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Hi Stephanians,
What I said last week seemed to have prompted some life into a few of you. Besides wishing my father-in-law a happy birthday, about a dozen of you have actually responded to tell me not to stop those reminders. It is no hassle as it takes me only a minute. I have rather a good email program (PopMail by Dave Johnson from the University of Minesota) on my ancient Mac PowerBook in which I keep all my mailing lists and update them as details come in. (Wish I could afford a PowerMac to bring some colour to this page!)
Many of you who wrote were wondering why you get the messages without a long list of names. I learnt this trick of putting only a couple of names - usually headed by our oldest web-surfing Stephanian from Canada, Samuel O Alexander, while the rest of you go into the Blind Carbon Copy space. So you do not get a message with hundreds of names to scroll through. In my Findians Briefings mailing list there are a few hundred on my mailing list. It does take a while for the post to actually be sent as I still use only a 2400 bps modem, but as the Mac has always been a multitasking machine, I am usually busy doing something else, or busy web-surfing, while the mail is being sent out.
Well Sree in New York thanked me for all the nice things I wrote about him. My contact paid off as he was able to put me in touch with a nephew of mine in New York, son of a Stephanian. I also got rid of the extra "A" in SAJA - the error had emanated from The WEEK. Think our New York crowd will be enjoying their get-together meal as I am writing this.
Holi Dunking
Has that absolutely filthy habit of dunking everybody in the slush just outside the dining room on Holi come to an end. After being flung in and sloshed with muck in my first year (and losing a lens from my spectacles), on subsequent years I was up early as a bird and went and sat in the muck so that I would not get thrown in. Of course several thought the whole affair was hilarious. I seem to remember that I was so early in my second year that it was probably me that turned on the tap to make sure that the slush would be formed. Since it was March it was still miserably cold to roll about in that murky water.
After the mud bath many of us would proceed to the residence of Principal Sircar who always had barfi ready for distribution and also some colour to throw at us students. He seemed to enjoy being part of the celebrations. I got the feeling that he would have been disappointed if we did not show up at his doorstep.
One year we even went on the VCs residence - It was C. D. Deshmukh, if my memory serves me right. He too was quite jovial and took part with good spirit although we did not get any barfi from him. Typical attitude of a Finance Minister!! Hey Montek, are you listening?.
Masala Dosais
Are the Masala Dosais (that was how it was spelt on the Kamala Nagar menu) at that dingy restaurant at Kamala Nagar and the Coffee House still up to character. Now-a-days Masala Dosas are available everywhere but in our time to get one in Delhi was like receiving manna from heaven.
My first visit to the Kamala Nagar restaurant was with a group of second and third year students who took a few of us newcomers there after dinner to be ragged. They did do some ragging but they were kind enough to buy us a cup of coffee after the ordeal.
I remember tall and lanky Kamlesh Sharma (now an Ambassador somewhere, I guess), stylishly attired in his traditional robes Chinmoy Banerjee (who tried to convnce me that smoking tea leaves was the thing to do), and Lalit Mohan (probably busy editing a newspaper somewhere in Punjab), then in their first year MA, met up with me on that first visit to Kamala Nagar - and so I even got to eat a Dosa, paid for by my mentors..
Ragging
Talking of ragging - does this still take place? I remember some of the excellent ragging that I was subjected to - it was sheer mental torture, but when I later ran through the episodes in my mind, I had actually enjoyed being ragged by a few seniors who a few moments later became good friends. Of course, there were the crude and physical raggers which was distasteful, but those who knew the art of ragging really had us freshmen quaking in our shoes - something like a good April Fools Day joke.
Maybe some of you could fill us with stories about your best and worst ragging experiences.
GOPIO
Hope you have registered as members of GOPIO - the web link was not working for a good part of the last two weeks, but I kept hammering away at Professor Thomas Abraham. He finally got a new web address and I can confirm the site is working although it is not yet possible to register as his FORM mailto is not yet functioning. I , however, sent email to register.
Holiday
I am off on holiday next week - enjoying the lake district in Eastern Finland right next to the Russian border - and considering my editorials in Findians Briefings of the last two weeks - I half suspect Yeltsin and Lebed to be waiting for me across the border with their Mafioso friends while the Finnish President Matti Ahtisaari makes every effort to push me over to the other side!!
Regards and take care,
Yours in a holiday mood,
Stephanian Jacob Matthan
Oulu, Finland Return to the Top
Hi Stephanians,
This last fortnight, other than casting your votes in droves for which book I should serialise for the web (for technical reasons the poll is continuing for one more fortnight - so you can still cast your vote), all of you, except Indrajit Banerjee have been very quiet. Indrajit sent me a message about Chinmoy Banerjee (who I had mentioned in my last issue - Smoking Tea Leaves) along with the email address of Chinmoy in Canada. Thanks Indrajit.
