Baranagar Narendranath Vidyamandir Alumni Association

The reunion date has been fixed. It is on the 14th of September, 2008. Watch this space for more details.
Suparna Pathak

Thank you Amit for telling me about the site. Thanks are also due to the alumni association for the effort to reunite old friends and for providing the much required space to share our memories of the growing up period.

Whenever I recount my childhood with my kid, her questions invariably veer to my school life. But, sadly, I have had no chance of showing her my school as I stay outside of W.B. And I visit during the vacations when the school is closed.

I have a suggestion. Could we please organise something during the Pujas? And that too inside the school premises so that I can share my feelings with the alumni in the presence of my family.

My thanks and wishes to those who took the initiative to re-unite all other school friends, who we thought were lost in the greater society and for rekindling the hope that we’ll hold our hands together again .

Really a brilliant and positive effort.

Satabdi (1985 batch)

Was watching the video that Deabnsu now removed for some technical reason, got a little nostalgic – craving the days behind – and was recollecting & rejoining the torn pictures. Just see it through and pardon me if it appears supurfluous –

Scene 1 – The Grand Saraswati Puja

Early morning we three were waiting for the bus for Kumartoli. Hey, please wait for five minutes, I’ll be just back, Ritwick was having habit of getting natures call on and off. Oops, shyed “Little”, now let’s go, we’ll only be two shares for whatever we can earn from this budget. Ritwick was slowly strolling in frustration while we back. Youuu…,”Little” could quickly manage by five bucks; it was not a perfect divide by three in anyway.

Scene2 – Arjun, Spanish and that lady

He was smart, she was elegant. He used play Spanish Guitar, while she was only in sixth standard. The whole class was behind him, he received a “chit” from that lady. Splendid!! How does it look like, boss, how does it feel to touch? Come let’s frame the reply & the entire class was writing it. The string not tuned for long, but the tune remained… the first we tasted how heart beats, the first we realized we also need to play guitar.

Scene 3 – Whole class, Atanu & Ajoy

That duo was always irresistible attraction – were framing the great poetic drama – so nicely framed really it was – who were not there – from Nitha ma’am to …Subol Da…to … forgot all those names…. I was just wondering these two guys having so potential … why can’t be a little serious? Kamal da’s comment during Tiffin breaks … “I know, I too was during those days”

Scene 4 – The “Al Bida”

…came out of those marvelous days, the “fair well”; “boys you all be great in your field, wish you all the best in whatever you do”…an Oracle. Indeed ‘Voice from God’ was waiting listen the last command. We all got so much… my Alma Mater … By the way, we were yet to learn till then – we need to integrate in this big world and some did it seamlessly & effortlessly while few remained unsung.

Scene 5 – We, we & we

We needed job… more precisely we needed to be busy by whatever means. We needed to escape from our neighbors…during the office hours. Scorch summer of Calcutta… yet we need to walk down the road….till Dalhousie… could finish lunch in few bucks. Last when did we have a Will Flake Boss??

Scene 6 – Saurav, […] & who else …

…can’t recollect. We two were speechless. We knew, we wouldn’t be getting up next day early morning. We knew we need not to catch next day’s 8.25 metro. That small company shut its door. What next Saurabh? Speechless… me too…we knew we would be going back to the same routine that we had. We knew we again need to peep into those friends’ pocket for a cup of tea. We knew we were not engineers! We knew we didn’t know what next! The paranoid!!!

Scene 7 – Fly to fly

…”would you like to have a tea or coffee, Sir?”… Ha…ha..Ha…what a great joke man! I was wondering …why…I was wondering …what… I was wondering why I didn’t know how cold it was in so high altitude. I never knew – the cold you are the hot your mass is.

Scene 8 – The landing of Boeing to Bangalore

The weekend early morning, Hello…”Ha chole esechi, ki kore kothay aste hobe bol”…and finally he had arrived to the “City of Toy”, finally that guy decided to try his luck, finally that guy bent in front of …. Hummm… if I can recall it, I never saw him so grim… none is made of iron… even “TATA steel” also gets rust. I know he would fight back giving tons of argument, I know he’s so good at ironing out, so good at camouflage, I know he knew what he would have to do, however I never knew a miser would remain be miser even having millions of Ponds and Euros in his deep pocket.

