The Abu Alumni Oriole St. Mary's High School, Mount Abu A L U M N I   A F F A I R S

Newsletters and Reports

These are PDF/AdobeAcrobat documents (what's that?).  To view a document within your browser, click on the link.  To download it and read it at leisure, hold <Shift> down while you click, and provide a file name.

• The 1999 Dubai reunion (which was gatecrashed by a Sophian, much to our boys' delight)
• Pat O'Meara's (1946) “Raj” newsletters from 1993-94: #1, #2

Home Page News Archive

2000

• 2000 Dec 4.  Br George Bennett (1944-57) died on November 29 at the Brothers' home in Goa, and was buried on November 30.  Words of remembrance may be sent to the Principal, Regina Mundi High School, Chicalim, Goa 403711.

 
• 2000 Nov 20.  Just received this news: “On the 6th of June 2000 at Buckingham Palace, London, England, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II presented Fr Roger H Lesser (1944) with a MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire). Fr Lesser has devoted his life to helping others, and has done a lot of charity work throughout his life in India.  Fr Lesser has also written several books.  It was Randolph Williams [apparently also a student at St. Mary's, though he's not on the directory — details, anyone?] who campaigned for Fr Lesser to be recognised for his good services.  Fr Lesser can be contacted at:
Rajeshwar Sadan School
Zinc Smelter P.O.
Dist. Udaipur 313024
Rajasthan, India.”
You might be able to get more on this by following the Press Releases link from Buckingham Palace.  Fr Lesser's nickname was Podge, or Podgy.  Does anyone remember the column Ask Uncle Podge?  It was a sort of Ann Landers targeted at teens wrestling with adolescence and puppy love, that ran in The Teenager in the 1970s.  The anonymous counsellor was, of course, Podge.  I personally remember Fr Lesser as a periodic visitor to SMS, who gave us a retreat about 1972.

This brings to mind one memorable Parents' Day speech by Br Keane.  He said to the assembled parents (paraphrased): “We love to hear stories about boys who do well for themselves later in life; but we are much more proud to hear of boys who make life better for others.”  Not to rain on Podgy's parade, two other Abuites have been slogging tirelessly on behalf of underdogs, and this is a good time to recognize them.

