Baranagar Narendranath Vidyamandir Alumni Association

Folks,
We seem to share the same fate as the world market. We did spend a bad 2009, but the unflagging spirit of the alumni kept the whole show afloat. And the Sunday that falls on 7 March, 2010 will again see us frolicking to the tune of the latest lilting music at Bohoogly’s Yamuna Bhavan — the same old place but with a new spirit.
We will also have our AGM on the same day. Therefore, do make it convenient to be there in full strength on the 7th.
We now have a new office — talk about a turnaround — courtesy Gopeswar da of 66 batch. At 10, Satchasi Para Lane, Kolkata 700036, adjacent to the Mother Dairy booth. In a week’s time, we hope to have it cleaned up and start operating from there. Once it is done, every Sunday, in the evening, whoever is in the mood can walk in, have a cup of tea, pay the membership et al. That will also be our mailing address. So let us raise a toast to Gopeswar da.
That is all from the Secretary’s desk for now. See you on the 7th.

Subject to the availability of the venue, we will have our AGM and reunion on 14 February, 2010.

Dear all alumni,
I was posting/forwarding few of my ideas in our yahoo group mail to try make a difference to our beloved school in certain ways. I thoght that few of us atleast will reply to the thread but unfortunately it has been ignored probably due to the fact that evryone was busy.
Anyways there is no hard feeling. I know this is my org and it is created with all of our emotions. So let me try one more time.

1. This is Nov 2009. Come April 2010, the new schooling season begins. We need to finalize a plan to start helping outstanding students. Here is my thought on this. For the first year let’s sponsor 1st, 2nd and 3rd position of Class VII and Class VIII who will be promoted to class VIII & class IX in 2010 with all the books and essentials like trigonometry box. This should cost around Rs. 1000 per person on an avg (we should get 20% discount on books if we buy form our friends who has a book store or from College St) and makes Rs 6000/- for this two class. I am ignoring class X this year because it may be possible that they have those already from seniors.
This year, i plan to contribute this amount if Alumnai commit to execute this. I know this is AdHoc but lets go in this way until we have a corpus fund to regularize it. I hope to make same kind of contribution next year also provided i have a job that time.
I know there are so many fellow alumnai who wants to make a difference in their own way for our beloved school, this is my way. Any takers? Is it easy or challenge to execute? i am not in kolkata so i am not active in field. If Alumni can execute it, that will be great.

2. Lets make a difference to our School Library. I know there are govt funds each year coming for our school library but really speaking i don’t think our school student’s has access to latest and greatest. Is there any way we can change it? I have sent a huge chunk of 2008-2009 IT magazines so that it can be given to our school library which can benifit Class XI/ XII students who are in computers and all. I will talk to my elder brother to see if that can be donated to our library. But is ther any other way to improve that?

I hope seniors/ friends will provide their thought on this.

Thanks and have a great day!

