Tvm, Kochi and Chennai reunion

Here are some more photos from Tvm and from Kochi where Ramesh spared some time from his tight schedule to meet and from Chennai where Rajagopal took time out of his Sunday to meet. Missed Ramamurti because he was hard at work on a Sunday ! The Model School work ethic still is at work :-) Could only speak on the phone with TP in Delhi and Satish in Mumbai. Maybe next time we'll meet in person.

Regards,

Madan

Golf club reunion Nov. 19th, 2006

Kumar organized a grand reunion at the Trivandrum Golf Club on Sunday night, Nov. 19th. It was a great opportunity to meet Ashwini, Cherian, Fenn, Joy Jyothish, Kumar, Lakshmanan, Sanjeev, Sankar and Sree Ganesh, many after nearly 34 years. It was a wonderful occasion. Here are some photos, which don't do justice because of the poor resolution of the stills on my video camera.

Madan

Memoirs

Posting some of the old emails on Cherian's request. You should all be able to add to these posts yourself.

Regards,

Madan

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An omission on my explanation on the following.

"Cherian, remember you used to move your thumb and the index finger fast twisting them in such a way that the tip of the thumb touches the index tip very fast and vice-versa (did I explain it properly??). I used to try it then but could never do it as fast as you did - let's try now when we meet next...ha, ha, ha..."This is done using BOTH HANDS ie. the index finger tip of one hand will touch the tip of the thumb of the other hand very fast, and vice versa. (Looks like we take our childhood memoirs too seriously!)TP.

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Date: Thu, 18 May 2006 12:50:

Subject: Re: Memmoirs Dear friends,To add to the memoirs (thanks Cherian), I remember calling it 'geometry box', and Chellayan Sircorrected me to call it the 'Instrument Box' (this was what some of us were taught in Holy Angels too, but this somehow later got elapsed from mind). And whenever someone amongst us asked a stupid doubt in maths, he used to yell with a white handkerchief in hand, 'entha chothikunney, avidey irikyooooo'. AND before our SSLC exams, for the purpose of putting on record our identification mark on the SSLC certificate, Chellayan Sir called us one by one to show us two marks on our body. For me it was the easiest - I showed by 6 fingers on the left hand and six toes on the right leg. And these are on record, still - in the 1972 certificate.Cherian, remember you used to move your thumb and the index finger fast twisting them in such a way that the tip of the thumb touches the index tip very fast and vice-versa (did I explain it properly??).I used to try it then but could never do it as fast as you did - let's try now when we meet next...ha, ha, ha...Moses Sir, the English teacher in 6th class always advised us never to say 'Rs.100" but say '100 Rs' - and he was right, even now we never say '$100', we only say '100$'. Right?And the music out of the space between the thumb and index, yes, I very much remember this.The sound will be something like - fwufwufwuvfwu...Not sure, how many of you remember these!Still more to come...warm regards,TP.

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At 05:46 AM 5/18/2006 +0100, cherian koshy wrote:

Hi friendsI think it is essential that our memmoirs should be imortalized in a hard copy.Can someone venture to save them, then it is only a question of 'cutting and pasting' Speaking of pastes I remember 'Kolynoos tooth paste' and the smile it signified.Not forgetting Forhans with its bitter taste and Macleans with its dual colours white with red stripes. What i remember most was in those days of austerity, how I squeezed out the last atom of paste by keeping the shrivelled tooth paste tube near the hinges of the bathroon door and then closed the door.I tell this to my children and you expect them to believe ?The Instrument Box has stories to tell, While at Holy Angels there were few nortrh Indians from Pangode Military Camp who used to inset Chappatis and onions along side the compass and set aquare.I relished making the compass 'erect' ( do not mistake me) and try my skill at targets, generations of students would have done that if the desk surface is any indicator, it helped to overcome boredomBut Ganesh , Remesh , TP and their class of elitist Brahmins were more skillled and innovative. One day i vividly remember Ganesh or was it TP (?), balancing a 10 paise coin between the pointers of compasses and blowing it making the 10 paises coin to rotate with a ' zooooooooom' --acceleration/deceleration force in action with sonic displayI think it was Sri Ganesh who had a sense of rhythum and music who was more patriotic , he started playing the national anthen blowing into the fist web (Thumb web is the space between the thumb and index of an outstretched hand). You need good breath control to play the right note. Rest laterCherian to be continued........... M .K (Lame)......Myth and Reality, Messaih or Pariah

