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Here are a few letters from regular
readers of Kooler Talk (Web Version). Makes life a little difficult!!
Date: Mon, 23 Sep 96 14:10:00 PDT
From: Stephanian Indrajit Banerjee
Subject: Re: Stephanian Rathikant hits the Headlines (SUBSCRIBE)
Hi Jacob:
SUBSCRIBE !!!!!!!
I also had to endure Hindi exam (the compulsory one), taught by Dr. Arya.
I was in Delhi in Dec. 1990 and met Dr. Arya. Had tea with him. He was great. Last Oct, I was again in StephenÍs, he had retired a nd moved to Roorkee.
I passed my compulsory Hindi, but in a weird way - Dr Arya had taught us the "wrong" book. It turns out that different books were to be taught according the year's syllabus. But because of people like you (and me) the exam would have questions from different books (to cover student's from different years) and only the relevant ones (depending on year of admission) needed to be answered. However, Dr. Arya, being in the exam committee, taught us the book by Premchand (not for 1971 admission students), knowing full well that the examiner would not check which year we were admitted, or which book we were supposed to be taught.
I almost walked out of the exam not answering anything (seeing I was taught the wrong book). Then something happened and I scribbled something. Dr. Arya said that if I had written some minimum number of pages, I would pass. I did!!!
Good to hear form you. Keep up the good job!!
Regards,
Indrajit
From: Stephanian "Monsieur
A."
Subject: Re: Stephanian Rathikant hits the Headlines
Date: Mon, 23 Sep 96 15:36:10 EDT
Jacob:
I never groan at getting your messages ... they brighten up my day even if you think you are trying to depress us:))
I am not groaning ... I am bugging you now.
Best wishes
Samuel
Date: Wed, 25 Sep
1996 09:32:29 -0700
From: "S. Raja Gopalan"
Organization: Columbia University
Subject: Stephanian on mailing list
PLEASE CHANGE MY ID TO:
SR211@COLUMBIA.EDU
FROM: 73123.2767@COMPUSERVE.COM
THANKS FOR A WONDERFUL MAGAZINE! ALL THE BEST!
SRIKANTH RAJAGOPALAN
Date: Fri, 4 Oct 96
16:08:26 CDT
From: "Sanjay Mundle"
Subject: Pl. add to KT list
Jacob,
I just got through reading the excellent "newsletters" you put together from your experiences at Stephens. I graduated back in 84, and appreciate all the background info. you have included in your writings. I would love to be included on your mailing list for Kooler Talk
(email: sanjay@netgate.compaq.com)
Looking forward to your next issue.
Regards,
Sanjay Mundle
BA 1984
Houston, Texas, USA
It is the several
letters like these that helped me continue writing this webletter.
We are having several problems as the Finnish Government is extremely
unhappy about our hard-hitting editorials and comments that are
contained on the main page. We have heard they have tried to
put pressure on some organisations to stop our web access. A
sort of censorship which would put the steps in Singapore seem
like heaven!
In anticipation we are negotiating with some Web Site providers in different parts of the world to host our web pages outside of Finland. Then all I need will be a regular shell account and I can upload the webletters without interference from Finnish Government authorities which are ridiculously sensitive to any form of political satire. They just do not seem to appreciate satire.
What seems to have irked them is that the last editorial on Scientific Fraud in Finnish universities where our rebuttal of the claim that there was a mechanism for detection and tackling of Scientific Fraud in Finland was in existence, got an airing on BBC World Service on Sunday 29th September. Since I was the first "whistleblower" in Finland, and they just glossed over my complaint about a colleague professor who was stealing the work of my students in our laboratory, this has raised a storm as the Professors Union, the Finnish Academy, the Finnish Ministry of Education and my own Union, the Finnish Union for Researchers failed to raise a finger to bring the person to book. Well that is life!
I wonder whether in Delhi University and in Stephens, Professors and Researchers carry out this form of Scientific Fraud, or is it that unlike universities in western countries, very little research work actually takes place in the college or university.
