CHENNAI: The Madras Christian College Higher Secondary School with 179 years, 178 sports days and 66 NCC days has had a long journey and is still ticking. At the 179th School Day function on Aug 13, students, alumni and teachers came together to celebrate the school’s long legacy.
“The thing I remember the most about the school is its egalitarian nature,” says Pradeep Kumar, the chief guest at the event. He is a 1971 alumnus of the school and is now Managing Director-Corporate Banking of the State Bank of India. “We had children of industrialists and of peons studying together. Even people who could afford cars always came in buses,” he recalls.
The school, he says, was disciplined but never regimental. “Students in our time meandered through and still did well. But today life is a lot more challenging,” Pradeep advised the students. The old students remember the library as one of the greatest assets of the school. “We were given an incentive of no exams if we devoted an hour to reading. I am glad to have got the reading habit only because of MCC,” he says.
Sports are another big asset in MCC — with its three cricket grounds. “We even had softball and paddle tennis. We would end up using slippers to play paddle tennis,” says Ashok Mimani, another old student of the school from 1971.
His classmate Rupert Rathnayya adds, “We had strong competition in cricket, especially with Don Bosco and St Bedes School. Many prominent sportsmen like Leander Paes and cricketer Bharath Reddy are from our school.”
Rupert recalls one of the school’s unique traditions that is still alive today — polishing day. “Every last day of school, we all had to take sandpaper and polish the desks to erase all our graffiti. But I think my initials would still be there on the desk after more than 40 years!” The alumni are still in touch with the school and attend all the school days. “The school treated us like gentlemen,” says Rupert.
The school now hosts a wide range of activities, as outlined by the annual report read by G J Mahoharan, the headmaster. Sports achievements in badminton, hockey and handball, clubs including UNESCO club and robotics, and an Inter-Cultural Exchange Programme with AFS were shown in a documentary on the school which was made by the students. Under the exchange programme, two students will be going to the USA, and a teacher from North Carolina has joined the school as an exchange teacher.
The programme included prize distribution where high achieving students as well as teachers who helped get the results were honoured.