Strengthening bonds - 4/30/06

Photos from the Reunion at Kumar's house on April 30th. Aswini, Ramamurti, Kumar, G. Ramesh and Sri Ganesh ? Almost mistook you for Cherian.

Madan

After - Some of XH Class of '72 Model School - Circa 2006. See post below for names.

After - Photo description by TP Subramony

Dear Friends,I have attached the latest photo of some of us who got together in TVM at Joy's place on 7 March 2006 - the young-old souls of Model School 10H. Just in case, and for the sake of those of us who haven't met for a long time here is the who's who in the attached photograph:

Left to Right:Sitting - Cherian M.Koshy; T.P.Subramony; S.Sankar; Aswini Kumar.

Standing - Joy Jyothis; H.A.Subramoni; A.Kumar; Sriganesh; H.Lakshmanan.

I would suggest those of you who are not in the attached picture sent your present photo toall of us so that we know what your present 'shape' is like - tall, short, lean, mean, fat...etc.You know, last year when I was in TVM I met with Kumar, Joy, Sankar and that time we decided somehow we MUST try to bring all of us together. Somehow I could not meet Cherian last year but we talked over the phone. Joy gave me Sriganesh's number when he was recently in Delhi with family. So now the chain keeps growing...Great!. But with all of us living in different parts of the country/world I never thought this would happen so quick - atleast we are able to communicate with each other. Indeed great being in touch with old friends!!My best wishes,T.P.

Before - XH Model School - Class of '72 -circa 1972. See the email below for names. 

XH photo description by CMK

Photo to follow - MV

Hi Beloved
Yes Sathish you are right, there are highly qualified doctors,among us, I am a qualified Plastic Surgeon , was operating on the less fortunate restoring form and function denied at birth or deprived by accident or aging, but since last three years, into something special, pain and Palliative Care. Sri Ganesh, is an excellent General Surgeon, Joy a reputed Urologist, Aswini, Professor of Medicine
But
Before I started official studing human anatomy in 1974, my earliest exposure to human anatomy was a book that circulated among us- Sathish you know who had it- One of our class mates was into specialization - We went spying one day into the Residency compound and there he was perched on top of a tree-He was into Reproductive Physiology- chided me as I was young and timid to understand- eternal truths
From Fantasy, Forbidden,Fearful, Forlorn, Forboding, Fascinating,Fabulous,Fact, this has come back a full circle - to Fantasy presently to many of us -nothing like Fantasy..............Ha Ha Ha
Imagine Joy came to invite us for his daughter's wedding
Rameshji- I was making something off tangent, I am still not a 'bad boy'
So Ramesh Boss - see all the parameters of aging are reversible, I read somewhere , that we have a 'Biostat' within us, you set it by concentration/meditation to -say 17 years, and ' fantasize' for 17 minutes every day twice, and you start feeling young, and look young
The Who is Who is as below
Sitting (L –R) .......lakannu (Drill), Gopinathan (9th Std Class teacher),DharmaRaj (10th Biology),Sukumaran Nair, (10th English),Chellayan, (10th Class Teacher0,Divakaran Nair ( Head master),Peer Mohamed (Ast head Master),Achuthan Thampi, (10th Science),Sukumaran Nair (10th Hindi),Rama Subramony, (10th Spl English),Ganapathy Iyer, (10th Sanskrit)