It does appear strange to me after all these years that I do not recall any of our college teachers actually being involved with any original research in Stephens - or is my memory failing me!!
Here is a letter from our New York
Stephanian Coordinator
Date: Sun, 6 Oct 1996 15:02:47
-0400 (EDT)
From: Sreenath Sreenivasan
Sender: ss221@columbia.edu
To: "stephanians (non-new york)":
Subject: SSC #3: our next event
dear stephanians:
a short, occasional newsletter to
tell you of our activities in NYC...
the october meeting scheduled for
oct 12, 1996 has been CANCELED. (our host-to-be is going to be
out of town that day)
instead, our next event, a reception,
is now scheduled for nov 8 at the bose pacia gallery in manhattan.
a big thank you to deepak talwar (bsc '85), gallery director,
for offering to host this event.
date: friday, nov 8, 1996 on display will be paintings by
sanjay bhattacharyya, a well-known young painter from delhi.
see you there... pass on the word...
if you know of any stephanians who aren't on our list, let us
know!
see you there...
cheers,
sree
FYI: anil wilson has taken a three-year
leave as principal of SSC to work at himachal univ, and horace
jacob is acting principal...
Regards and take care,
Stephanian Jacob Matthan
Oulu, Finland I received this letter last week:
Dear Stephanian,
I wish to inform you that a compilation
of College history entitled "Glimpses of St Stephen's College,
Delhi" is now available on the St Stephen's page on the
web or at the following address:
http://www.chem.brown.edu/brochure/people/mbz/group/html/sschis.html. If you any remarks/observations, please
email them to the undersigned at: vepaa@huron.ac.uk; and pass
on the info. to other Stephanians.
Regards,
ARVIND VEPA (vepaa@huron.ac.uk)
Here was Arvind's reply: Dear Mr Matthan,
Thank you for sending the Kooler
Talk addresses. Hats off to you Sir, for maintaining the page.
For Stephanians, the world will always remain a small place.
Regards,
ARVIND VEPA
Hi Jacob,
My name is Amit Wilson and I passed
out of SSC this year in May. In case you are wondering (though
I wonder why you might wonder) about how and why and what and
when.... I share my surname with Dr. Anil Wilson, Principal on
leave of/from SSC, its because he is my father.
Forgive me if you find my letter
a little(???) weird but I feel its in keeping with the kind of
KTs I have been exposed to.
My e-mail is adwilson@alpha2.iimb.ernet.in
Try and drop me a few lines. I would
love to hear from you. I was in Finland last year in June. I
had come to attend the World Youth Assembly held held at Aland
(the first "A" is supposed to have a little circle
on top of it). I had a good time there though it was a little
chilly considering it was the height of summer and the place
was awfully empty compared to the kind of crowds I am used to.
Anyway, I'm doing my MBA at the Indian
Institute of Management, Bangalore.
I believe that you send out copies
of KT. I would be grateful if you could send me one too.
Thanks a lot. Sorry for babbling
on.
Regards,
Amit Wilsom
Pity Amit did not know of our existence
when he visited Finland!
I will not keep you this week any
longer but suggest that you quickly hop over to the page maintained
by Arvind and really relish it.
I will have more next week and Arvind's
page will be a permanent link in the Contents list from the next
issue onwards.
I would welcome any comments on the
history (especially clarifications, etc.) as presented as you
recall the characters mentioned therein. Many are waiting to
hear from you through these issues of Kooler Talk (Web Version).
See you in a fortnight, take care
Jacob Stephanian 1960-1963 I was thumbing through some old issues
of THE WEEK and I came across an interesting aricle by Sejal
Shah called "Mountain magic" under the Art Section.
There was a picture of a bearded artist sitting on the floor
with his dog, with a background of what was obviously his paintings.
The face seemed extremely familiar - it was none other than Bulbul
Singh, Stephanian of the fifties/sixties.
Bulbul was a real character in college.
