Music Matters

Renowned tabla exponent, Ustad Hashmat Ali Khan conducted a workshop for tabla students from February 16-19. He gave a concert on Sunday, February 19, in the Music School. The event also showcased the talent of his young grandson and the school tabla players. A report will be carried in the next issue.

IAYP Award

Siddharth Kapur was awarded the Bronze Award in the IAYP. Congratulations!

Cricket Update

The Doon School cricket team played RIMC on Sunday, 19 February. The team won the match.
The Doon School cricket team also took part in the Inter-School cricket tournament arranged by the Uttaranchal Cricket Association. The team lost to Ambedkar Memorial School in the semi-finals by Duckworth Lewis method.
The School second XI played Welham Boys’ on Sunday, !9 February. The team lost by 40 runs.

Career Call

The Careers Notice Board will be focusing on the Indian Air Force this week and the many career opportunities available in this popular sector. Those interested should certainly look it up.

Unquotable Quotes

Look at to me.
MLJ has an attention problem.
The water is very wet.
Ranjana Adhikari really didn’t know what hit her.
There is no hypertension in Chandigarh.
Himmat Singh, as his hair turns grey.
Man is a socialite animal.
Sachin Batra defines his kind.
For example, let me give you a simple example.
KLA simplifies the explanation.
Take down some short answer essay-type questions.
KLA tongue-tied.

A Matter Of Choice
Ashim Mukherjee (ex-44 T and School Captain ’58) recollects

I read with a great deal of nostalgia the school captain’s interview by Saurav Sethia and Shaurya Kuthiala in the February 11 issue of the Weekly. It brought back a few memories, which I thought I would share with all of you.
The year was 1958 and we were readying for the announcement of the school captain in the first assembly of that term. I might add that in those days such appointments were not arrived at through voting, as they are now. Instead, the Headmaster and the Housemasters, along with a few senior masters, decided the matter.
There were two contenders for the job – Shyama Prosad Mukherjee, ex 172 H, class of ’57 and Randhir Singh, ex 304 T, also class of ’57. Both were outstanding students, brilliant in their own ways. Always the 1st division type, if you know what I mean. But if at all there was a favourite between the two, it was Randhir. If Shyama was school football captain, Randhir was captain of both cricket and boxing. Very often many of us felt that if he had seriously pursued cricket he could well have been an international player.
Both of them were very popular with the boys and masters but in the final analysis, Randhir stood a wee bit taller than Shyama. Therefore when Mr. Martyn (the then Headmaster) announced that Shyama Prosad Mukherjee had been appointed the School Captain, most, if not all, were a trifle taken aback.
There was an awkward pause, if only for just a few seconds before the clapping erupted and combined feelings of joy, surprise and disappointment prevailed; what followed were the obvious handshakes and bear-hugs with the two best boys of our time. After the initial back slapping was over everyone settled down to their tasks but in retrospect I think many even outside Tata House were not entirely convinced.
I must say this, that Shyama bent himself backwards to ensure harmony and goodwill, and Randhir being the suave gentleman cricketer that he was, never, ever, uttered even a distant note of discontent. It might interest you to know, gentle reader, that when Shyama Prosad Mukherjee left school, in the last assembly of that term, the Headmaster described him as the best school captain so far! A huge certificate to have in the then 24 years of the school history.
Well, that’s what happened 50 years ago and I am glad that I rubbed shoulders with two of the greatest sons of our alma mater – perhaps through their contributions to my life I, too, had the honour of becoming the School Captain the following year.
Oh and by the way, how does one describe the job of a School Captain? Before I end, let me recall something that could well come close to it. Shortly after leaving school, my niece who was then five or six years old, blackmailed me into taking her and six of her friends of the same age group to the Calcutta zoo. Those three hours we spent there I shall not forget for the rest of my life. Handling seven tiny incarnations of you-know-who was a nightmare. But then, what saved the day was when, the next morning, I got a card signed by all the seven visitors to the zoo which read something like this “Mamaji, we loved all the animals in the zoo but you were the best.”