Row I (L – R), TP Subramony, Jeevan Babu,Chandra Das, Padmakumar, Balachandran, N.V Vasan,SS Narayanan,Balachander Fenn, Cherian Koshy,Gopakumar, Venugopal,Mukunda Rajan,H Ramasubramony, Subramony Iyer, H Lakshman

Row II ( L – R) Sasikumar, T.G Dinesh, RamMohan, A.J Sasikumar, V Madan, PS Joy Jyothish, G Gopakumar, G Anand, Sathish Chandran, S Shankar, HariHara Subramony, Reghu, John Selvanathan, Aswini Kumar, K John,

Row III ( L- R) S Kishore, G Ramesh, V Ganesh, Venkita subramony, Rajagopal, Kaladhar, Indusekhar, H A Subramony, Ramesh, Abraham Mathew, Srinivasa Raghavan, Dwarakanath, Ramachandran, Padmanabhan
I was lucy as I had written the names on the reverse
Only among the teachers, the full name of the first (L) was not visible some ' .........kannu'

SathishJi you pressed my shoulders from above while the camera clicked, and hence I got tickled

Love to all
Cherian

Alumni list

Given below is the list of the alumni.

I have removed the contact info for privacy reasons.

Madan

XH - 1972

Anand G
Aswini Kumar
Balachandra Fenn
Cherian M Koshy
Dinesh
Dwarakanath
Ganesh V
Hariharasubramonian
Indusekhar G
John Selvanathan
Joy Jyothis PS
Kaladhar SB
Kishore S
Kumar A
Lakshmanan H
Madan V
Mukundarajan V
Narayanan SS
Padmanabhan (cycle)
Padmanabhan K
Rajagopal S
Ram Mohan S
Ramamurthy P
Ramasubramonian H
Ramesh G
Sanjeev M
Sasikumar AJ
Sasikumar R
Satish Chandran S
Shankar S
Sree Ganesh
Subramoni HA
Subramoni TP
Vasan
Venkitasubramonian

This is VIIIH at Model High School from 1970. 

Collection of emails up to now

Gentlemen,

Given below is a collection of the emails regarding the class of XH 1972 from Govt. Model High School, Trivandrum. We can use this as the start of a webpage. We can move it later to some other form if everyone desires it. However, this was easy to get started and post. In this form, you can add your responses and discussion quickly. I'll post the photos I get from you also. Let me know what you think.

Regards,

Madan

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Dear Madan
We had a small get-together in Joy jyotish's house day before yesterday
some of us meeting after 33 years or so! We relished the Kappa and fish, Idi appam and Mutton , courtsey Joy and family Joy's daughter is getting married soon !!
they included Lakshman, Sri Ganesh, Kumar (off spin), Sankar, H A subramony, TP subramony,Aswini Kumar, and me
It was a nostalgic, goose pimpling meet, all still look the same , loving and naughty
We are planning a meeting may be next year of so, in 10 H in Model School
Shall keep you posted
If you have details of the rest please inform me, or Kumar whose E mail is in Cc
love
Cherian

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Hai Madan
Nice to see your mail.hope u remember me Ramesh G.i remember your bowling action i used to get news about u thro NRK. You also remember Ramesh warrier.
Nice knowing you thro the mail. Let,s be in touch
Best regards to u and yr family.
ramesh g
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Dear Madan,
I hasten to write to you. Well as informed by Cherian Koshy, we had a great time at Dr. Joy’s home. Many of us were meeting after about 33 years. It was great and very nostalgic. We pulled each other’s leg by recalling the funny incidents at school. Well, Madan I request you to forward the list of our classmates to the friends in our class and kindly help me in compiling a database of Std XH. Do keep in touch. Best wishes and affectionate regards.
Yours sincerely,
A.Kumar
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Hi Ramesh
Where are U , Are U the same Ramesh with the horizontal forehead Stripes from Santhi Nagar, ?
I am presently the Chief of Pain and Palliative Care at the Regional Cancer Centre, Trivandrum.
My Wife Rachel is Head of Anaesthesiology here , Daughter Kripa is a 4th year Medical Student at Rivandrum, and son Karun presently taking his 12th exam
Love
Cherian
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Dear All,
I am sure all of you must have read my earlier mail. Well, I am attaching herewith the group photo of Class VIII (1969-70) just to refresh your memory. I am planning to make 8”x12” copies and distribute among all of us. I am eager to get your response to the group photo. Please do respond forthwith. In case any of you are having old group photos, kindly pass it on to me for making copies. Best wishes and affectionate regards.
Yours sincerely,
A.Kumar

