter hated him and feared him and misunderstood him. Right until the end. It's only in the Epilogue that we found, and wept over, Harry's recognition of Snape for what he was: Harry had named his son after Snape.

To me, that was too little, too late. So when I look at our get-together with Miss Suares yesterday, I like to think that we did more for her than JK Rowling did for Snape in that last paragraph of her book. Snape died never knowing whether his true colours were ever appreciated. I'm so glad to all of you who contributed to this reunion with your time, your letters, your phone calls and email forwards and your presence there yesterday. You made for a better happy ending than Rowling could ever write.

Twenty years on .. Miss Suares and The First Kiss (Part Three)

Ok now, don't go getting any funny ideas. Those of you who've visited my blog (Art Earth Ink Soul .. and if you haven't visited it yet, you must!) will remember my recent visit to see Mrs. Seshadri - where I'd written about The First Cup of Coffee - that Seshu had made for me personally (it's these little milestones of life that keep me smiling!) and so it seemed only apt that I make a separate entry for this new milestone: my first kiss and hug from Miss Suares!

If anyone reading this doesn't know Miss Suares, they won't understand the significance of this. But most of you reading this are her ex-students, and you will understand.

Miss Suares, tall, daunting, awe-inspiring - able to silence an entire auditorium just by entering it - none of us would have dared to give her a hug and kiss back in those days! So it was delightful to be welcomed with open arms and a warm hug and kiss on the cheek when we walked in to her home to visit her yesterday!

We also got The Second Kiss when we were leaving. After I kissed her goodbye, she put her hands up to her cheeks, an odd expression on her face. "Oh dear," I thought. "She can smell the cigarettes on my breath."

But no.

"Steady," I heard her murmur softly to herself. Miss Suares, indomitable as ever, held her tears back, and saw us out with a glorious smile.


to be continued ..

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 ..

Twenty years on .. Miss Suares and The Magic of Cottons (Part One)

It started with The Secret Order of Facebook, where various old Cottonians who had wandered down the vast corridors of the internet, found themselves in front of a magic door marked 'Log In'. And here it was that Bartonians, Foleyites and Maidens reunited and rekindled much of the olde magic of Cottons.

Then, with the magic tingling in her fingertips one day, Leena Athyal sat in front of her computer and uttered that omnipotent spell: "Google!" And so it was that the magic wound its way around the web and Miss Suares was found!

The internet Owls winged their way across with Leena's findings - Miss Suares' whereabouts and most importantly her phone number - and I found myself on the phone, asking to speak to "Mrs. Marjorie Suares". This did not get any positive response from the young vivid voice on the other end of the line. I thought for a moment and quickly amended my request, "I mean, MISS Marjorie Suares." This worked immediately.

"Speaking," was the answer.

(What a lovely affirmation for us single women! That an 87-year-old lady can communicate in that one little exchange, the pride and self-recognition of who we are - in a country where the misses are seen as women who have "missed out" - not that a Miss or a Mrs or even a Ms is superior one over the other - but that we are who we are, and we state it with our heads held high and our voices and self-worth firm as ever.)

And so the magic spread across the web. Soon letters were pouring in from around the world, and plans were made. And yesterday was the day - twenty pages printed out on yellow (imagine Gold) paper and wrapped in a Green folder, bound with a red satin ribbon (school colours, and Barton - for those of you with colour-blind memories!), and seven of us Old Cottonians frantically rushed to be On Time (after all, Miss Saures had told me, "Saturday at 4" and when "Suaree" gives specifics, you make sure you follow orders!)

Three hours later, we left, unwillingly, taking with us lovely memories and inspiration and even some useful anti-ageing tips!

To be continued ...

Another reunion

Last month was a real good one for sentimental memories and reunions. Thanks to Facebook again for putting me in touch with Farzana, who was my "little sister" in the boarding. Mrs. Marchand had come up with the idea of having a big sistr-little sister programme in the boarding, and Farzana was mine. She was in the 4th or 5th Standard when I left, I think. I remember her being a very dainty pretty fairylike child.

Soon after I found her on Facebook, she came down to Bangalore for a holiday and so I got to meet her again after all these years! She is still dainty, pretty, fairylike, softspoken and graceful. She is also mom to these two adorable little guys, and is a paediatric nephrologist! Wow. Me, I just became a clown.

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!

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.