HYDERABAD: St George's Grammar School Alumni Association hosted the first-ever multi-batch reunion at Millennium Gardens on Thursday.
“I met up with a few classmates about a year ago, after a 30-year gap, and it was so much fun,” said J Jagannath Reddy, who was instrumental in organising the event. It was open to all exstudents of the St George’s Boys’ and Girls’ Grammar School.
“In fact, it was so much fun that I thought, why not do the same thing but on a bigger scale? That’s when I started searching for other alumni of the school. Thank God for Facebook,” he added, before dashing off to greet a bunch of old friends.
The reunion saw the attendance of over 300 alumnae, most of who had graduated between 1965 and 1985 as well as several ex-faculty members.
And while they were all delighted to see each other, there was one opinion that they all seemed to have in common.
Ask anyone who attended the event about how the school has changed since their time, all you will get in reply are pursed lips and mournfully shaking heads.
“The area (surrounding the school) has become simply terrible. Also all that is left of the school are buildings --- there’s no playground. How can children grow in a healthy environment without a playground?,” said Maria Francis, an alumnus from the batch of ‘88, who was at the event with her grandmother, Doreen Harris, an ex-faculty.
Mary Thornton, another ex-teacher has more to say, “The standard of teaching has gone down. But you cannot really blame the new teachers. After all, if you insist on stuffing 50-60 children in a classroom, you can’t expect too much from a teacher.”
That is not all bothering the former faculty. Sukanya Walter, who worked at the for 17 years was appalled at lack of maintenance of the school grounds. Devendra Gadala, a alumnus from the batch of 78 said, “In the first 160 years of its existence, St George’s Grammar Convent was the best school in the city. But now, not so much,” he said.
The Pranksters
there was plenty of happy reminiscing at the event as well. Harish Chandra Prasad and Sobhanaditya J were simply full of stories of the pranks they had pulled in their youth.
“Oh, we were a mischievous bunch! There was this clerk that we had an unreasonable grudge against. Murthy, I think his name was. We pushed his car to the back of the school, up a slope emptied his fuel tank and filled it with dirt. Boy was he angry,” laughed Harish.
“And how about that time we blew up an atom bomb in history class --- we all got caned for that! I still remember how we used to hold our hands up high so that principal Clarence had to jump to cane us!,” chortled Sobhanaditya, explaining that the aforementioned principal was of short stature. It wasn’t just the boys who were up to no good.
Anne Hasan, from the batch of 75, reminisced, “Oh, there was this naughty song we made up --- Chal Baithe Church Ke Peeche. And you know, we were so religious --- we would go to church every Wednesday! You see that was the only service we had in common with the boys!”