Once upon a time, 50 years ago, boys and girls from the Cathedral & John Connon School finished their Senior Cambridge exams and went out into the wide world to seek their fortunes (or misfortunes!). The years flew and the time arrived for the Class of “53 to have their 50th Reunion.
The challenge was now to find all the 66 year-olds who had settled in different parts of the world and, apart from a minority, most had not seen or heard of each other for half a century. It took a great deal of research, persistence, energy and dedication to locate the “tribe”. Pushpa Bhatia almost singlehandedly took on this mammoth task and her detective work eventually paid off. Most of the girls were easily located as one lead led to another in a most amazing sequence. As far as the boys were concerned, Meir Hillel (Israel), Annees and Mehrwan Nadirshah (Bombay) were instrumental in providing names and addresses.
Pushpa started the ball rolling about a year ago and there was a feverish exchange of emails between the USA, UK, Australia, Israel and here in India, between Bangalore, Chennai and Delhi. It was wonderfully rewarding and exciting to have a positive response from most of our classmates, and several who could not attend sent their regrets and said that they would be with us in spirit. Several of the girls who came from overseas were accommodated with Pushpa and the feeling of togetherness was so special – it was like being in a time capsule, school girls again sharing rooms in a dorm, feeling and behaving like a bunch of giggling kids!
The celebrations began with the Church Service on Founders’ Day, 14th November where our Head Girl, Joan Bale (Lockley) read the lesson and her beautiful delivery reminded us of the reason why she won all the elocution prizes at school! After the Church Service we all assembled in the Middle School for coffee and a tour of the renovated schools.
On Saturday 15th November we had a Gala Dinner at the Royal Yacht Club. The room was exquisitely decorated by Perin Irani (Khambatta) and the whole evening was a huge success with live music and dancing and plenty of fun, laughter and the exchanging of happy memories. The only sad not was the fact that a few or our classmates had passed on, but we felt sure they were with us in spirit. It was wonderful to have both our Head Boy , Rabi Ahuja, and Head Girl, Joan Bale (Lockley) present. The time passed all too quickly and everyone reluctantly left the venue at 11.30 p.m.
On Sunday 16th November, we continued the celebrations with an outing to Marve by A.C. bus. It was so relaxing and peaceful in the lovely beach shack that Pushpa had arranged for us and the perfect time for everyone to sit together and once again bond with each other after such a long time. It was like a dream, chatting about old times over the most delicious food that was cooked by an expert lady whom we took along with us, together will all the ingredients!. We ate almost continuously and there were hardly any leftovers, but Meir Hillel had his eye on the fish curry that remained and promptly took it home in a "dabba", much to the cook’s dismay – there went his evening meal!
Inspite of his cruel act, we had to give credit to Meir and to Joan’s husband John for having the courage to be the only two men among 16 chattering females for a whole day!
After watching the most beautiful sunset, we had to drag ourselves away from this peaceful paradise to get on the bus for our journey back. The three hour ride passed quickly exchanging anecdotes, singing and joking all the way. So ended another successful day of celebrations.
On Monday 17th November we had another enjoyable evening of South Indian Cuisine at Pushpa’s home. The food was just fantastic and for most the occasion was just a continuation of where they left off at the Yacht Club, and the last of all the organized reunions.