Rhodes Scholar Ranjit Bhatia
I thought this week I would share thoughts about the return of Ranjit Bhatia to college in 1962-1963. Ranjit had been to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar and was chosen to represent India at the Olympics in a long distance event - I am not sure which distance (was it the 800 metres or the mile?). Hence his return to college as a lecturer was much awaited by all of us.
Principal Sircar had been our mathematics teacher till then, and although he was a great guy, he was not much good at teaching mathematics to an idiot like me. He would come into a packed class room, mumble along for an entire hour, scribbling on the board, and that was the end of the lecture. When Ranjit turned up, he took over this role as our maths teacher. He was infinitely better at it than good old Sircar. Within a couple of weeks I started to get a hang of the subjects, as vectors, matricies and analytical geometry and proceeded to more exotic and interesting subjects, as astronomy.
Ranjit was also a great socialiser with us students. He mingled with all of us, who, in turn, looked up in awe at this wiry superstar amongst us. I do not remember of which block he was the tutor. He frequently joined us for the after dinner coffee. Although he did not play "thumbing the matchbox" he certainly appreciated the mathematical probablity of the game.
Wonder where Ranjit has got to by now?
The Cafe
Talking of the cafe, I wonder if the quality of the mince cutlets and scrambled eggs (with tamatar) has been maintained. There was quite a quality difference in each speciality depending on whether it was Ganga, Shelly or Dolly who served up the choice, so much so that our choice was usually dependant on who was waiting on us. There was another youngster who started his career in the cafe at that time - was he called Sebastian? I personally loved the scrambled eggs from Ganga, the mince cutlets from Shelly and the vegetable cutlets from Dolly. The coffee was uniformly good from all four. I did not care too much for the tea (although today I am only a tea drinker - I have not been put off by the dire warnings of this habit which have been scribed by P. G. Wodehouse). The iced sweet lassi from Sebastian was out of this world. Not much difference in the fresh lime, however!
By the way, was the name of the guy who sold the Barfi at the cafe door Sukharamji? And till when was Deep Singh the barber who gave us those atrocious haircuts but great head and body masages?
More in a fortnight,
Regards
Stephanian Jacob Matthan - 1960-1963
Oulu, Finland
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Hi Stephanians,
I have restructured the page slightly so that it loads quicker on your browser. I will limit the kilobyte size of this page by keeping it to a maximum of six issues. I will move the old issues to archive files, each of ehich will contain six issues.
I have also included a link to the World Alumni Registry Stephanian Page. You can click there and register your Stephanian connections.
I have also linked other web pages and lists maintained by Stephanians so that you can visit them if you desire. If any of you have a web page which has something to say to Stephanians, do let me know so that I can add your link at this site.
This week has been rather uneventful as far as email from all of you out there. Maybe all of you that took the trouble and filled out the poll form on my main page (thanks) were so exhausted that you took a break from sending any other mail!
Picture of Montek Singh Alhuwalia
The latest issue of THE WEEK has a nice picture of Finance Secretary, Stephanian (1960-1965) Montek Singh Alhuwalia (also a Rhodes Scholar), standing at the side of the present Finance Minister, Mr. P. Chidambaram, just before the presentation of the recent budget.
Montek has changed his turban style to the more conformist type. He used to have a unique and fascinating way of tying his turban when he was in college. It was nice to note, that like me, Montek has filled out with age, although unlike me, he has not become grossly overweight with a pot-belly.
Stephanian Authors
I am still looking for information about Stephanians who are authors, the intention being to compile a web page as part of this site of these names along with details of the books published by them. I have a few additions to my list.
Stephanian Amitav Ghosh teaches at Columbia University, New York. He has written three novels, "The Circle of Reason", "The Shadow Lines" and "The Calcutta Chromosome", plus one non-fiction called "In An Antique Land".
Stephanian Upamanyu Chatterjee published the book "English August: An Indian Story" which has been made into a film. His latest novel is "The Last Burden".
Stephanaian Sashi Tharoor has written "The Great Indian", "Show Business" and "The Five Dollar Smile", which is a collection of short stories.
If any of you out there can give me details about these writers, any other books that they may have published, as well info about any other Stephanians that you know who have published books and can be considered to be authors, I would be most obliged.
My intention is also to have reviews of the books authored by Stephanians available on the web page. If any of you can send me reviews of the books that you have read by Stephannian authors, they would be most welcome.
In the context of authors, could someone out there confirm or deny whether economist author Ravi Batra at the Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas is a Stephanian or not. I had a Ravi Batra (from Assansol) as a classmate in college. Before we parted he gave me snap, on the back of which he had written:
To Jacob with fond regards
sd: Ravi Batra
Born: 1943
Died: _____
I saw a snap of the author Ravi Batra in the TIME magazine a few years ago, just after his book "The Great Depression" had hit the headlines. These two Ravi Batras either are twins as they share all the same features, a very stocky face structure and bushy eyebrows or, by some quirk of fate, are look-alikes with the same name!!. I remain puzzled so please put me out of my agony!