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Dear Kumar
Thanks so much for the effort you are taking, i think the two photos are the same by mistake
I shall certainly search for any one I have
Love
Cherian
Hi G Ramesh
I can now fully place you. You were a navy man like Ganesh.
Navy men are always focussed on the 'naval' Exqueese me..........we have graduated from 'small books' to big ones after all
Regarding cricket well we were contempories of Sobers, Hall ,Wadekar, Farok Engineer and the three south Indian Spin trio.
Sankar was an allrounder, Madan's characteristic spin action was sufficient psyching tactic to make you out. Madan was a literal allrounder wielding the pen and bat with equal dexterity.
Sathish Chandran tried reverse swing
All my years in Model School, I sincerely desired Madan name was spelt Madhan, I never expressed my longing, I thought he would one day quitely change , if Krishnamorthy, ( s/o Dr Mani) could change to Kishore .....
Kumar A was a more sophisticated cricketeer, may be because of his residential proximity to central stadium
Please keep sending memmoirs we shall make it into a book
Love
cherian

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Dear Kumar,Great to see the photo. I was looking at the photo for more than an hour 'enjoying' it.Quite an effort tracing it !?!!?My mind went back to our school days....nostalgic. I have some good 'naughty' memories. Some of us have nicknames!!!!! I still remember some of them (see, the mischief inside us is coming out after seeing the photo..!!) I too will look for the other photo (the one we took after the 10th class academic year. If any of you have it, that would be great.(Madan, all of us met in TVM over a small get-together at Joy's place. Ramesh could notmake it to the get-together but we spoke over the phone). Sathish Chandran, I heard is inNew Delhi. I will try to find his contacts.Best wishes to all of you. And do be in touch.Warm regards,T.P
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Dear Ramesh,We could not meet the other day in TVM. But good to talk to you on phone.Perhaps if you have the 10th class photo, you could hand it over to Kumarwho has said that he can digitize it and send to all of us.Best wishes,T.P.

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Hi Madan
I know more of yu than you. Your were in SRV Cochin, when your Dad was transfered, and hence not in 8th in Trinvandrum
Cherian

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Dear Kumar and Cherian, Thanks again for the stories and the pictures. Now that I live in the US, the name spelt anyway is difficult for the Americans. Its amazing how they pronounce it. But, names are things we have little control over. In the US there is a movie star who named his children Dweezil Zappa, Moon unit Zappa and so on. I was spared such agony. Then you get sort of used to it and you don't want to lose your identity. Speaking of cricket, I think the best players were Sathish, Sankar and Kumar. Satish went on to play for the Navy team as well as the University team. I think Sankar also played on some Tvm League teams. He deliberately chose not to play too much, I think. I was hardly a cricket player in school, though I had much ambition :-) I played more cricket (more successfully too in grad school in British Columbia). I played for the UBC team as an opening bat and left arm spinner. I even had the honor of opening against the Pakistani test cricketer Khan Mohammed in 1983 who was coaching the Vancouver schoolboys. The bruises on my rib cage lasted a few days. There was a league with 50 teams in Vancouver with West Indians, Australians, Pakistanis, Englishmen and of course, Indians and Canadians. The pitches were fantastic and laid in lush settings. It was a lot of good cricket and good beer. Its 20 years since I played any cricket. I doubt I could throw a ball the full length of a pitch now. I'll need to go under the treatment of all our classmates who are expert doctors now for all my ailments. :-) Good to keep in touch. Regards, Madan