I got him to MC the first JCR evening and he was absolutely great
in that capacity. He was a naturally talented artiste and although
he seems to have had a very interesting post Stephanian era,
Kansas university graduate, an executive in Bombay with Hindustan
Lever and Lintas, this Quetta-born Stephanian had the call of
the hills when he threw all his high life away and retired to
a life in Kulu valley to become artist, poet, farmer and social
worker. He even runs a free dispensary for the people of his
village.
Bulbul has displayed his paintings
and read his poetry around the world. He seems to have have very
prominent friends as The WEEK has listed Koo Stark of Prince
Andrew fame amongst the recent guests at his Himalayan abode.
Bulbul was a boisterous Stephanian
and one certainly knew when he was around. It is indeed probably
that Stephanian character that led him to his life of peace and
serenity in the beautiful Kulu Valley where he can compose his
poems and create his artistic masterpieces on canvas.
Hope Bilbul has an internet connection
to see that we remember him and wish him well.
Talking of art, the New York Stephanians
seem to have had a get together to view the paintings of a Delhi
artist Sanjay Bhattacharyya. Sreenath informed those Stephanians
who he has access to be email that on Friday 8th November, the
New York Stephanians, the present head count being as many as
120, were having their get together at Stephanian Deepak Talwar's
Art Gallery. It is nice to see such an active group and this
should be a role model for other Stephanian groups around the
world. Those of us less fortunate are very happy to get to hear
of these events and hope others will keep me informed so as to
share the camaraderie with the readers of Kooler Talk (Web Version).
And finally this week, because so
many of you have requested a photograph to see what I look like
here in the Arctic, here is the picture of the original Finnish
Father Christmas taken in summer along with my better half of
the last 30 years. Sorry for the quality but unfortunately do
not have very good photograph reproduction equipment on hand.
Your Cathedralite friend
Jacob
I was web surfing when I came across
the mention in some Indian web newspaper that the Kerala Seafood
Exporters were intending to start a stir for something or the
other. When I looked down the srticle I noticed the name of one
Mr. A. J. Tharakan, who is the Convenor of the action Committee.
Bells jingled in my head as I put two and two together!!
This week I concentrate my topic
about a couple of Stephanian Christian Malayalees - you can't
get away from that crowd, can you!
Who is India's largest sea-food exporter?
He is none other than Stephanian
Abraham Tharakan (the same J. A Tharakan mentioned above), known
as Abe during his days at St. Stephens, who was in residence
along with me in the early sixties.
Abe was one of the few Christian
Malayalees at college and was an inseparable friend of Ajit Ninan.
(Other Christian Malayalees I can remember by name are Delhi
veteran journalist B. G. Verghese who married lady Stephanian
Jameela, my elder brother in Chennai Dr. Ranjit Matthan, Bangalore
top electronics consultant T. Joseph Joseph, athlete and Indian
Army Officer, now Kottayam based Publishing Manager of Manorama
Publications, Jose Vallikappan, guitarist Ranjit Jacob (see below),
Bombay Cathedralite, Stephanian, Cambridge and Stanford economist,
Dr. Peter Phiip, New Yorkian (?) artist, etc. Prakash Joseph,
John Thomas (sorry - no info), Kottayam planter and industrialist
George Verghese, Trivandrum planter Ajit Ninan, Chief Editor
of Malayala Manorama, Ko ttayam, Mammen Mathew, Kottayam and
Supreme court lawyer Joseph Vellapally, Managing Editor of The
WEEK in Kochi, Philip Mathew - and the Arctic jack-of-no-trade,
supposedly Plastics and Microelectronics expert, yours truly.)
Abe completed his economics degree
(along with present Indian Finance Secretary Montek Singh Alhuwalia)
in 1963 and joined the Indian Revenue Service. However, he did
not think much of being a bureaucrat and shifted as a management
executive and tea taster to Brooke Bond. After 10 years he shifted
to Kochi and started a small business called Amalgam Foods.
It took him about 2 long years to
get his product accepted on the international market. Today Amalgam
has a turnover of around US$65 million which is about 8% of the
marine exports from India.
Abe started the process of freeze-drying
and pre-cooking shrimps. He started the first cooked shrimp factory
in India. He then started several other sea-food related ventures
and now has factories all along both Indian coastlines.
