After little more than 8 years since we graduated out of school life, some of us finally assembled in Calcutta for the first semi-official get together of the batch. The venue was the Waldorf Restaurant on Park Street, Calcutta, at 12 noon on the Dashami day (Oct 8, 2000). Arunabha, Jhelum and IC had taken up the responsibility of booking the restaurant.

Just a little before the meeting time, torrential rains hit the city. In fact it was impossible to get inside the restaurant from the kerbside without getting wet. But thanks to the umbrella-armed usherer of Waldorf, we managed to walk the distance without much of a hassle.

One by one people started gathering inside --- Arunabha, Sujoy, Anirban, Rajarshi, Suman, Shetty, IC, Jhelum and (hold your breath) Debraj. Debraj was really the surprise of the day, since no one else knew that he was going to show up. True Debraj style I must say. The lunch was long, particularly since the management took just too long to serve the food. According to Debraj, we waited for food for almost 100 minutes, and once the food was served it took us 12 minutes to gobble that down. Hungry, or what ?

After lunch, six of us decided to go to Nicco Park, Salt Lake for some bowling. On the way to Nicco Park, we decided to stop at school and take a walk down memory lane. It was really great to visit our school premises after so many eons. As we strolled inside the main entrance, we met this lungi-kurta clad guy, who was smiling at all of us --- it was Salim (the guy who used to sell those multi-colored water and ice sticks, God knows how we survived through all that he used to sell us when we were at school). And he did recognize us as ex-students !

It was really nostalgic to be back. The same old small-ball-soccer courts, the assembly halls, the long corridors, the statue of John Bosco on the stairway --- not much had changed. Rajarshi thought that the bathrooms still smelled the same. We walked past the classrooms, computer rooms and everywhere else we could; it was amazing.

Going towards the canteen, we realized that the Lost and Found cupboard was missing ! It took us a little while to locate it in its new position near the side entrance of the school (am I right ?) The TT tables have been shifted around, and there are many more of them. The four houses were no longer called red, blue, green and yellow. They were instead named after some four salesians, I think. On the walls of the main corridor next to the principal's office, we saw a picture of a very familiar looking face garlanded. It was Brother Charile, the guy who used to play the National anthem on the accordian every Friday (remember him ?). Apparently he died some time back. Yes, so there were a few apparent changes too.

And so we came away from school. For those who were there, it was really a great feeling. For the rest, I think you should try to make a visit to school sometime to just relive the moments. Anyway, much too many words have been written by now. So I will let you stare at the pics. Till we meet again.

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Suman Banerjee / suman@cs.umd.edu

Page last updated: 21 November 2000