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Dear Madan (and also my other friends),Talking of names I too had some interesting experiences. By virtue of working with an international organization (the headquarters is in Beijing, China and the office in New Delhi where I am based is a regional office for South Asia - have given my contact details below...) I had to force a smile (grrrrrrr....rrrrrrr!!!!) when my colleagues from other countries addressed me as Mooony, Maainey and so on (since Subramony was too long and takes quite an effort for themto twist and turn their tongue). And they sometimes used to write as MonEy ie. with an added "E" probably hoping to make me the finance minister. All these are now settled - yes, I have compromised and got used to people calling me (by different) names!!!!!When in 9th or 10th I remember getting a mild "kottu" for playing cricket during class hours from one of our teachers (who was in charge of our physical education) - he yelled at me "poda classilekku". Madan, I remember you once gave me a toffee while playing cricket (that day the school had a half-dayrecess in the afternoon) because I had not eaten anything and stayed back to play - and you came fromhome after finishing your lunch. I don't know whether you remember this. Small things but these remainin our memory. And after the 10th I did play for a club called Cosmos. Then for the college - and then - it ended up with a natural death with priority changing towards my move to Delhi, career..... and so on.I am now settled in New Delhi for the past 24 years. My family, including my parents, brothers, sisters are all settled now in Delhi. I was with Keltron till 1991 and then left the company for better prospects and have thus landed up with the present firm. My wife, Lakshmi, works with the Ministry of Environment & Forests. My father is 83 years and mother running 72 - staying with us. Life goes on fine. This is my office address and phone numbers:

Best regards,T.P.

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Dear Koshy and Madan

So nice receiving the mails.
Cherian still keeps up his literary skills and his excellent command on English. Good. i am sure he will also be excelling in Palliative care.
Madan what are u at Us. i remember you finishing Ship Building... Are u still at it..
the photograph of allof us with Sahabuddin Sir, reminds of so many nostalgic memmories.
do you remember our Social studies sir who used to draw continents with good artistic skill...
we should fix a date may be this year end or early next year so that all of us can congregate at Model school invite all our old sirs and have a get-to-get-her.
Kumar would be at it and Joy will alos lend his support...

Let's be in touch.
Regards

ramesh G
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Dear all

I am having a suggestion
We can plan to bring out a book with either a personal photo /family on each page, and may be a paragraph , say 30 - 50 sentences, written by the concerned person regarding Moden School life not necessarily 10th
Madan-'remember alcohol increases the desire , but takes away the performance !
I have the photo of XH some have faded away, I shall try to scan,
We have the pictures of Dr Gopakumar and Balachandran -
Regarding Chellayan sir, I remember an incident when Madan annoyed him with a genuine doubt regarding zero, i always thought that Madan was precocious, he was aware of the binary concept even from nursery
Madan please send me the E mail of Sathish chandran
I keep seing Padmakumar occassionally , he was disowned from home, aimlessly drifts, comes for money to me. Hope you also remember Krishnakumar ( ? brother of Jagathy) -again seen aimlessy drifting in Vazhuthacaud.
I shall locate Fenn
TP , it is unlikey that Madan gave a toffee, i personally feel it was a 'Annukuntu Mutayi' or a ' Sharkara Muttai' a Thenga muttayi, or may be Madan gave one of the two ice-sticks from Appu ( two for five paise)- (Ha Ha Ha .....) Semiya icestick was beyond my financial resources
Love
Cherian

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Dear Ramesh , Madan, TP, Sankar, Ganesh, Aswini, Joy
thanks for complimenting me on my language
I am in the midst of patients whose life span is predicted short adressing their problems, Physical (P), emotional (E), Psychological and Psychosocial (P), Spiritual (S), and Interpersonal relationship issues (I) , PEPSI
I am called to speak in different fora, once I quoted from an 'Elegy written in a Country Church yard from memmory
' Full many a gem of purest ray serene
Dark unfathomed caves within the occean lie
Full many a flower is born to fade unseen
And waste its fragrance in the desert air

