Category: Miscelleneous

Hello friends,
Today is Maha Saptami. On behalf of the governing body of the association I extend our greetings to all. You would be happy to know that the new committee is working full time towards making the association more inclusive and trying to fill up the calendar with events in association with the school. Be it the sports or sit and draw competition or health camp, the footprint of the association is getting more ubiquitous. If things go the way as it is going now you can expect to have our reunion in the school itself. It would again be a first and all praise should go to the efforts of the new committee.
We also have a facebook presence. I would urge everybody to go and check up our facebook site. I would again urge my fellow alumni to take a a greater intereset in the association and also be part of our ‘net’ presence. You never who you might meet. This network of old boys helps in many ways. To check it out you need to do just thing. Click.
Whishing you a happy puja and with regards
Suparna Pathak

Online education is gaining momentum and ground. Massively Online Open Courses are changing the way education happen. This links are worth exploring :

http://www.udacity.com/

https://www.edx.org/

http://www.extension.harvard.edu/distance-education/online-course-offerings

https://www.coursera.org/

You just need a broadband Internet to self learn.

Now one may argue that this approach may not suite laboratory based subjects etc.. But in my opinion those things can be taken care of and are not the hard challenges. One of the fundamental problem is we are no more getting excellent teachers in many places. Our alma mater is no exception. This courses comes from the best teachers whose credentials are beyond question.

Can we plan something to exploit this opportunity ? For example there are courses like “Listening to the world Music” or the “The history of Internet” . There is no pre-requisite to participate in those. We can do a seminar in school introducing such a course and then give the students a challenge of completing the course. Whoever completes the course and comes up with the accomplishment certificate and is able to give a seminar in front of a panel is eligible to receive an award from the alumni association as “best advanced learner for the session …… “. The judges can be existing / ex-teachers and folks from the association who too have to undergo the material of the course ( otherwise how can they judge ).

This small window may open a whole new world to the students who strive to learn and learn but don’t know the right way.

Thoughts ?

-debansu

The traffic on the site seems to have dried up. I hope the same is not true of our attachment to our alma mater. The new committee under Abhijit as the Secretary has taken charge and is continuing with the good work. The members’ list is being updated. We have had an electronic record. But with the rules demanding a physical record, they are now busy with the herculean task of updating the physical record.
Our resources have also reached an unmanageable low. On behalf of the committee and at the behest of the secretary I am requesting you to please contribute to the fund. You can do so either by cash, cheque or NEFT. The bank details are available on this site. Check it out. You can also get in touch with the secretary. His contact details are also available on this site in our previous post. I am signing off with the hope that blog traffic would again surge. By the way we are also there on the facebook now.

Friends,
The new committee has taken over. The members (mobile numbers in brackets) of the new committee are
1) Gopeswar Mondal (President, 9836689309)
2) Avijit Lahiri (Secretary, 9830105343)
3) Nirupam Bhaduri (Treasurer, 9830522173)
4) Indranil Sen (9830994020)
5) Dibakar Pal (9830391341)
6) Pradip Neogi (9748877177)
7)Biswajit Bardhan (9831344828)
8 ) Milan Das (9830530081)
9) Bijan Roychowdhury (9477551941)
10) Sadananda Bhattacharya (9831106118)
11) Sandeep Chakraborty (9830039749)
12) Arindam Ghosh (9830469007)
13) Binoy Chakraborty (9830260485)

Ex-officio:
Surajit Ghosh
Suparna Pathak

Regards
Suparna

Friends, it is due to efforts such as have been put in by Debansu that the alumni association has survived all odds to take up its current shape. We are now at the crossroads. Now that we have won the heart of the school time has come for us to implement what we had set out to do. As my term as Secretary of the association comes to an end, I can say without any qualm that I feel privileged to have had the honour of working with such a dedicated and intelligent team. I am proud of my alma mater. Thank you all. See you on the 13th at Jamuna Bhavan.
Regards
Suparna Pathak

Friends,
It has been quite some time now since my last post that I have had the occasion to share something on our page. So let’s start at the starting block. We are meeting on 13.11.2011. The venue is our familiar Yamuna Bhavan.

