Batch of 59′. Loyolla Hall, St. Xavier’s High School, Ahmedabad. Bombay State. January 24, 1959
Image and Text contributed by Suresh Mandan, California, USA
This is the picture of us in Class 12, who met for the Day of Orientation, at our Loyolla Hall School in Ahmedabad, Bombay State (now in Gujarat). I stand on the top, third from the left. Among the most popular of the teachers was our Sports teacher Brother Bou, (sitting first from the right). A very fierce teacher, the Ahmedabad Football Association now even runs a Tournament in his name called the Br. Bou Trophy.
I was not sure whether I will ever look at this picture again and that too after almost 54 years. But since I have I cannot help but remember all that thoughts that it triggers. It was photographed on January 24,1959, the day of our graduation from School life to the oncoming college life. Our School held an Orientation Class to help us to assess the new world which we would facing in the Life. The control of the school authorities would be gone, the regimentation of the Principal and the Teachers would be gone, a watch on our behaviour would be gone and we would be in an environment where there would be no restrictions to attend the class, to study or to play. We were to make our own decisions regarding what colleges we chose, the faculty we selected as well as the new relationships we formed with friends and girl friends. This was the theme of our Orientation.
Ahmedabad at the time was not a part of Gujarat, as the Gujarat state formed only in 1960. It was a District of Bombay State. Loyola Hall school was one of the two elite English medium Schools of those days; its mother branch St.Xavier’s High School, Mirzapur Road, Ahmedabad was established in 1935. It was run by the Society of Jesus and therefore we had some European Fathers as well as local teachers.
The school’s location was almost in the wilderness when it was partly shifted from its location on Mirzapur Road to its new location in Memnagar in Ahmedabad. The school building was the only building in an area of about two kms., with no paved roads and no connection to any public transport system. At the time there were no auto rickshaws or mini buses. To go to school there was either the school bus, some public transport, a bicycle or your own two legs.
We were from a lower middle class family, due to partition of India, which had brought very rough times on to so many people and bent us into an unconfident state of dependency. I lost my father when I was just four years old and my education was looked after my elder brother and my widowed mother whose only motto fortunately was “Self Reliance”. My elder brother could not study beyond matriculation because of our rough times and took a job in Ahmedabad so that our family could survive. It was far sightedness of my mother and my grandfather who got us, my younger brother and I into this prestigious school, which was the alma mater of the richest people of Ahmedabad, a prosperous city with about 80 booming textile mills.
I was in class 11 when we shifted to this school. I depended on my trusted bicycle or the city bus to get to school which was about 12 kms from my home. When I travelled by city bus, it was a horrendous journey. I had to change two buses on extremely warm summer days, and then walk three kms from the nearest bus stop to the school, through rough uneven fields and roads.
By the time I reached school I would be so hungry but with meagre pocket money I had to depend on my tiffin from home. Sometimes my rich friends took me to the School Canteen for a quick bite. I was part of the school Cricket team and hence had made some good friends. My experiences with the school were so, that I never felt devalued with or by wealthy school mates, as we see nowadays. The school never differentiated or tolerated discrimination between rich and poor.
I graduated from college and went on to become a police officer at the Intelligence Bureau in Ahmedabad, now in Gujarat. When I remember those days, while writing this from California, my gratitude and the credit for this post, goes to my uneducated but a visionary mother. And to my grandfather who came only once to my school, to my elder brother who could never come on Parents day or Annual Day because of his job and to my great teachers and friends. About 80% of friends in this picture have done well in life and almost 90% are alive today. This photograph has brought back such great memories, all over again.
Suresh Mandan is a financial Patron of the project.
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