Evergreen road back to school

A school alumni association is where past, present and future meet. M. RAJA returns to some city schools and talks to their alumni about how they work to keep friendships alive.

WE CALL it croker in Don Bosco, Egmore, a trademark school game of improvised baseball, played under shady trees. I stepped into my school again 16 years after passing out in 1985, and saw croker contributing to school history. The room from where once baseball bats and balls were doled out to impatient schoolboys during break times (with the school diary as a security deposit) is now the Past Pupils' Association office. The past, present and future have a meeting place.

Likewise, elsewhere, a determined network of past students in city schools keeps in touch with memories and their alma mater. Reunions stretch from those nostalgia-dripping do-you-remember- when get-togethers, to planned, though limited, community service. The difference now from ten years ago, according to more active alumni, is that some schools are getting more actively involved with their old students.

The school principal attends our executive committee monthly meetings, says Dinesh Kaul (class of 86), president of the Don Bosco, Egmore, Past Pupils' Association for the past 12 years. Us having a separate office in the school just shows the importance the school authorities now give to past pupils.

Dr.Mohan Rajan (class of 77, Padma Seshadri Bal Bhavan), a busy eye surgeon now, will happily agree. The strength of the school is the strength of the alumni, he says. It's time to give back to school what we got from it. He helps co-ordinate alumni meetings in between seeing 80 to 100 patients a day.

Part of the payback is a planned website to globally network PSBB past pupils. Right now, the alumni invites past pupils who are successful professionals to lecture current school students. For instance, they recently had taxation expert R. Anand to interact with the high school. Such talks are apparently a big hit. The PSBB alumni are clear their old school will be the sole target of their service. There is still so much potential to what we can do, he says.

Other school alumni realise some of that potential with token community service. Don Bosco's past pupils organise tuition for underprivileged evening school students of the 10th and 12th standards. They achieved 70 per cent pass marks in examinations, says Kaul. Another annual responsibility involves hosting a Christmas lunch for children in a state government-run juvenile remand home in Kellys. The school's 1,000-strong alumni meet twice a year, once in the school's D'Monte Hall and then in a city hotel with families.

Likewise, Chinmaya Vidyalaya's 13-year old alumni association, Blitz, conducts periodic health camps for the locality. An executive committee co-ordinated by the school commerce teacher Prateeba R meets regularly. Next on agenda is an alumni carnival in the school's Virugambakkam premises on October 13. Fifty old students have already volunteered to organise it. The carnival income is to be part of an alumni corpus fund.

Obviously school friendships are something special, says Anuradha, (class of 00) one of those 50 past pupils and now an engineering student. Reliving that special feeling drives her motivation to be part of alumni activities.

The degree of motivation varies, but the feeling is universal. An age of innocence that first discovered the meaning of friend isn't easily erased from memory.

It's the non-competitive nature of school friendships that makes it special, says T.Mohan, advocate and environment activist, passing out of St.Josephs, Vepery. He planned to stay in touch with school friends, but it didn't happen.

But this volition more than organisation keeps some other school alumni together. As with Sacred Heart, Churchpark, whose old students play a match on school Sports Day.

Or Rosary Matriculation, whose batch mates meet informally. They tell some of their old school teachers about it. The school authorities often don't sound very interested about it. Schools like Chinmaya Vidyalaya are a happier contrast. The post-school link is established before leaving school. Every 12th standard student is made alumni member before getting the final marksheet.

Now an electronics products distributor, Dinesh Kaul says, something magical makes us want to keep coming back to school. And one way of coming back is being with the Past Pupils' Association. The magic infects very busy, very well known city professionals as well. Chess champ Vishwanathan Anand, two years my junior in Don Bosco, Egmore, invariably drops in to meetings if he is in town, says Kaul.

Magical is what I told Shanta Rajagopal, principal, La Chatelaine (then at Nowroji Road), the school in whose hostel I was in until the second standard. She is the focal point of the school's alumni. She gives the news about old school mates. Her past pupils drop in to see her, carrying memories of a home away from home, of big chocolate cakes for birthdays, picnics to Chenji Fort and Poondi Reservoir, moonlight dinners and ham skits on the terrace under a starry sky, tending to December flowers and daffodils (we were given a flower and vegetable patch) and nutritious food that said the school cares for you.

St. Bedes has a more proactive outreach programme to contact old students. Besides, it networks informally with other schools in the same Salesian group. Davis Thomas (class of 76), now a finance professional, is secretary Old Bedeans, Chennai Province, and president of Old Bedeans, India. Davis has been working with the alumni since he passed out 25 years ago.

Old Bedeans participate in every school function, says Davis. So they turn track judges for Sports Day, organise programmes on Parents Day and Teachers Day and sponsor orphans in the boarding school. We take care of the needs of about 30-50 children a year, buying them clothes, shoes and so on, says Davis. Interestingly, the St. Bedes alumni also have a credit card like ID card, which they hope to turn into an actual credit card. A credit card company is interested, provided we can give them 5,000 members, Davis says.

Much more of unrealised alumni potential could happen with the Internet. Probably the biggest alumni meeting point worldwide is Alumni.Net (www.alumni.net) . Eric Tomacruz started the global alumni registry in 1994 from the Phillipines. His hobby soon became a multinational service grabbing the attention of international media.

India was the second country section the site added. We have 385 high and higher secondary schools registered from Chennai, says Gayatri Fernando of Alumni.Net and 26,691 members are from the city. We find high school friendships much more stronger than those formed in college.

In an increasingly networked world living in the Internet, sites like Alumni.Net are positioned to be the best evergreen road back to school. We aim to help re-unite old school friends so that we may enrich lives by facilitating communication in relationships, say the site owners, Infophil.COM. We encourage our members to plan a reunion, exchange photos, or catch up on old times.

Last July, Alumni.Net crossed the 2 million mark, with a staggering 75,000 organisations registered. They claim to be reuniting 3,000 school buddies every day. Obviously, their tag line ``Bringing School and Work Friends Together'' finds universal appeal. Like sparrows we return to the nest where we learnt to fly.

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