Scene 9 – Rang de Basanti

I was just collecting those faint pictures, conceding those tattered commitments, was trying to fit in to these dancing faces, rolling it over in our journey. We should not mind if we have done something to get it over…. Get it over ….foolish man… you are what you are today…. Get it over foolish man… you never did anything wrong… did you? Forget, we need to get it over….would like to see you in this joyous mood guys, Saurav… I salute your perseverance for getting into this, salute your hunt for mind in search of solace…being honest I would never say you dazzled with brilliance, but had never baffled with bullshits too…. What a nice quality!! I never saw you leaving half the way … salute to that pensive smile that you used to wear everyday to hide the fight you used to have every time with yourself. You deserved and you got…this is the time you should relish…with your fiancée, with your career, kiss, hug, enjoy the sense of glittery, take the journey in your stride as you decide to be, have the finest moments clicked in, and of course please keep aside some time for yourself to see it through… rest assured you’ll get amused.

Scene 10 – Torturing on eyes

You would be puzzled and would be vividly going through it daggering to the monitor over your specs, torturing your eyes observing Silicon Valley’s soft toys and their ballistic mood. I know you’ll, after all … you were the most intelligent amongst us

They were our neighbours. And he, my batchmate.
Sumit Bagchi used to stay just a few blocks away. His mother, having lost her husband, was worried about her youngest. I was in college then. And she had this idea that somehow I might be the one to help her out. I became private tutor to Sumit’s kid brother.
Time flew. Life’s demands started turning tougher. And a short span of time later I had to quit my responsibility of tutoring him. The pressure of life’s demands started mounting. We left the locality and moved to South Calcutta. Old memories have this habit of giving way to the more recent ones. And Baranagar, my incubator of what I am today, became a distinct blur.
And then a couple of days ago the alert flashed. There was a scrapbook entry on my Orkut space. One Subroto Bagchi wanted to know whether I could recognise him. NO. So he jogged my memory. And how! He was Sumit’s kid brother! The little kid who was my student travelled three decades to stare at me with a beard from the screen! He told me how I happened to have been the first in his life to have gifted him a book! A HaJa Ba Ra La! Trust me I had forgotten all of it! And now he holds a Ph.D.! The guy says that the degree was just a natural culmination of a process!
Folks, if you ask me what present would I expect on Saraswati Puja? I would say more and more of him from our school!
He has already searched our site. He wants it to be simpler. But then that is a different though a relevant issue.
Suparna Pathak

Folks,
Events make you think. It is the reunion time in Kolkata. All colleges and schools are busy spawning and strengthening a network between those who are ready to leave the brood and those who have already left and are busy making their mark in the world. Take for example the case of St. Xavier’s.
Many of us, of the Narendranath alumni, have also passed through the portals of St. Xavier’s. And all of us swear by the fond memories of the institution, of Fr Huart chastising us for our faults and patting our back for achievements, Fr Gauraux (hope got the spelling right) pulling our legs. It was like a womb in which we felt safe, happy and contended.
The institution also encourages its alumni to maintain the old link with similar passion. The picture of L N Mittal with Fr Mathew, Mr Mittal smiling like a kid would never fail to touch those nerves that might even make you shade a few tears of happiness.
And for those from our school might even shade a few drops out of sheer frustration. If we look at those institutes that feel proud of their students, we would also notice that they also breed a strange bonhomie that weaves a stong bond between the institute concerned and the members of all hues. Teachers would be proud of having taught there. Students, having been taught there.
Ours would perhaps be one of the very few in the entire globe that suffers from xenophobia when it comes to its alumni. One might keep wondering why — in all its endless iterating logic — but at the end there will be this feeling of emptiness at the pit of the stomach.
It is sad. Why does one institution prefer not to have a bond that is taking institution after institution to one height of glory to the other? But then who and why would one think about it? If we did, this post would not have been written in the first place.
Happy Republic Day.
Suparna Pathak

This is to wish every fellow alumnus a very happy 2008. This is also to wish that the network that is growing so fast, keeps growing at least at the same rate so that by the end of the coming year we will have the required critical mass to clog the network.
Those of us, who have watched the association grow from nothing, must acknowledge the untiring efforts of the 69 batch, specially Dhrubada and Surojitda, not to allow the association to fray at the edges and die an untimely death.
And Debansu, of course, a much younger proposition, who has set a goal to establish a branch of the association in Bangalore! These are the efforts that must be lauded. As the year draws to a close, I as a member, bow before them.
And then of course there are Pradip and Benu without whose efforts reunions would be difficult to organise.
To keep us gramatically correct there is Indra, the Prof.
The values that the school imbibed in us are not expressed in words but the way we do things. The lofty goal that this association has set for itself to achieve will be realised because of these efforts. We must therefore say ‘Three Cheers’ to all of our fellow members who are kindled by such values.
Folks, a very happy 2008.