• Tony Paul (1975?) was an orphan raised by the nuns in Ajmer.  To be honest, we gave him a rough ride in school, because of his cosiness with the nuns and his tendency to tattle.  As an adult, he looked back on his childhood and saw the need to do something about kids in that situation.  He raised funds and built an orphanage in Bassein, Bombay.  [Can anyone provide more detailed coordinates?]
• Br Brendan MacCarthaigh (formerly McCarthy, 1970–73) has been running an institution for suicidal kids who feel crunched by school curricula and domestic pressures (The Serve Centre, 8 Bansi Dutta Road, Calcutta 700014, phone 284.2218).  More at SERVE (note: the host ISP opens some annoying consoles, but they're harmless).  Mac was a terrific poet and composer, who composed one of the SMS anthems.  He invariably wrote the choral recitation piece for his class at the annual elocution competitions — and it invariably won.
• 2000 Nov 20.  News of Podgy's MBE came from Pirkko O'Meara, wife of Pat (1946).  Pat has done a lot of work to reunite Abuites, and wrote a couple of intimate and chatty newletters in the early 1990s (see the News archive).  In fact the second issue featured a visit to Podge's place in Udaipur.  Pat's claim to fame as author has just leapt forward with the release of a book of yarns and reminiscences, entitled Indian Tales.  It's about the family growing up in India, with emphasis on SMS.  The language is explicit — it was originally intended for his sons growing up in a different country.  The following is an extract with which all of us could identify:
“A really horrid wile of “Punchie” was that if he caught you eating a sweet in class, for example, he would make you hand over any others which you had and he would “capture” them, as he put it, and devour the lot himself.  If it happened to be your last or only sweet and he was therefore unable to capture the rest, the rotter would give you a “taste” of his “sweetie” (the bloody strap again!) instead.  One day we had a brainwave. Clinton “Clint” Hutchins, the genius of the class, produced a wrapped bar of chocolate laxative called “Brooklax.”  The rest of us had never heard of the stuff before, probably because it was an American product, and surely Punchie had never heard of it either.  Anyway, Clint assured us that one square of the bar was enough to “give an elephant the runs” and the bar had about six or eight pieces in it.  Clint broke one piece away to make it look as though it was eaten and then instructed Nellu to keep the rest in his desk and make out that he was chewing something.  Like a fish, Punchie fell for the trick and took the bait hook, line and sinker.  He asked what Nellu was eating, captured the rest of the bar, and consumed it within the course of the 45-minute lesson.   That evening, Punchie took us for hockey practice on the lower playing field, removed his habit which was like a long overall that hung down to the shins and, with his white trousers tucked into his socks, proceeded to play hockey with us.  I have to admit that he was quite an adroit player, but at some time during the evening he must have tried to fart or else over-exerted himself and felt the moist crap in his pants.  A small brown stain appeared on his white trouser seat.  Later in the game the stain grew larger, wetter and obviously more and more uncomfortable.  Punchie called off the rest of the game, an unheard of decision, and told us that we were to get back to the school “as soon as possible, boys.”  But we stooged around on the way back to the school and he had to follow on behind to try to prevent us from getting behind him and seeing the ever growing stained mess on the seat of his trousers.  After much dawdling about and finding any excuse to get behind him and view the “damage,” we finally we got back to the school while he rushed off, no doubt to have a big liquid crap.  We had tamed his greed and I think he suspected what had happened, but he never said anything to us.  The other thing he never again did was to capture and eat our sweets!”
The San Diego Evening Tribune concludes: “It has all the elements of an historical novel — adventures, human relationships, tragedy, with a pleasant mixture of humorous anecdotes. The use of first-person narrative, in this case, is very effective, since it traces the life of a young lad growing up in India. The writing is polished and the use of anecdotes is a way of propelling the narrative.  The experiences encountered by the family are heart-warming and interesting to a person who spent his life in a rather mundane Ohio city and later in California.”  Indian Tales is available at a nominal price that defrays the cost of printing and mailing.  £10 includes worldwide shipping.  Write to Pat at 1 Oakhill Grove, Surbiton, Surrey KT6 6DS, UK.  E-mail
 
• 2000 Sep 17.  Brian Jansen (1958) died this morning in UK, at 59.  Just 3 months ago Brian was at a reunion of 33 lads and wives, organized by Bob Amore (1957) in honour of Br RDBarrett's visit to the area.

 
• 2000 Aug 15.  Those of you on the e-mail Directory have probably received a solicitation from Batchmates recently.  My apologies to those who took exception to this, but it's the down side of having an e-mail address visible to the world.  The solicitation was sent without my permission, by an alumnus who is a director of the company that hosts Batchmates.  A trivial incident, but it raises questions of privacy and commercial opportunity that we need to face sooner or later:
• Is it appropriate for alumni to contact fellow alumni for commercial purposes?  In principle, YES.
• Is it appropriate to mine the Directory to compile a mailing list for mass unsolicited contact?  Clearly, NO.
• Now combine the above ... is it appropriate for an alumnus to use the Directory to send unsolicited commercially motivated mail?  And should this site promote commercial ventures or even individuals' resumes?  It's possible to argue in favour, but it sends us down a slippery slope of endorsement, promotion, paid advertising and other nightmares, that would compromise the character of this site, and that I'm not willing to manage.  If anyone wishes to develop a branch site that focuses on any of the above, feel free to do so and I'll be happy to point to it.
• What are the understandings on which you offer your e-mail address and we publish it?  I've taken a first crack at a privacy policy, but it's important to realize that it has no teeth.
• What are the responsibilities of this site when we link to other sites that use cookies, send spam (Batchmates does both) and employ other questionable techniques?  One extreme option is not to link to them.  Instead I've stepped up the explanation of cookies on the Links page, and clearly marked sites that use them.

• 2000 May 21.  The UAE boys are organizing a get-together around Br P C Christopher's visit to the area on June 17.  Associated with this is a plan to raise Rs. 30,000 towards sponsoring a needy child at SMS — currently the school subsidizes a few of these.  Contact Neil Mendonca for details.