Abe has set a target of crossing
a turnover of US$100 million by the end of the millenium and
to do this he has planned a cold-store chain across the country
and a large poultry farm complex. I think we wish him all the
best to achieve his target.
I do not know whether Abe is on the
web as yet, but as a high flyer I am sure that he will soon have
to be. It feels good to share in his success.
The story of Ranjit Jacob is also
remarkable. He was a classmate of my elder brother, Dr. Ranjit
Matthan (who left college in 1960 and did his doctorate on Rubber
Technology from London).
I think that it was in 1959 when
they all parted to go home for their vacations, that Ranjit Jacob
fell off the train on Jamuna Bridge and was very seriously injured.
He missed a year at college and returned the year I joined. Although
his speech was slig htly impaired he was back to all his old
tricks being a great singer and guitarist. He used to seranade
and entertain us in his room with all the popular melodies of
the fifties. Shy and retiring by nature I believe he is now settled
in Chennai.
Hope to give you more stories in
a fortnight,
Till then, take care,
Your Stephanian colleague
Jacob Matthan
I was pleasantly surpised to receive
this letter.
Dear St. Stephanians,
I am a research student at Cambridge
University, working on early twentieth century Indian History,
focussing on Uttar Pradesh. At the moment I really need to get
out to India. Unfortunately, my research visa has not yet arrived,
although I applied for it in June. I would really appreciate
any suggestions or help that anyone might be able to offer...
otherwise I'll be stuck in freezing Cambridge for the whole winter!
(Ed: Cannot think of anything more horrifying than that.
:-))
I enjoyed reading your page. I hope
someone can help,
William Gould
I am sure that one of our 242 readers
scattered worldwide - [yes, that is the fortnightly repeat hits
we have been getting to Kooler Talk (Web Version) page regularly
over the last three months] - can extend a hand to help out our
fellow reader in true Stephanian style. The thought of him freezing
in one of those digs in Cambridge certainly wants me wanting
to help William somehow!
However, recalling for a moment the
freezing winter mornings in college, running to have that early
morning bath once Kundan Singh had heated that coal-fired water
heater just outside my room and drawn the water, in a leaky metal
bucket, and then shivering and frezing after it as I returned
to my room wrapped in my towel, till I sat down in front of that
most ineffective two bar radiant heater glowing red on my room
floor, is not the very comforting thought that I want to share
with William. I hope things have changed for the better when
William goes out to Uttar Pradesh where, I think, the winters
can be quite cold and there is no central heating system to be
found anywhere.
In spite of this, sitting on the
green lawns in front of Mukarji East on a sunny January mid-morning
(cutting class, of course), and being bathed in the warm glow
of that Delhi winter sunshine was probably one of the most exhilarating
feelings of my time in college. There were then a few rose plants
bordering the lawn as the college gardeners tried their level
best to turn that barren area in front of Mukarji East and the
JCR into a garden.
The weeds from the open between this
and the then new science block, however, kept making their taskseemingly
impossible. No doubt, with the setting up of Mukarji West, this
must have improved.
The Delhi winter is in sharp contrast
to the dry burning heat of mid-May when I felt that I was sitting
in a tandoor! One summer I had to stay on in Delhi to do some
extra course and vowed never to be in that city again during
those summer months, a vow that I have been able to faithfully
keep over the last 33 years.
Coming back to William's problem,
personally I do not know of something called as a research visa.
Whenever I sent out a researcher to India, the Indian Embassy
in Helsinki (where we did have a Stephanian - First Secretary
S. Tripathi, probably 75 batch, an absolutely great and nice
guy who moved to Panamma!!) issued an ordinary tourist visa
valid for six months.
Education - What is it? This week, in my second editorial in Findians
Briefings, I tackle the question of Education where I ask the
question as to the number of handicapped persons, those who are
blind, deaf, dumb, or wheel-chair ridden, who are being used
as teachers in schools and colleges. Can any of you name any
handicapped person who has been in a teaching or administration
position in our alma mater. Just curious! (Don't all stand up
and shout that I have just described the average Stephanaian
through the ages!!!)