The year that has gone by has not quite been eventful. But the external world has had so many things to keep the members busy that the association couldn’t really churn up enough activities to adorn the site. But then lots of things happened in a quiet manner that have taken us a few steps forward. Steps that due to various reasons had become so weighty that we were better off by not taking any. However, due to efforts of some of our fellow alumni the weights are now off. And the net result is that our alma mater is ready to recognise its alumni. In the media perlance it could also be described as track II diplomacy.

Those who have followed and been with the process over the last few years know from their heart how difficult it has been to keep the association going. But the enormous emotional pull that our alma mater has for all of us provided the necessary traction to keep us moving. From 2006 to today, it has been a journey over a mere five years. but for those who have incubated and craddled the baby it has been a tiring journey. To say that it has only been tiring would be to put a wrong focus on the entire effort. It has also been rewarding beyond imagination. To create the bridge across generations has not been easy. But the network that has expanded has been hugely satisfying.

There are regrets though. And that’s natural. But the most important regret is the silence that we are witnessing on the pages of this site. More of this when we meet.
Regards
Suparna Pathak

বিজয়ার শুভেচ্ছা জানাই সবাইকে। এই মাসের ৩১ তারিখ স্কুলে সবার সঙ্গে দেখা করার প্রত্যয় নিয়ে যতি টানি আজকের মতো।
সুপর্ণ পাঠক

AGM will be held on 31.10.10
Venue: School
Time: Afternoon

Agenda
1.Confirmation of the proceedings of last AGB meeting with corrections if any and business arising out of it.
2.Adoption of Annual report of the association with corrections if any.
3.Adoption of Audit reports of the association.
4.Formation of new governing body of our association and office bearers.
5 Misc.
sd/-
Suparna Pathak
Secretary

I have got contributions in terms of photo and writing to remember Subodh Babu. Adding them in one place here. I would expect others to comment on this post to keep your Shraddhanjali here :

Amit Paul writes :

Looking back, it’s just a few decades, when I walked into the class with that inexpressible joy of becoming “Secondary student”, no more waking up in the morning to attend the school. In her farewel speech the headmistress said – “you are now grown-up kids”.

Ranjan was our class monitor and while he was busy establishing his self-professed authority on the first day, a handsome bearded fellow entered the class. We were shy. We did not know how to react. And then the voice boomed – “I’m your class teacher; I will tell you a story today”. He walked over to the board and drew a few swans in just a few strokes on the just refurbished blackboard – the story continued for couple of weeks with perfectly interleaved pictures drawn on the board. We were in our adolescence with the spirit of intellectual enquiry, but we were so deeply dissolved, did not understand why the story needed to be over – the “Manos Sarovar Yatra”. After even 30 years or so I can’t forget those days, not sure of any better way starting our journey to secondary education.

The series of those unforgettable pictures started flashing back in more than hundred frames per second when that monitor Ranjan called me up saying Subodh Babu was no more. It’s a kind of pensiveness, a sense of loosing your nearest one. I was overwhelmed with grief. It is difficult to encounter a teacher who is so versatile, so perfect in his professional role.

It’s perhaps around a year and half back when one day Subodh Babu called me saying “I would be visiting Bangalore for Sahitya Sammelan; would be staying for one day after the Sammelan as a guest with you. I was so jubilant. That was the last and perhaps the first time he chatted with me about his goals in life. While that was much personal, I remember telling him about Kalidas Roy’s – “Chatrodal” – Sir was a little lost. We chatted for long, just before saying good night he said “My students have given me a lot, I wonder if I really created these gems, I wonder why they love me so much, I am proud of my students.”

Now as I write this, I realise it was he who was a rare gem in the system. The value he tried to imbibe in us was the value that stired him as a person and sustained him. “Balo Bir, Balo Unnato Mamo Sir” in his voice used to create spark in teens’ blood; an ideal teacher – who had affection for all of his students – a person who could infuse mammoth confidence by his actions. He was a fantastic narrator, a skillful organizer. Art, literature, sketch, oration, recitation were his precious stones attracting youth and pupils. Moreover his open hearted laugh and unhindered communication helped him touch many minds, hearts too. A rare mix of balanced personality.

Like many of us and Subodh Babu’s fellow followers I also don’t have words to express my gratitude to Sir for shaping our minds in those days.

Photo taken by Binoy Chakraborti at joint condolence meeting at school goes below

Photos taken by Suparnada