90 years of CFHSS and alumni meet

Centenary year and Palladium jubilee are the only terms I know beyond Platinum jubilee. I do not know of a term for 90^th year celebration and do not intend to look into Google or Dictionary. Back in 90s I joined the  Cordite Factory Higher Secondary School (CFHSS) soon after its Diamond Jubilee celebrations – something that went on for more than a year making me wonder about the original age of the school as  well as the definition of a Diamond Jubilee back then. There was a new block built – named the Diamond Jubilee block where we spent partially or completely in every class from 7^th to 10^th standard.

To start with I had never liked the CFHSS till I completed 10^th standard – not that I loved it in the subsequent two years. But I always loved Aruvankadu – the quintessential little town in the Nilgiris and DEMS, that comes to my mind at the mention of “my school”. So the idea of reunion and being part of any celebration related to the CFHSS never appealed to me.

15^th October 2019 – It all started with this forward in the CFHSS ‘98 -2K whatsapp group, comprising of my classmates of 11^th and 12^th standard.

Me: Who is doing? Anyone going?

Suman: No sure about who is doing. Got this invite from my sister’s group

Me: How about one quick drive?

Suman: Possible.

Santhosh: Which batch?

Suman:  Looks like all batches

Santhosh: It’s been 20 years..right time to meet

Melki: Not available on those dates

And the discussion ended there...

8^th November 2019 – In another whatsapp group – CFHSS X C 1998, comprising of my classmates from 6^th to 10^th standard, the discussion on the same topic began. Aravind. (Mohan) shared the pictures of preparation by the organizers (no one had any clue on who was doing it). Nothing materialized and discussion was closed again. The fact that I could drive to the heaven on earth was the only interest I had and certainly not the alumni meet. It all changed the very next day, rather night – hours before the meet.

9^th November 2019 - Magesh (Arasu Adhikari) shared the pictures and video of illuminated and decorated CFHSS – something none of us have ever seen before. This triggered another round of discussion.

Me: @Aravind are u going?

Aravind. (Mohan): No

Santhosh:  @Arun going?

Me: No man.. Driving alone is boring.. If u say yes,  we can still do (09:33PM)

Suman : Yes.. pls come (09:57PM)

And the discussion ended there… But only to be followed by a 2 min 15 seconds phone call from Santhosh to me.

Santhosh: It is already late. How can we make it?

Me: Quite possible.. If we leave here by 4AM, we could reach there by 10 – 10.30, spend the whole day, start by evening and be back by midnight.

Santhosh: Wont it be tiring to drive back and forth?

Me: Between both of us we can manage. (Deep down I knew beyond doubt that I would be able to do it at ease). Try to reach my pace by 3-330. Shall share my location.

This conversation turned out to be the ultimate catalyst that fueled one of the most memorable and a fun filled trip for each of us who managed to make it.

I had slept althrough the afternoon till evening from late morning. day. For once, I was open to travel by another car, but Santhosh chose mine. Perfect for a 700km trip. We were to pick Suman en route from Wellington. It was midnight when I hit bed after sharing directions to my home. Not surprisingly, it was another one hour later that I fell asleep wondering if he would turn up at all!!

10^th November 2019 – 02:06AM – Santhosh called me and announced his awake status. I caught up with another power nap and was ready by 3AM. After some telephonic guidance, he was there at my place and soon we were all set to go back to CFHSS. We were meeting each other after 16-17 years. The journey began by 03:45AM and we made good progress. Or may be we felt that way talking about each others lives, trying to recollect about batch mates and on.  As a driver, I have always been fond of traditional two laned highways. And whenever there was an opportunity, I preferred those roads to the faster expressways.  Thoppur – Mettur – Anthiyur – Sathy – Mettupalayam is one such countryside highway and wanted to take the route. With my co passenger endorsing the same route, it was absolute pleasure driving. Thoppur – Mettur – Anthiyur can get tedious during the day, but in the early morning it was an absolute bliss to be there. Stories continued and around 8AM Kela Ranjith – our classmate in the 11^th and 12^th confirmed about his joining us.

 "The Successor" - perfect replacement to the humble champ!!!

All set to climb up the hill

By 9AM,  we were at Mettupalayam, the foot of hills. We took it easy and casual.. The amount of traffic on the hills was a major let down and we were stuck in major jam that consumed over 30 minutes. Crossing one hurdle after the other, we picked Suman from Wellington by 10:45AM and in no time we were at the Main gate  - Aruvankadu. Magesh - the Arasu Adhigari was there at the gate to welcome us. We were to witness his power and popularity – we didnt have to stop for entries in the register. I was visiting Aruvankadu after 3+ years; it was a sad sight to see more trees missing.

There were volunteers (school students) directing us to the school – the uniform has changed for the better, with tie and blazers on. A far cry from the Khakhi and white (Yukk!!!) we had in our times. Remember I had come from DEMS – Army Green and Cream with tie to what I used to call as “Govt school”. I was surprised to see a lot of alumni from the 1960s, 1970s and even 1950s!! I knew my school produced people of all specialties, but for the first time saw a “Swamiji” who was a CFHSS alumnus!!. There were smiles all around – people of all sects of society, of all ages. There were Flex banners containing collages of various group pictures across years. I was mightily impressed!!. During our years I dont remember any annual group photo being shot, except for one year (We later found days after the meet that it was our 8^th standard – Santhosh fortunately had a copy of it. It is a story on how we concluded it was our class 8!!).

