Batch '95 Reunion Party

A party held for the boys who were part of the batch that passed out in 1995 from SJBHS. Read about what happened.


After several days of planning and stops and starts, the day of the party finally arrived. The last minute problems of booking the hall and food in Catholic Club had been ironed out the previous day.

With atleast the organizers and volunteers eagerly waiting for the party to commence, they arrived early at the venue, to set up the sound system and decorations.

Bharat Ram was at the venue by 4:30 PM on 18th Dec. long before the party start at 7:30 PM waiting for the sound guys to turn up. Don Bosco, Suraj and the other volunteers turned up a few minutes later and got to work tying the banner, blowing blue and white balloons, sticking up print outs of blown up sepia-tinted class photos, setting up the registration desk and food and drinks coupons.

With everything set up, it was time to wait for the guys to turn up which they did slowly streaming in as the evening advanced. Upon registering, they had to pay the cover charge, collect their coupons and have a name tag sticker affixed on their shirt.

It was a time of bonhomie and great cheer for all around. Some had just arrived in Bangalore from abroad and other Indian cities, that day or the day before. Stories and back-slapping were exchanged with great gusto.

Several cameras present ensured that the room though brightly light by tubelights was also lit up by flash bulbs popping regularly.

With good background music and snacks and drinks available, everyone was in high spirits. A couple of wives and girlfriends who had come along, got to know each other. Shaun D'Cunha's kid was an attraction for them.

Impromptu sessions of passing the microphone around and asking guys to speak a few words started, along with good natured leg-pulling. One guy who had to return home in a hurry left earlier than expected. A few more guys who had driven long distances arrived a little late. The buffet dinner, with vegetarian dishes and two non-vegetarian dishes followed by a sweet was well appreciated.

The tally of 37 attendees was around the expected figures. Everyone clustered under the banner for a group photograph, which seemed to never end as there was a long line of cameras, with requests to the amateur photographer to 'take a snap with their camera'. She must have been pretty exhausted at the end of the process, though smiling was easy for the guys posing.

The DJ was finally made happy when a few guys and gals turned out on the dance floor. The sepia tinted blown up printouts of class photos turned out to be a real hit with guys clustering around the windows where they had been put up, and involved in animated discussions.

It was a great evening filled with with fun and joy for the guys from the batch of '95 who had turned up. Soon the time had come to say goodbye, as the legal time limit (11:30 PM) now imposed in Bangalore, had arrived. By the time the organisers and volunteers had taken down the decorations, tallied and settled accounts it was well past midnight. The farewells outside the gates took a little longer. The effort put into organising the event had been proven to be worthwhile.

Thanks goes out to the guys who attended and made it a success.

A special Thanks goes out to the sponsor of the hall Shaun D' Cunha, the volunteers,
Bharat Ram, Chetan Crasta, Don Bosco, Niju Thomas, Nikhil Gonsalves, Suraj Padmanabhan.

Those who had come from abroad were,
Abhish Abraham & Sridhar Ramanujam(USA), Aditya R L ( Australia), Michael D' Souza ( England), Shaun D' Cunha (UAE)

You can access the photos at,
http://www.flickr.com/groups/sjbhs95

From Left to Right:- A 'future Josephite'(Niju's nephew), Aiyappa B M, Nikhil Gonsalves, Erroll Rebello, Vikram Golcha

From Left to Right:- A 'future Josephite'(Niju's nephew), Aiyappa B M, Nikhil Gonsalves, Sunil Pichamuthu, Vikram Golcha

Final Set of video clips of OBA Day 2005

Multi-purpose Hall


Hockey Match


Young At Heart


Chatting with Jayant Kapadia


Finale

OBA Day 2005- Candid Camera.. Catch some of what we saw and did.....

The slow walk to the War Memorial



The prayer at the War Memorial..



The hoisting of the school flag and singing of the school song...



OBA Day 2005 Breakfast



Proceeding for the Official OBA Day Group Photograph...



The unofficial OBA Day 2005 Batch of '95 Group Photograph..