I guess, that is all my ramblings for this week.
Editor
Jacob Matthan Return to the Top
Hi Stephanians,
Were you ever struck by a heavy dose of patriotism when you were in college. I recall being overwhelmed by it in 1962 - 1963 when the Chinese invaded India. The father of my neigbour in Mukarji Block, a brigadier in the Indian Army was captured by the Chinese and was taken a prisoner of war. We heard endless tales about the heroic efforts of our jawans and our officers and how the Chinese kept marching onwards, shoulder to shoulder, and how all the efforts of our forces to mow them down were totally useless.
In Delhi there was an air of panic as we felt that if they continued their advance at the pace we could determine from the maps which we had strung up in the block, they would be entering the college gates a few days hence.
Suddenly the Chinese stopped their advance and declared a cessation of hostilities. There were cries of "fight" from all around, bold utterances that India would not give up one inch of land, etc. etc. All hot air as we were in no position to do anything.
Ministers and Army Generals were being castigated in public. I do not know whether the expresso coffee machine scandal came up at that time - the accusation being that Krishna Menon had converted our defence factories to produce coffee machines rather than weaponry.
It was indeed a trying time. Panditji happened to visit college one evening - I am not sure what was the occasion, but he looked flushed, red and drawn, and a beaten man. He appeared to me as someone who had been badly betrayed by all around him - the Chinese, not to say the least. I had seen him a short while earlier when Queen Elizabeth had visited India and he had then looked radiant despite his age.
The following Republic Day we were still smarting from the defeat which we had been inflicted, when it came about that the NCC had organsed that all the Stephanians who wanted could take part in the Republic Day Parade and march down from Rashtrapathi Bhavan to India Gate.
My bosom pal, Ajay Verma was in the NCC naval wing and brought me the news. Almost all of us in Mukarji Block, as a solidarity to our soldiers and army officers volunteered to take part in the march.
We assembled very early in the morning in front of the JCR and waited, and waited, and waited, till finally some NCC trucks came and picked us up and deposited us somewhere behind the Rashtrapathi Bhavan.
After another interminable wait we were told to march, and we non-NCC group sauntered down the whole way to India Gate with our few NCC friends trying to keep some semblance of order by marching in step.
Desperately tired at the end of the road, we again had to wait for several hours before being picked up by the trucks and then safely transported back to the college - a feeling of accomplishment passing as a warm glow through all of us.
Ajay did join the army, he fought in the Pakistan war and recalled to me how one evening, while sitting in the bunker, decided to go out for a smoke. He had hardly gone a few steps out of the bunker when a shell landed dead centre on it and destroyed the entire construction. Ajay was the sole survior of that incident and made up his mind to quit as soon as his commission was over.
He married a Danish girl, set up a small Indian boutique in Sweden at Malmo, just across from Copenhagen and had a couple of lovely children, but he still recalled that fateful day as a nightmare when a cigarette save his life. Unfortunately, he has now moved and I have lost touch with him. If anyone knows where he is, please do let me know.
Editor
Jacob Matthan
P.S. Seems our New York group is very active and enjoying their reunions. Do keep us all in mind when you are having a great time. I am sure that given the opportunity, we all would love to join with you. Are any other groups out there holding similar activities. Do let us know as we love to hear of your reunion dos.
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Hi Stephanians,
I was one of those last batches from school that did not have to take Hindi for my school final examination. I did English and French, having spent a few years toying with Latin, and having given up Marathi and Hindi as a bad joke.
When I joined Stephen's, Mr. Arya was quick to catch hold of me to impress on me that I had to pass the Compulsory Hindi examination if I wanted to get my final degree. I did not take him very seriously when I heard I could try to get through twice a year in all my three years. I was supremely confident that I would get those 35% sometime during that long stint in the college.
I did make an effort by attending Mr. Arya's lectures a couple of times, but besides getting through the alphabet, I do not think I got much further, despite all the help given to me by my friends.
I faithfully sat the exam each year, and faithfully failed it. Of course, during the last year I just did not have much time, as Physics, Chemistry and Maths were giving me enough trouble.
When I finished my final exam in May 1963 I called on Principal Sircar. It was then it dawned on me that even if I got through my degree I was unlikely to be awarded the degree till I passed my Hindi test, and if my plans to go to England to specialise in Plastics was to materialise, I just had a couple of months to learn a language and pass an exam I had flunked four times in the previous 3 years.
As soon as I reached Bombay I decided to solve my dilemma. I located a young Hindi teacher who was quite different from the usual mould. He promised to sit with me day and night, if necessary. His method was quite unique as he came to the classes with nothing but the Navbharat Times, knowing that I had read the Times of India early morning. With that background he got me to read the editorial, which was about the same as in the English edition, and in absolutely difficult Hindi.
