It was a leisurely morning and by the time we had our morning cuppa it was a quarter past 7. The conversation continued unabated between us and we were out of the house by a quarter past 10, headed for the school. Lekha and Sindhu were headed for the Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple to meet up with Anitha to have a special 'darshan' out there. They were to join us for lunch, later, in the school.
The Old boys' Day activities had commenced earlier but we were in time for the high tea followed by the commemoration meeting. Met a whole lot of my seniors, contemporaries and the juniors who were in my House. It was a memorable meeting of a great number of my school types. Suresh Laxman, KS Venugopal, Vipinachandran, self, Vijayakumar and Louis George were from our class, attending the meeting. We did also come across Sivaprasad, who was relegated from our class to pass out of school a year later than us.
We had met all our old masters like Viswanathan sir(Hindi), SH Sarma sir(Maths) and Saraswathy Amma teacher(Biology). She'd joined the school newly as a 'demonstrator' in the Biology section under George Joseph sir and was in charge of our class - this was in '67 and yours truly was in class 7 then! I had got top marks(72) in Biology and she was fond of me, keeping track of my progress till I'd passed out. As I touched her feet in front of the others, she told the people near her and to Lekha, "Rajeev was such a small, cute boy and he was good at everything and very well behaved". Who needed a character certificate after such an endorsement? It did make my day as she kissed me on my forehead as we took leave of her and I'd touched her feet yet again.
We decided to have lunch in a hotel close by as we hadn't registered our names for the get together because the registration counter eluded us and we thought it ethically incorrect to have food in the mess. So, the six of us had gone to the Al Saj hotel, nearby, to have a nice yet simple lunch!
We, then, headed for Mohanachandran's house as was planned last evening. Lekha and I were seeing him for the first time after the surgery. He has a long way to go towards complete recovery. I'd read out the citation on the 'Lifetime achievement Award' parchment that he was awarded this morning as he had done stupendous work during his tenure as the President of the OBA. He looked at me, smiled and briefly held my hand. We had once again assured Manju and Vinu about our help whenever they felt its requirement!
After a wash, I'd gone to the 'Krishnan kovil' nearby, the temple that I used to visit many a time during my school days while staying at 'Kalpar', on the parallel Eswara Vilasom Road in the mid '60s. Many more deities have been added, Krishna was well decked up and I had gone around the outer perimeter before getting into the sanctum sanctorum, reciting the Vishnu Sahasranaama Sthothram all the while and I felt a tremendous sense of peace descending upon me.
The get together of the classmates was at Vijayakumar-Anitha's place. It was again nostalgic, a laugh riot and a grand affair. Suresh-Sindhu, Venugopal-Umah, Vipinachandran-Leena, self-Lekha, Josekutty Thomas and Louis George were in attendance.
Tailpiece.
Tomorrow's gonna be a long day as we'd be on our return journey back to Guruvayur! Hope the weather and the traffic do not play spoilers!!
The Old boys' Day activities had commenced earlier but we were in time for the high tea followed by the commemoration meeting. Met a whole lot of my seniors, contemporaries and the juniors who were in my House. It was a memorable meeting of a great number of my school types. Suresh Laxman, KS Venugopal, Vipinachandran, self, Vijayakumar and Louis George were from our class, attending the meeting. We did also come across Sivaprasad, who was relegated from our class to pass out of school a year later than us.
We had met all our old masters like Viswanathan sir(Hindi), SH Sarma sir(Maths) and Saraswathy Amma teacher(Biology). She'd joined the school newly as a 'demonstrator' in the Biology section under George Joseph sir and was in charge of our class - this was in '67 and yours truly was in class 7 then! I had got top marks(72) in Biology and she was fond of me, keeping track of my progress till I'd passed out. As I touched her feet in front of the others, she told the people near her and to Lekha, "Rajeev was such a small, cute boy and he was good at everything and very well behaved". Who needed a character certificate after such an endorsement? It did make my day as she kissed me on my forehead as we took leave of her and I'd touched her feet yet again.
We decided to have lunch in a hotel close by as we hadn't registered our names for the get together because the registration counter eluded us and we thought it ethically incorrect to have food in the mess. So, the six of us had gone to the Al Saj hotel, nearby, to have a nice yet simple lunch!
We, then, headed for Mohanachandran's house as was planned last evening. Lekha and I were seeing him for the first time after the surgery. He has a long way to go towards complete recovery. I'd read out the citation on the 'Lifetime achievement Award' parchment that he was awarded this morning as he had done stupendous work during his tenure as the President of the OBA. He looked at me, smiled and briefly held my hand. We had once again assured Manju and Vinu about our help whenever they felt its requirement!
After a wash, I'd gone to the 'Krishnan kovil' nearby, the temple that I used to visit many a time during my school days while staying at 'Kalpar', on the parallel Eswara Vilasom Road in the mid '60s. Many more deities have been added, Krishna was well decked up and I had gone around the outer perimeter before getting into the sanctum sanctorum, reciting the Vishnu Sahasranaama Sthothram all the while and I felt a tremendous sense of peace descending upon me.
The get together of the classmates was at Vijayakumar-Anitha's place. It was again nostalgic, a laugh riot and a grand affair. Suresh-Sindhu, Venugopal-Umah, Vipinachandran-Leena, self-Lekha, Josekutty Thomas and Louis George were in attendance.
Tailpiece.
Tomorrow's gonna be a long day as we'd be on our return journey back to Guruvayur! Hope the weather and the traffic do not play spoilers!!
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