Stay tuned as OBA Day 2005 Lunch clips should be up in a few days...

-Sunil

Out of the Refectory

The War memorial still stands on a battle-scarred ground..

Approaching the War memorial

Saji...OH.. Saji..

Our chemistry lab attender and medicine bearer....

An Oft remembered dialogue..

Dr. C: SAJI

Dr. C: SAJI

Mr. C: OH SAJI

Dr. C: Who is that misbegotten ******* I Say?

(BAM BAM BAM) (Mr. C exits stage violently...)

End of Scene C in Chemistry Lab

A new basement Refectory.. but ye old tables..

Outside the refectory

Small Car Park

Unchanging Widdy(Abu)

Old Entrance to the old dorm( new exam hall) closed forever..

Retracing the same steps I took ten years back after the completion of my ICSE exams...

View of new buildings from the old building

Stairs to Small Dorm

Old Hall and Small Dorm

New Chapel

Exit Left Wing

Front-Left Wing

Entry Left Wing

March Past ends..

NCC

Scouts

St. Patrick's

St. George's

St. David's

St. Andrews

School Captain

March Past begins

Left Wing

Standing with Mr. Deepak Xavier

Front Right Wing

School Captain

March Past Begins..
The closing day March past commences..

SJBHS Bangalore, Batch of 1995 and their antics on Sports Day and OBA Day 2005

Guys,

An update on what a few of us were upto over the weekend( Sept. 3rd and 4th, 2005)...

Sports Day
We planned to meet in school around 2:30 PM. Biju and I wearing our batch T-shirts, arrived there by 3 PM. We were too late to view the inter-school relay nor the 1500m race. We were in time though to take part briefly along with Niju in our batch T-shirt along with Venky and Vishwas in mufti, in the OBA event item before we were chucked out based on a questionable decision.. in other words we lost the draw of lots to eliminate a group of us in the game... ;-) Seeing that all of us from the batch of '95 were all sticking together no matter what, we were all eliminated together.

We met Michael D'Souza, who it appeared had participated in the 1500m and was resting in the shade of the multi-purpose hall, hanging on **nickname erased**.. ahem.. our ex-maths teacher's every word.
We had rollicking fun meeting quite a few teachers.. *****nicknames erased by censor board*****... Vishwas was giving us his appraisal in detail of the fresh stock of female teachers .

Our batch T-shirt was admired by a lot of teachers and Old Boys, thanks goes out to all the guys who helped me get it ready, and especially Niju Thomas who accompanied me to the shop several times where we had to bargain on its cost and got it printed in double quick time. The drills seemed to lack the precise co-ordination which stalwarts like ***nickname erased*** Mr. Joseph Andrade (May his soul rest in peace) inculcated in us..They had a "TT Drill"!!!, an "Addago drill"??, figure running and a cycle drill( one round they did with a torch in one hand.. brought back memories of our more intense fire drill..)
Its a tremendous feeling guys.. You'll should have been there.... Ten years after.. we have returned to school to witness the flag lowering..
After the sports was over we also met Fr. Michael John, who as usual attempted to recall names.
Our OBA day
As I start on this short report on the happenings of OBA Day, a li'l guy with a big mouth is on air paying a tribute to the Josephite spirit!!
Seeing that a few guys who had paid for our batch T-shirts hadn't collected them as yet, I took them to school hoping that the guys if they turned up on that day could wear them...
With just Kartik and I reaching early, we wondered how many would actually make it. Wandering around school, our unique T-shirt was already turning heads. A school kid came up to me to 'ask the time' and had his eyes fixed on the image on the T-shirt front. My thanks to Leslie Roach of the Batch of '73 in Canada from whom I sourced pictures of our school crest and house flags for inclusion in our batch T-shirt design.

T-shirt front

T-shirt back

Anyway we were soon joined by the mafia guy himself... Don Bosco. Followed closely by Senthil Kannan, who showed a penchant for filming from behind the crowd, the happenings such as the procession from the chapel to the war memorial in front of the school building.