At first it seemed gibberish, but having understood the English editorial a few hours earlier, within a couple of weeks I was quite enjoying reading the Hindi editorial, the references to the Dictionary gradually decreasing. Within 4 weeks I was managing the editorial on my own and even composing a couple of decent Hindi sentences.
I went to Delhi full of confidence in early September and when Mr. Arya met me he seemed confident that now, at least, I would get through. Sure enough, I passed with flying colours. I had already joined the University in England when the results came through and I felt more chuffed at having passed the Hindi exam than actually having passed my major subjects.
I think the trouble I had with Hindi was equivalent to a couple of my classmates who struggled with English - if I remember correctly they were from Modern School in Delhi, and although they could speak English as well as I could converse in Hindi, they were just as word blind as far as English was concerned as I was word blind to Hindi. Poor Rev. Jarvis used to go crazy trying to teach those guys just enough of English to pass the exam.
I wonder if these language exams are still part of the present system? Editor
Jacob Matthan
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Hi Stephanians,
It is with a great deal of pleasure that I put pen to paper, or rather hammer away at the computer keyboard this week. I bring you the story of a fellow Stephanian who has hit the big time. My joy at bringing you this news is not only because is he a fellow Stephanian, but also a very dear friend.
Rathikant Basu was in his second year of his BA (Economics) when I joined college in 1960. As another Bombay Cathedralite to join Stephens along with me was Sujit Bhattacharaya (son of the then Governor of the Reserve Bank P. C. Bhattacharaya), a Bengali, Sujit's circle of friends in college became my friends as did mine become his.
One of those who joined our flock was Rathikant, already a member of Mukarji Court and resident in one of the upper storey rooms of T-Block.
Rathikant was a widely travelled individual and added a great deal of spice to our lives. If I remember correctly, he had been living in Sudan for several years prior to joining college. Rathikant had a great sense of humour and his sharp wit used to have us rolling with laughter. Yet he had a very unsupposing attitude and a completely simpistic approach to all around him.
When I finished college in 1963 Rathikant was going on to his final yearof his MA and studying hard for his IAS entrance exam. He got into the IAS in 1964 and was part of the Gujarat Cadre of 1964.
In the mid-seventies when I was on a trip to Ahmedabad I accidently bumped into Rathikant. He was then the Muncipal Commissioner of the City. He had not lost his humouristic streak. He was a bundle of efficiency. I watched him go through a day's work with a keeness hardly seen in bureaucratic circles.
Rathikant's success at the helm of Doordarshan is well known. His last IAS stint has been as the Secretary of the Departement of Electronics where he has been busy ushering in the rapid change in the electronics sector in India. I am reasonably sure that the lowering of import duty on software was one of his moves as he has always been progressive in his approach to a problem. India's export boom of software has been only because of this opening of the inward flow of technology.
At the age of 54, Rathikant has now been hand-picked by world media moghul Rupert Murdoch to head the Hong Kong based Indian arm of Star TV, News Television India. Reports say that he has been offered an annual salary of $500000 plus a chauffer-driven Mercedes. Rathikant takes over from Gene Swinstead in October.
Rathikant has been given directives to Indianise the network's programming which presently is highly westernised. There could be no one better equipped for this job, as is well known from his activity under the former Information and Broadcasting Minister, K. P. Singh Deo. Rathikant is a highly focused individual as well as results oriented, so will undoubtedly deliver the goods.
As was succinctly put by THE WEEK in its September 15th issue, "Doordarshan reached its azimuth during Basu's term as Director-General."
Rathikant will liase with the Hong Kong based Director, Gene Davis, but network programming and commercial decisions will now be made in India.
I am sure all you Stephanians out there will join me in wishing Rathikant the very best in his new job. I hope that he will drive his arch competitor, his former paymaster, Doordarshan, to higher standards by bringing in top-notch competition in the Indian TV news spectrum.
End of Reminder Messages
I am afraid that I will need you to subscribe separately to be able to continue to receive these reminders as the whole process seems to have got out of hand with my postings touching about 3000 every fortnight and the number of wrong addresses resulting in returns amounting to about 10% every time. My mailbox is just crammed with returned messages so it takes me a while to get to my normal mail. Most of the returns are people who have registered and then not informed me about change of address, etc.
Our main site has expanded at such a remarkable pace that I am getting fully tied down with getting these three webletters up every fortnight and also getting the mailing list out that it has really not left me much time for the investigative journalism for which my web pages were originally created.
Hence Stephaians who want to get a reminder from me should send a SUBSCRIBE message to our email address as otherwise from the next issue you will not get any reminder.
More next week,
Regards
Your Editor
Or as Rathikant would say "Arre Jacob"..
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