 
• 2000 Apr 09.  Warren Edwardes (1968) has written a book on “Key Financial Instruments,” published by Financial Times Prentice Hall.

 
• 2000 Mar 21.  Victor Menezes (1964) has been appointed CEO of Citibank — the press release, courtesy of Frank John Dias (1969).  An inspiration to us all.

 
• 2000 Jan 30.  Help!  Nick Balmer just wrote in from UK.  His Great Great Grandfather was in Abu during the 1800s, and left behind a water painting of an institution of some sort: “Civils Station at Mount Abu.”  Not a very clear picture, and doesn't look like SMS.  Palace Hotel?  Alwar Palace?  Survey of India?  Any ideas?  Here's the photograph and accompanying text.

 
• 2000 Jan 21.  For the benefit of Abuites still struggling through the ICSE, we've just received word of an ICSE math web site launched by Suresh Lala, an IIT-Bombay graduate (ca 1975).  It offers a number of practice problems, organized under various topics from circles to trigonometrical ratios.  It is free, and registration is encouraged but optional.  It costs money to have a dedicated .com address, and the host has to recoup his costs somehow, either by the harmless act of hosting some advertising (which he does), or more intrusive measures such as selling his list of registrants, or spamming them periodically.  Suresh assures me that the latter two options are not on the cards.  Anyhow the best advice in such cases is to enjoy the ads, and by all means click on them — that generates revenue for the host — but to be discreet about how much detail you provide in the course of registration.

While on the subject of great Indian web sites, check out Dak India.  If you live outside India, you can send a personal message to anyone in India by an ingenious combination of e-mail and snail-mail.  These good volunteers will receive your note by e-mail, print it, put a stamp on it and mail it for you.  Free.  Seems kosher and straightforward, with plainly stated rules and caveats.  News of this came from the alumni at St John's, Chandigarh.

The Bombay picnic (see below) was called off for lack of interest ... too close to Christmas.

1999

• 1999 Dec 10.  The Bombay lads are having a picnic.  Place: Nhava Training Ship Rahaman Campus.  Date:  Sunday, December 19.  Starting Point:  Ferry Wharf  — "Bhau che Dhaka".  Launch will leave at 08:00 hours. Launch will reach Nhava at about 09:30 hours. Transport will meet us at Nhava jetty and take us to the Campus. Breakfast. Visit to Maritime Museum and other interesting spots on the Campus. Lunch. Some more loafing (if you have not eaten or drunk too much). Tea. 16:00  Departure from Nhava. 17:30 Arrival at Ferry Wharf. Maximum number of souls on the launch must not exceed 100 (one hundred) only. Contribution for the picnic: Members of St Mary's Mount Abu Alumni Association, their wives and children - Rs.100/- per head. Alumni of SMHS, Mount Abu (who have not yet become members of SMASHAL) their wives & children Rs.125/- per head. Non-Alumni (guests), their wives and children  -  provided we do not exceed 100  -  Rs.150/- per head. Confirm immediately and hand in your contribution to Bryan D'Sylva, Treasurer  at Bandra (6433496) or Suresh Takalkar, Asst Treasurer  at Fort, Bombay (2613105)
• 1999 Nov 11.   Alumni in the United Arab Emirates are organising their first ever get together, at the Dubai Creek Park on 26 Nov 1999.  Look for details in the UAE newspapers.  The effort is spearheaded by Neil Mendonca (1986).  Details from Stephen (Bud) D'Costa
• 1999 Oct 15.  “Under the Old School Topee” is a little paperback about life in hill schools established in India under the British Raj.  It's written by Hazel Craig, who attended Mount Hermon in Darjeeling in the 1940s.  She traces the history of why the Brits needed their own schools, how they were run, and the experiences of students.  A bit of British history (for those who weren't paying attention in school) and nostalgia.  SMS doesn't get a lot of press — the principal Abu attraction is the Lawrence School, which later became the Central Police Training College (CPTC) and National Police Academy (NPA).  But there is a quote or two from our own Patrick O'Meara (1946), about the “dreaded strap” and pranks at the staff's expense.  The book is about £10 + p&h, available by writing to Mrs H.M.Craig, 53 Hill Rise, Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire WD3 2NY, UK.
• 1999 Jul 23.  From Bob Amore comes sad news that Rajendra “Titch” Patel (1957) died in UK 3 weeks ago.  Earlier this year Bob had reported on a mini-reunion: “Just returned from a weekend in Cardigan, Wales where I met 2 old classmates, Raj Patel and Sikander Khan.  Great nostalgia and no world war with the meeting of a Hindu, a Muslim and a Catholic!”  Raj couldn't make a subsequent get-together because he'd suffered a heart attack the previous day.
• 1999 Jun 10.  The following came by e-mail some months ago.  There was a reference in the first line to a particular religious group.  That has been deleted; the only important thing is that it was not Catholic.