Once the honouring of the dead was over, guys drifted over to the school grounds for the unfurling of the school flag and the singing of the school anthem. The rush to reach the breakfast tables then started. We were asked to occupy the head tables, which saw the four of us from our batch at a table adjacent to the revered fathers. Was it Fr. Hedwig D'Costa who enquired about our eye-catching T-shirts?

The phone calls started flowing from some of you guys. It was a busy time for me with the phone ringing continuously and I was nearly always talking to one guy on the phone and another guy on hold/waiting.

Finally we started seeing a few more familiar faces above our batch T-shirts.. Darius, Hakimuddin, Niju, Surender, Vinay.. and a surprise visitor... Saketh Marla in mufti... the guy is married and we all are invited for the reception the coming Sunday.

Breakfast over it was time to regroup on the field for the official OBA photograph. Nikhil quickly changed into his batch T-shirt and joined us. Our group forced our way onto the ramparts of the setup, to add some colour to the photograph. If only more of our guys who had bought our batch T-shirt or who were in our batch's specified dress code had come, we could have created a bigger impact. Following this photo the bunch of us from our batch had 'our official photograph' taken by volunteers using our digicams.

A few guys, Darius, Niju, Nikhil, Saketh and Vinay left once the sun shone even more brightly. The rest of us moved into the AGM which had already commenced.

The usual resolutions were passed, then a guy came forward and picking up the mike proudly announced how his batch had started an email group eight months back and were now consisting of 38 members.
How could we keep quiet for that?? With the guys Don, Hakimuddin, Kartik, Senthil and Surender urging me on, I went forward and picked up the mike on behalf of all you guys.. I announced to the gathering that just this April, exactly ten years after we left school we initiated an e-group, and that we are now a massive 135 or so strong.. Poor chap, the guy who spoke ahead of me must have nearly died out of shock, it practically put his announcement in the shade. :-) Tremendous clapping indicated our announcement was well received.

Fr. Michael John announced his imminent retirement from the post of school principal. It appears a replacement will come in early next year and will be under Fr. Michael John's tutelage for a year or two atleast.

The inauguration of the new school buildings is slated to happen in December this year. Hopefully the President of India will inaugurate it.

Oh by the way, I've been elected to the OBA managing committee as a 'youthful' volunteer thanks to the '95er plotters- Surender, Don, Kartik, Hakimuddin and Senthil... Thanks guys.. So our batch has a rep in the OBA committee.. ;-)

AGM over, we heard that Mark, V T Francis, Vishwas and Venky were already ensconed in the multi-purpose hall hitting the bottle. Hakimuddin, Don and I wandered through the corridors of the school. We discovered a door leading to the terrace open. Passing through it we found ourselves on the highest part of the school buildings. Don has a few photos taken from that viewpoint. Bijoy had also arrived to take part in the hockey match. We joined up with Leo and proceeded to the multi-purpose hall to join the rest of the brave guys from our batch who had arrived. We also met Siddharth Rao, who avoided us for the most part of the time we were in the multi-purpose hall.
It was now time for drinks and snacks. Time seemed to pass quickly with everyone at their craziest best. Vishwas seeing that its Old Boys Day decided to make some really 'Old Friends' who promised to have a drink next year on OBA Day with him. Hope its not their last drink. Vishwas is one hell of a guy who roped in free Red Bull drinks for our guys and nearly lassoed the fair lasses handing out the drinks... ;-) Lunch was pretty good and was catered by the guys from 'The Only Place'. We had mutton biryani.
Snaps should be on the way pretty soon, from all "our photographers", I hope.
Sorry guys, I started this writeup with the plan to keep it short and sweet. But it's turned out to be one long epic and yet still sweet.
To all the guys who made it today on OBA DAY and/ or on the previous day-Sports Day, a BIG THANK YOU goes out.
To all the guys who didn't make it, there are always excuses to find, but we require you guys to find exceptions to your general excuse rule and avoid making excuses and make it to all our meetings/ reunions.

Cheers,
Sunil
http://sunilpichamuthu.blogspot.com/