Date:08/10/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/10/08/stories/2007100855620600.htm

Andhra Pradesh

Benegal turns nostalgic

Visits alma mater after 56 years

HYDERABAD: It was a moment of nostalgia for celebrated filmmaker Shyam Benegal as he stepped into Mahboob College High School campus after 56 years. He spotted some of his classmates, remembered his teachers and went down the memory lane recalling the days when he bunked classes to watch movies.

At a felicitation organised at the school on Sunday, Mr. Benegal vividly recalled his days spent here and said he was flooded with old memories walking through the portals of the school.

Bunking classes

He would miss classes on Thursdays to catch up with matinee show at either Plaza, Tivoli or Dreamland and recalled how two of his teachers -- Sheshadri and Kodanda Rao -- too would be found there at the theatre.

And the best part was the teachers were willing to discuss about the English movie stars, he recollected. “I joined this school in 1945 when the country was not independent. Those were momentous days and we lived through different regimes (Colonial and Nizam’s rule). Those were the years that shaped much of our thinking,” he said.

The Urdu teacher would rap on the knuckles with a ruler and the Head Master was a very fine gentleman, he reminisced. “Those were wonderful days. My basic values were shaped here,” he told the .

The felicitation was organised by the school’s Fifty One Batch Sixth Form Students Forum and Senior Citizens Forum, Secunderabad.