Yesterday, Annikki, my better half
for the last 30 years, made Masala Dosais for our son and daughter
- but not for me! My mouth was watering as I recalled those delicious
dosais I used to consume ever so often at the India Coffee House
on the campus.
(The reason why I was denied this
luxury of a dosai, despite my begging like a dog, was that she
had just enough in the dosai mix packet for the kids. She usually
makes the dosai mix up by grinding the rice and dhal in her heavy
duty antique coffee grinder - works great, but she was anxious
to get to a clearance sale in one of the local department stores,
where she and our daughter had agreed to meet to pull the hair
out of some other women.)
This meant it was just soup for me.
It is not as if we can pop around the corner and have a dosai
in this Arctic town. We do not have a single Indian restaurant
here, hence Wengers, India Coffee House and the Kamala Nagar
Coffee Centre seem like heavenly beacons to me. The only source
of good Indian food is my dear Finnish wife!!
I do not know about you, but that
is all the nostalgia I can take for this week.
See you in a fortnight, take care
Jacob, Stephanian 1960-1963 The time has come to say au revoir
to all of you wonderful web-surfing Stephanians and Cathedralites.
Many of you are probably too young
to know how Indira Gandhi effectively introduced censorship of
the critical news media during the mid seventies. Besides imprisoning
the political leaders and her sharpest media critics, her most
effective weapon was to restrict the quota of newsprint to the
critical press and also the amount of Government business directed
to the outspoken media - very effective ways of shutting them
up.
Here, in this western democracy called
Finland, the establishment has a very effective method in this
tightly run society. All your contracts vanish, making it impossible
to survive if you are in conflict with the establishment. Hence
Findians Oy had no option but to seek outside assistance to prop
it up while they tried to restructure their actvities to be able
to withstand the tirade. They attempted to raise sufficient funds
to save their three popular webletters. This was not successful.
They reached only part of the initially targeted amount.
Hence, the new owners of Findians
Oy (Annikki, my better half, and I had to sell out our interests
in the company for technical reasons) have informed me that they
are returning all the cheques, money orders and cash received
from many of you wonderful people out there. This will be done
over the next two weeks so as to avoid any loss during the present
Christmas postal rush. They will be returning the documents registered
post acknowledgement due. If you do not receive the contribution,
you so generously made, by the 7th of January 1997, please send
me a message.
I have succeeded in getting myself
a private email address outside the clutches of the authorities
and outside of Finland, and you may like to note this email address:
matthan@usa.net
I am glad that KOOLER TALK (WEB
VERSION) and SEVENTH HEAVEN lasted 18 issues. I can
honestly say I had a lot of fun putting up these pages every
fortnight. During these last 9 months I made many wonderful friends
from all around the world from different school and college generations,
older and considerably younger to me.
Surprisingly, I did not get a single
bad vibe during that entire time, which, as a professional editor,
was quite a feat - no, not even a single staff member complained
about my abraisive style and content!
I am taking the optimistic view that
the alma mater webletters are temporarily suspended till I can
raise enough funds to put them up without any assistance from
Findians Oy. It may mean setting up my own web server equipment,
my own computer with sufficient storage space, etc. which, unfortunately
is rather an expensive process and outside of my present financial
(and probably technical) capabilities. After all, as you all
know I am not one of the present youthful generation and in my
younger days we were lucky if we learnt how to operate a calculator
which weighed as much as my present portable Mac on which I hammer
out my books. My next one, Handbook For Survival in India,
which is a sequel to our last local best-seller Handbook For
Survival in Finland, is about halfway through at this stage.
Hopefully I can leave the archives
on line for some time. If I manage to locate a permanent home
for these archives, katy1.html, katy2.html and the one one which
will go up next week katy3.html for Stephanians and sevven1.html,
sevven2.html and sevven3.html for Cathedralites, I shall move
them there and post the location in the World Alumini Register.