A ten-year-old [not Catholic] boy was failing math.  His parents tried everything from tutors to hypnosis; but to no avail.  Finally, at the insistence of a family friend, they decided to enroll their son in a private Catholic school.
After the first day, the boy’s parents were surprised when he walked in after school with a stern, focused and very determined expression on his face.  He went straight past them, right to his room and quietly closed the door.  For nearly two hours he toiled away in his room with math books strewn about his desk and the surrounding floor. He emerged long enough to eat, and after quickly cleaning his plate, went straight back to his room, closed the door and worked feverishly at his studies until bedtime.  This pattern of behaviour continued until it was time for the first quarter’s report card.  The boy walked in with it unopened, laid it on the dinner table and went straight to his room.  Cautiously, his mother opened it and, to her amazement, she saw a large red ‘A’ under the subject of Math.  Overjoyed, she and her husband rushed into their son’s room, thrilled at his remarkable progress.
“Was it the nuns that did it?” the father asked. The boy shook his head and said “No.”
“Was it the one-to-one tutoring?  The peer-mentoring?”   “No.”
“The textbooks?  The teachers?  The curriculum?”
“No”, said the son.  “On that first day, when I walked in the front door and saw that guy nailed to the plus sign, I knew they were serious!
• 1999 Jun 01.  Jason Menezes (1985) reports on the weekend reunion in Toronto: “Our camping trip was a great success. We had 11 Abuites in total including Patrick Louis from the class of 1959 who visited us Sunday afternoon with his wife Ida.  Patrick showed us some interesting pictures of Abu including an Abu Oriole from 1955.  The highlight was the soccer match between 5 of us from the Class of 85 vs. the rest.  I guess the score of 7-2 in our favour speaks for itself.  I hope to get more Abuites for the next trip.”
• 1999 Apr 30.  Atish Sanyal (1972) reports that Br J B Judge (principal, 1969-72) is back on the staff at Abu.
• 1999 Apr 30.  Goethal's, the CB school in Kurseong, has a web site hosted by Clem Lee (who graduated from there about 1957), and we've been exchanging web content, e.g. their 1950s photo of Br Foran.  Maybe this liaison could lead to an inter-school alumni soccer match in Toronto some day.  On a related note, Aubrey Ballantine hosts the Victoria and Dow Hill Schools Alumni web page, and would like to invite SMS alumni to the Year 2000 Grand Millennium Reunion of Hill Schools in India and Pakistan, to be held in London next year.  VADHA includes boys and girls schools, so this could be fun.  Where: The Clay Oven Banqueting Suites, 197 Ealing Road, Wembley, Middlesex.  When: Wednesday, 15 March 2000 from 12 noon to 7 p.m.  All the details at Hill Schools Reunion Notice
• 1999 Mar 17.  Happy St. Pat's Day.  Apologies for the delay in posting this ... Warren Edwardes (1968) has set us up with a forum of our own, on the Delphi web site.  This is the more appropriate place for many messages that have circulated recently as mass e-mails.  Many thanks to Warren, and I recommend this to you, but a word of caution for the privacy-conscious: Delphi gathers a bunch of personal information and sets cookies, so you won't make much progress if your browser options are set to reject them.  Delphi goes to great pains to assure visitors in the most rational terms that cookies are ok, but I like Scott McNealy's (Sun Microsystems CEO) recent bluntness on the matter:  “You have no privacy left.  Get over it.”  Anyway, here are the pointers to the forum:
• Message Board
• Chat Room
• "Front-Door" Web Page
• 1999 Mar 16.  The Canadian alumni are at it again.  This from Jason Menezes: “I am organizing a camping trip in the Toronto area for all ex-Abuites & spouses, friends etc. during the May 29-31 weekend (long weekend in the States).  Our list stands at around 15 people so far.  This is the third year we've been doing this — so you can say it has become an annual event. It's a great way to let out some steam and share old Abu Memories.”