The boast of heraldry the pomp of power
All that beauty all that wealth ever gave
Waits till the inevitable hour
the paths of glory lead but to the grave'

All the english literature buffs could not stand it, they appreciated with jealousy
In fact I was applauded in London . for my expressions, and i had to answer that it was my English teachers in school who made me what i am, i sometimes write in newspapers

Ramesh I can remeber the Sanskrit 'Sabdas' eg Nadi , sabda, and of course
'Kukuda kujanthi

TP looks very cute in the 10 H photo , Ramesh looks assertive, Madan is a 'Pavam', Kumar looks like an (un)chartered Accountant, Sathish like a male model, Sankar solemn and sober, Joy like a Saip
Ramesh did'nt Ship have a different connotation IN Model School? Forgive me Why are you inquisitive about Madan's Ship Building ? Ha Ha HA?
Love
Cherian

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Hi All of you,
Thrilled to see the photos .it took me back in time .Thanks Madan!.Ashvini, joy, cherian,sriganesh,subramony,kumar,it was great to hear from you all. we all hve got out of touch for so long, that we need a kick to hve let this happen. so many doctors,engineers ,and i am sure business people and two servicechaps, v ganesh -airforce and me- Navy.Am presently at Kochi -in qtrs opp Naval base-

I used to hve this photo for a long time but after all the transfers i had its missing now. so i was very happy to see that.Frankly, i must say ,i could remember abt ten names .could someone fill me with the names of all people and where they are now? i would be grateful.maybe we could start a yahoogroup and fill in all the news.share experiences ,share travel movements so that we can meet up whenever people like madan who are abroad come visiting india.ALL well here. great to make contact. thanks madan once again and all of you.let,s be in touch satish chandran

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Dear Ramamurti,
Thanks for responding to my mail. Above are the list ofE mail for your communication.
Sriganesh

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This is Sriganesh from Chengannur. Nice hearing from all. My E mail is shifted to because sify.com refused to accept 10 or more CCaddresses.
Ramamurti from Chennai had replied. V Ganesh from Bangalore is yet to reply.
We three cousins in the same class built amongst us a different kind of trust. We never told our parents about the other being caned.
I remember Sathish Chandran during the earlier days of acceptance giving me a illustrated classic asking me to read in english and to explain the meaning to test my english knowledge. After that we were thick friends in the H batch. Sankar was also close. We with Satish once went to the Exhibition at Putherikandan Maidan and painted it red.
I did X in Trichur when my father was transferred to Trichur. I resurfaced in TVM for Predegree at Arts College.

I am a General Surgeon now. My wife Jeyanthi is Gynaecologist. Daughter is Samhita 15 years writing X CBSE exam now. Son is Pranav now in VI. My father is 82, mother is 78 years, with us in Chenagannur. Old age problems. We may shift to Trivandrum shortly.
Love and regards
Sriganesh

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Dear Friends.

Thanks to Sri Ganesh taking pains to connect us all together again. I wish I were there at Trivandrum again.

I am noving working as Senior Management in a Shipping Company at Chennai. I have been at Chennai for past 14 years and have been in Shipping for past twenty five years.

My wife was teaching as a KG Teacher in DAV Senior Secondary school for 10 years. Last year she left her job to start a Play school on her own. I have two children. My daughter is in Class XII writing her CBSE Board Exams and is planning to take Law as her career. My son is 13 years old and now in Class VIII.

My mother passed away in 1986 and I lost my Dad in 1994.

Shall tocuh base with each and every one of you in due course.

Would also appreciate if you all could provide your MSN mail ID, so that I could update my MSN addresses and we could chat online.

Best Regards,

Ramamurti

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