I will leave the entire index archive as a single entity as koolertalk.html
and seventhheaven.html till such time I can restart them.
What pleased me the most and made
me particularly happy was that many of you thought me to be of
just your generation, although, in some cases, I was at
least 30 to 35 years ahead of you at the alma mater. Thank you
for all the compliments which flowed like water from all of you.
In a way I am sad that it had to
come to an end in this way, for no fault of any of us. Unfortunately,
Annikki and I are people who believe in freedonm of expression,
and we accept criticism as much as we give it. My grandfather,
the late K. C. Mammen Mappillai (KCMM),
stood for this principle, which saw him suffer many ignoble
things, but the foundation he laid has resulted in the Malayala
Manorama becoming the largest circulating newspaper in India.
It may be too much to hope, but one
of these three webletters may hold a similar position on the
web well after my time - and that thought itself spurs me to
be ready to hand it over to capable hands that may come forward.
Consider that the Malayala Manorama had to stop publication for
almost a decade when KCMM was imprisoned and it was restarted
only after India attained independence.
Email still continues to pour in.
This week I want to only reproduce one from a current Stephanian
- which shows how alive this webletter was:
Dear Mr. Matthan,
Hi ! Do you remember me? (Ed:
Of course I do) I am the boy who is still in college.
Anyway, here are some of the current
happenings from college.
Founder's day got over last week.
I missed both the day and the Old Boys' reunion due to my CAT
(MBA entrance exam) on the 8th of December - Sunday. But it should
have gone off well.
This weekend Shakesoc is putting
up its annual production of King Lear (Ed: I remember
Roshan Seth in the role in 1962-63 - great performace!). It is
on 15th, 16th and 17th of December. It is being directed by Arjun
Raina. The play has shaped up decently and they finally started
practice inside the hall at the beginning of this week. The director
has got some new ideas and interpretations of Shakespeare which
should make the play exciting.
More news later.
Toodledoo!
Shashank
------- This is my new and hopefully "permanent"
address. So, as you can see life goes on and
I wish the play all success and hope it throws up another Roshan
in my lifetime! Jacob Matthan
vol 1 / #3: oct 4,
1996
venue: bose pacia modern
(20th century masters and contemporary fine art of india)
580 broadway, suite 202, soho
212-966-3224 (please RSVP to ss221@columbia.edu or dtalwar@aol.com)
time: 6-8 pm
I am still working
on a map layout of the college as it existed in 1963 and hopefully
in a month I will have it up.
Hi Web Surfing Stephanians,
From: vepaa (vepaa@huron.ac.uk)
Organization: Huron University USA in London
Date: Wed, 23 Oct 1996 13:45:34 +0
Subject: History of SSC
I promptly visited
the site and found a goldmine. I downloaded it, sent a thanks
to Arvind and mentioned the KTWV.
From:
vepaa (vepaa@huron.ac.uk)
Organization: Huron University USA in London
Date: Thu, 24 Oct 1996 12:26:41 +0
Subject: 3 Cheers for Kooler Talk
Yes, to us Stephanians
scatterred around the world, it is a small place. For then I
received this letter,
Date: Fri, 25 Oct 1996 23:14:10
-0700
From: amitcv (amitcv@alpha2.iimb.ernet.in)
Subject: Hello
I had to explain to
Amit that the Web Version was a Web Version and that I had even
stopped sending out the reminder notices since all of you are
now dropping in regularly without any prompting.
Return
to the Top
Hi Web Surfing Stephanians,
Hopefully, more in
a fortnight,
Return to the Top
Hi Web-surfing Stephanians,
Return to the Top
Hi Stephanians and you others,
Date: Thu, 17 Oct
1996 11:38:35 +0100 (BST)
From: wrg1000@hermes.cam.ac.uk
Return
to the Top
Au Revoir Web-surfing Stephanians
and Cathedralites,
From: "Shashank Luthra" shashank@hotmail.com
Subject: More info from St. Stephen's
Please reply to shashank@indiamail.com
Your Stephanian/Cathedralite colleague
Return to the Top
For further information
please contact:
Return to the Top