Friday, May 18, 2007

Back to The Past At Last!

After our late night, we all slept in and/or took it easy in the morning, trying to conserve our energy for the days ahead. We were also awaiting the arrival, from New Delhi, of class-mates Carl “Kullu” Keelor, Arjun Mehta and M.S. “Bhunto” Bhandari before heading up to the school.

Our objective in visiting the school today was to:

(a) do an initial tour of the school since Sports Day (tomorrow) would be pretty hectic;


(b) to give the Principal, a lay-person named Mr.Emmanuel, three permanent trophies and related individual trophies that the “Batch of 1974” had purchased for the school;


(c) to meet Brother Fitzpatrick (yes, the Principal from 1960-1965) who was back at SEM as one of the last three Christian Brothers who were still at the school.

Our purpose in meeting with Brother Fitzpatrick was to ensure that our presence and related contributions to SEM were indeed welcome after some preliminary overtures were resisted by Mr. Emmanuel (long story that pre-dates our arrival).

Unfortunately, our class-mates from Delhi only arrived (with the trophies) in the late afternoon, so we got up to the school (in cars) at 4:30p.m. fearing the worst, i.e. that no one would be around.

Entering the school gates (now protected by a guard) was so familiar that it felt like yesterday rather than thirty-four years ago.Everything looked the same except that the front of the school (including the towers) was painted a light blue rather than the white that we all remembered.
Luckily, after hanging around the front for a few minutes, we espied Br. Fitzpatrick in the quadrangle ("the quad") through the junior dormitory doors and rushed around to meet him and
introduce ourselves. His memory was pretty sharp and he remembered the Figueiredo boys.

We then went up to the Principal’s office with him and gave Mr. Emmanuel the trophies that we had purchased, one for Best Athlete of the Year, one for Best Footballer, one for Best Student.

After photos with Mr. Emmanuel, we began our tour of the school, starting with the Church, the classrooms, 1st field (where they were re-marking the field because of the rain, in same manual manner that they had done it 34 years ago ... amazing), “the bogs” (still as stinky as ever, but where they now have a wall across the front, making the actual cubicles pretty dark).

Note: There were no students around since they were all watching a movie in the auditorium (it was Saturday after all).

We stopped in at Duo & Co. (the sports store next to the gym, or the bogs depending on one's point-of reference) to find that old man Duo was still there. He remembered the Figueiredos since Dad must have spent a bundle there for Sports uniforms. We each bought a House shirt (Red for me and Louie, Yellow for Noel and Carl , etc.). We also checked out the gym where everyone tried out the equipment to see if they still had it.

From there we went down the steps to the junior fields (5th and 6th ) and 2nd field as well as Donaldabad (the lay teachers’ residence). The empty land just in front of the teachers' residence, where the “monkey-bars” had been, is now a basketball court (although the original money bars were still there in a corner), the handball courts are now squash courts (i.e. the front is walled off except for an entry door and there is a net across the top. There is a large water cistern where the 2nd field cricket equipment shed used to be.


There were some young kids playing football on the 2nd field, mostly teachers' and servants’ children. We had a quick pick-up game with them, ending with penalty kicks to see if we still had it. Of all the former football stars we had with us, only Louie actually scored a penalty kick on these young lads. No one attempted to kick the ball from 2nd field to 1st field since it was still pretty high and no one felt they had it in them anymore. '

One other change of note was the addition of classrooms on top of the corridor that connected that main buildings to the junior classrooms (and gym). It was well designed and blends right in.

We then ventured back up the quadrangle where Br. Fitzpatrick was waiting patiently for us, wanting to show us out. We stopped by the swimming pool again and took some more photos.

Since we were to have dinner at Rajeev "Jeeves" Singh's home in the hills, we hurried back down to the cars, but not before we stopped to buy mulberries from some of the local kids (huge risk but no ill effects suffered.

Later than evening, Rakesh Ahuja and Atul Shah, along with their spouses, came to the hotel and we then all made our way by car to Jeeves' house.

Rajeev Singh's house was huge (41 rooms of all shapes and sizes), and he was a most generous host providing us with great atmosphere, hospitality and food.

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