• 1998 Dec 29.  Br Anish John is the new Principal of SMS, effective December 15.  Thanks to the outgoing Principal, Br Noel D'Sa, for his support and cooperation, particularly in helping us compile the database of alumni.  We look forward to more of the same with Br Anish.
• Class of '62 in the News:

A man stumbles up to the only other patron in the bar and asks if he could buy him a drink.  “Why of course,” comes the reply.
The first man then asks, “Where are you from?”
“I'm from Ireland,” replies the second man.
The first man responds, “You don't say. I'm from Ireland too!  Let's have another round to Ireland.”
“Of course,” replies the second man, and they both pour back their drinks.
Curious, the first man then asks, “Where in Ireland are you from?”
“Dublin,” comes the reply.
“I can't believe it,” says the first man. “I'm from Dublin too!  Let's have another drink to Dublin!” The men both continue drinking.
Curiosity strikes again and the first man asks, “What school did you go to?”
“St. Mary's,” replied the second man. “I graduated in '62.”
“This is unbelievable,” the first man says. “I went to St. Mary's and I graduated in '62, too!”
About that time, in comes one of the regulars and sits down at the bar. “What's been going on?” he asks the bartender.
“Nothing much,” replies the bartender. “The O'Mally twins are drunk again.”
[E-mail jokes/anecdotes don't usually make it on to this site.  This exception is courtesy of Gavin Jeddo.]
• 1998 Dec 29.  Br Anish John is the new Principal of SMS, effective December 15.  Thanks to the outgoing Principal, Br Noel D'Sa, for his support and cooperation, particularly in helping us compile the database of alumni.  We look forward to more of the same with Br Anish.
• 1998 Dec 12.  Another blast from the distant past.  I just heard from Susannah Green: “My grandfather was Chaplain of your school 1927-1928 — Reverend HIK Jones.  My mother has recently (November 98) visited Mount Abu and was very pleased to see the school, St. Saviours Church and even my grandfather's old bungalow still in tact.”  St. Saviour's Church is the one in town, near Mount Hotel; and the chaplain's bungalow is probably the one we describe in the map as “house with peach garden.”
• 1998 Oct 04.  The SMS alumni reunion in Bombay is a “huge success.”  Aloysius D'Souza reports:

“Fr Henry D'Cruz (1952) celebrated Mass with special readings and a pretty inspiring homily.  Franky Dias (1955) was MC and did a pretty good job including obtaining Papal Blessing of the SMHS Alumni Association dated April 1998 — pretty far sighted planning on his part.
   “Almost all the years were represented upto 1998  —  with guys who came down from Madras, Jodhpur, Baroda and Pune in addition to those from Bombay and its extended suburbs. Plus the guys from U K, Canada & USA.  Hardly any dancing since the guys were so busy chatting and catching up with news about their various classmates.  When we met some of the younger alumni at SMHS Mt Abu, they had expressed the fear that this would be an old men's show — they were the guys who are now insisting that we organise such functions regularly at least once a year.  Have got a number of them to volunteer to come on to the committee and will be responsible for taking this onwards.
   “Bro Adrian (1966) came over as also Bro Noel (1979) and Bro Judge from Abu.  Bro Keane from Vassai and Bro Ralph D'Mello, from Salvation I think,  and Bro Raj Noronha (1976) from Asansol.  Total number of alumni was 100 plus wives and children.
   “We had catered for 160, and we must just have touched this figure.
   “The new committee are
            Siddish Sriganesh (1996); Sunil D'Abreo (1981); Nitin Serro (1993); Steve (Bud) D'Costa (Dubai) (1990);
            Bryan D'Sylva (1954); Francis Dias (1955); Clovis Moraes (1954); Cedric Moraes (1956);
            Anil Lobo (1976); Dereyk Desouza (1957); Aloysius D'Souza (1951)
   “We raffled off all the gifts we received and  collected Rs.10,000/- which will be sent as a demand draft to SMHS
Swimming Pool Project Fund.  Will be meeting on Wednesday to settle accounts.”
• 1998 Aug 25.  We have a new record for the title of Earliest Known Alumnus, displacing Horace Brown (1909).  Emily Gardiner (nee Remington) attended MARS from 1887 to 1895.  Yes, MARS was co-ed, they didn't have to climb the hill to look into girls' dorms.  I just heard from Emily's son, David.  He's 85 years old and lives in California.
• 1998 Aug 20.  The Canadian alumni invite you to Reunion 2000 in the Great White North.  Keith Fernandes (1958) proposes a reunion in Vancouver, followed by a retreat to Whistler, cruise to Alaska, and drive to Jasper, Banff and Calgary.  If those placenames aren't familiar to you, we'll have to write them up in the World's Top Ten Places to Visit.  Whistler is a top class hill resort, and the Banff-Jasper road is breathtaking — you can shake hands with a glacier.  This is serious entertainment, folks, the trip of a lifetime.  Contact Keith for more.
• 1998 Aug 20.  Reunion 1998, October 4 at Catholic Gym, Bombay.  Dinner-dance, damages Rs. 500 per couple.  A handful of alumni are travelling from NAmerica and Europe for the occasion; some will be in Abu for Parents Week too.  Contact Aloysius D'Souza for more details on the reunion.
• 1998 Aug 20.  An Association of SMS Alumni has been registered in Bombay as a non-profit trust.  Its mission and other matters will be discussed at the reunion October 4.  A lifetime membership fee of Rs.1000 (USD 25) is proposed (the notion of membership is still a matter of debate; call it an association support fee or contribution if you prefer).  Whether Bombay represents one of several local fraternities, or the Association of SMS Alumni, is still not clear.  More discussion expected at the October reunion.  Contact Aloysius D'Souza.
• 1998 Feb 25.  Br A G Bennett celebrates 70 years as a Christian Brother.  He is at the CBs' new retirement home:
Regina Mundi High School
Chicalim 403711, Goa.
Phone +91.8345.12392 or +91.8345.10589

• Mr and Mrs Alfred Edwin died in a car accident at Mehsana on August 4.  The Edwins were class teachers in junior and middle school during the late '60s and '70s.  Later they ran St Michael's School, located in Jodhpur Palace near Toad Rock.  Their son Ajoy graduated in 1988.  Thanks to Zulfiqar Momin (1988) for relaying the news from Walter Aubert (1967), who is currently on staff at SMS.

• Charlie Thurlow (1955) died on July 5.  He worked for the Customs.  More from Aloysius D'Souza (1951), who supplied this anecdote:

“I once spotted him in a dirty outfit with a towel wrapped around his head (pukkah “mowali” type) and when I called out to him he put his fingers to his lips and told me to move on — he must have been waiting to catch a smuggler.”

• Br R B Vieyra celebrated his Diamond Jubilee on April 17.  Extract from Br Noel's newletter:

“60 years spent as a Christian Brother is quite an achievement.  He has held many a high post in our province, including the principalship of St Edmund's College, as well as being on our Provincial council for a number of years.  Much that we have today is due to the great leadership of people like him in the bygone years.  Not many people know that he is the first Abuite to join the Christian Brothers.  We were glad therefore that his Jubilee was celebrated here.  The day was celebrated, true to his style, in a quiet manner, with a special mass and lunch.  No tamasha!”

• Christian Brothers around the world celebrate the beatification of Br Edmund Ignatius Rice, founder of the CFC* (we all remember him at least for the annual Founder's Day holiday, July 31). Beatification is a preliminary step towards canonization.

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

*Congregratio Fraternum Christianorum: Congregation of Christian Brothers