Premangshu

Let me start this blog by wishing all of you a very Happy Puja.
I had not visited this page for quite some time now. Neither have I posted any reflections also for quite some time. But as one of the founding members of the alumni association and as the current secretary, I thought it was time that I went on record with an attempt to provide a semblance of sense to the aspirations zipping across the electronic space and the dejection at the Baranagar addas. 
The positives first: We must realize that this association started with the school calling its alumni in to celebrate its 50 years. And on that fateful day a few from across the batches came together and decided to form this association. Since that day to the present we do not even have a permanent office. (With Gopeswar da offering a room, this problem may just become a part of history though). So the meetings were held at Surojit da’s office at the ESI Hospital, with Debansu and I brainstorming and setting tasks over mails and Debansu, Binoy and Pradip with Dibakar delivering the goods at the ground level. And Indranil Sen providing his academic inputs and holding us together with his strict stance over issues. Subsequently, with Surojit da’s transfer, Binoy’s house has catered to our needs.
Folks, we must understand that if the alma mater shows constant reluctance to accept its alumni, it becomes difficult for the association to generate a source for its sustenance. In no enlightened institution would one find such an attitude. E.g. St Xavier’s, South Point, IITs, IIms. You name it and they have it.
Unfortunately, however, the same cannot be said about our alma mater. It is a shame. But then if the institution concerned refuses to leverage the skill of its alumni to move forward, it cannot be helped.
But irrespective of the constraint we have moved on. Gathering funds to honour our past teachers, and current successes. A reunion every year and finding new glories from the alumni and to bring them into our network has been our sustenance. But it has not been easy.
But what next? That is a point that bothers me. It is not good for any organisation/association to depend on one single source for a specific activity. It infuses boredom. It forces a recurrence of of same ideas. But as of now, there seems to be no one willing to take up the cudgel of carrying the activities forward.
As for Amit’s appreciation of Debansu’s effort I have an agreement and a disagreement. Folks, for any organisation raising funds is a major issue. Though there are people in the association itself whose generosity would definitely see us through these tough times, we have yet to get any positive response from them.
Amit and rest of the folks should know that barring a few there has not been any substantive response to funds regeneration. So much for the philanthropy.
However, reading this least one gets a negative impression I must hasten to add that I am writing this to give you an idea about the ground level constraints that we work with.
An association of this nature can only survive and prosper, if all of us put our efforts in. Everywhere else, there are people to push others into action. But there has to be actions. There are unfinished agenda. Like funding a few students, standing by our gurus in their times of need. These agenda have to be operationalised by institutionalising them. It is a big ask because there are a few willing souls. It would have been nothing had the soul been willing. But let us not despair. I am sure we would succeed through dispassionate introspection and incremental growth as we have witnessed since the birth of this association. A faster growth would have pleased us all. And that really is the issue.
Regards.
Suparna Pathak  

I’m posting this from my browser plugin named SribeFire. This is an important test of our website’s ease of updation. Usually site updation means :

• Login to the site
• Add a page
• Publish it

Now in scribefire I have just configured it with my username and password. I’m writing this inside my Firefox browser and just clicking Publish to
“Baranagar Narandranath Vidyamandir Alumni Association” .

I would suggest all the lazy souls to give it a try so that posting in our site is not blocked your ……………………….

Thanks all for responding to our call to help the cyclone Aila victims. I’m attaching a photo ( Once again taken from a device not meant for taking photos primarily ! ) of Dhrubada ( Dr. Dhrubajyoti Roy ) handing over our contribution of Rs. 20000/- to Bharat Sebashram Sangha. I shall attach more details later to this post since I lack info on date of hand over etc.

The state of West Bengal was badly hit by cyclone Aila on 24th and 25th May 2009. Devastations are massive. An estimated 40 lakh people have lost their homes. I don’t have the exact figure of death and other indirect losses. Humanity in the southern bengal region is in crisis. At this situation we, as an organisation of the state, can’t sit idle – ( thats what my instinct says ) .In view of the magnitude of the disaster the alumni association has decided to donate Rs 20000/- to Bharat Sevashram. In order to help the association stay engaged in such activities please donate to the association’s fund whatever amount that might consider appropriate. Those who are in Kolkata and close to the EC members of the association please contact Surajitda / Suparnada / Binoyda / Indranilda / Pradipda etc. directly. Those who are remote like me please transfer your donation to the associations bank account . The details of the same is :

In favour of Baranagar Narendranath Vidyamandir Alumni Association
State Bank of India , Cossipore Branch
S/B AC No. 10774585290
IFSC Code : SBIN0002043

Once you have completed a successful transfer electronically, please update this post by commenting with your amount of transfer, date of transfer and transaction code ( if any ) . It will be easier for Dibakar to issue receipts of the contributions. Please remember at this point this donations are not tax rebatable since we as association have not yet received such a rebate tag.

-debansu

Its an unusual one. Ranjanda ( Ranjan Basu ) and his wife Tukundi drove me through 85 , 101 ( yeah these are the names of expressways there ) on the Santa Clara hills to see the Pacific . It was a bad day when cloud and rain played with us and we prayed for Sun. We discussed what could be done from the associations’ forum. Ranjanda was explaining his ideas on projects supporting students where they can be trained in areas of knowledge required by overseas Industry. He expressed his desire of providing active help on such projects as he learned all these skills from scratch during his struggle for existence when he landed in the U.S. with only under $ 100 bill in his pocket .

Attaching some of our moments here. We two –

Tukundi got us together

Here is the person –

And me now