The first person to welcome us and greet us was Mrs. Sudha Selvakumar – currently the head mistress of the school. She was our physics teacher in class 12 – her very first batch and very first year at the CFHSS. We were glad that she recognized each of us and me in particular. Along with her was Mrs. Ranjini, who joined the CFHSS in 1994 or 1995 due to shortage of Mathematics teachers and my class was one amongst them. It was a different story that she ultimately didnt teach us, but almost knew most us thanks to her proximity with my class teacher.

In the meanwhile, we were guided to register in one of the classrooms – probably XIA during our times. Each of us made some donation towards to the school fund which was purely optional. The classroom next to XIA was the place I liked the most – XIIB and it was natural that we walked inside the classroom. The desks and benches appeared pretty similar – not sure if they survived for two decades. Next few minutes flew as we tried recollecting our seating positions, incidents associated with it and on. Most classrooms have become “smart classrooms” with over head projectors and white boards - XII B isnt one of them!!. The cold breeze through the broken window panes were still the same though.

         Aptly captioned!!! Well that was how our XII B was - atleast for the outsiders!!

Our seating positions!! How I wish that Bittu, Charles, Kicha, Vivek and Jiju were seated around me..

As we came out of the classroom, we met Mr. Sivaraj, our physics and chemistry teacher in class 8 – he was probably the most favourite teacher for the entire class. A soft spoken person, who brought in a lot of calm amidst the chaos that was synonymous with the school, taught us the importance of activities such as meditation, teachings of Swami Vivekananda and earnestly blended fun with learning by letting us have fun for the last five minutes of the period either with recreational activities or motivational short stories. Wish we had all the 8 periods of such teachers. My brother’s books usually went to his daughter and then to me. It was a revelation that Sivaraj sir and Santhosh’s Father were college mates!!.

The adjacent room was another favourite place of mine – The Audio Visual room (AV room), which doubled up as library for sometime. It was there in that 21 inch BPL TV that I watched quite a few historic sporting moments. Kapil Dev claiming his 432^nd test wicket, Sachin scoring 1^st of his 49 ODI 100s, highlights of a certain Leander Paes winning the lone medal for India – a Bronze at the Atlanta Olympics, Mohammed Azharuddin blundering twice at the toss – that heart breaking 1996 WC semi final and the super six match vs Australia in the 1999WC, those winning moments of Pete Sampras and Martina Hingis are some of those flashing from my memory. That room now has an over head projector as well. Cant stop wondering how and what it could be if the same room projected something like a IPL match on a bigger screen!!

Outside the AV room we got hold of Mr. Bhojan – our Physical Education Teacher and a strict disciplinarian. It wasnt too tough for us to make him recognize us – his daughter being our classmate. For once, I was comfortable roaming within the CFHSS. I liked the anonymity as that stigma of “Son of Teacher” was no more associated with me. Invariably I or someone around did use that “Son of” tag to identify me and enquire about my father. 

  Selfie time.. And the names of Jiju and Shobana  - the only time the school had two toppers..

It was selfie time for me with my name on the honours board – thankfully the board was outside the office making the job easier. More selfies and groupies followed at places where each of us felt were vantage points. All of us were looking for our then Head Master who was yet to come. Meanwhile we continued with our tour – an additional stair case has been added to close to our IX C. The window rods removed by my esteemed classmates had not been replaced; additional grill has been added. For reasons unknown to me I never liked that classroom except for rainy days, when the leaking roof ensured that the whole class filled with water resulting in cancellation of classes or we being moved to other better classrooms/laboratories. More selfies and banter followed in our X C room, where our batch made history for all wrong reasons.

In the meanwhile we met a few more teachers in their post retirement life, but still assuming to be in their 40s. It appeared to me that they were still living in the 90s, presuming Bill Clinton to be the US president, Y2K being the biggest threat in waiting for the cyber world!! Their antics, stunts and behaviour still remained the same even after two decades – not surprisingly they got the attention they  always craved for. We joked amongst us if the coat, suit, tie etc were the same used in the last millennium.

Met few seniors and super seniors – Some knew me or identified me, claimed to be my brother’s friends, my father’s students. I knew none of them except for Sam – Samuel Dinakaran, my immediate senior since the DEMS days. We exchanged pleasantries and moved to the primary school campus. Our Tin shed classrooms of class 6 and 7 have been dismantled, the makeshift auditorium/divided classrooms of class 1 – 5 have become two small auditorium with good  speakers and projectors.  The Diamond Jubilee block where we spent some or entire part of every year from class 7 – 10 is still intact. Probably one of those favourite places for students, for it was at the far end in the campus and even teachers who had classes there hardly reached there. It was picnic spot for those who bunked classes, couples loved the solitude there and unlimited free time for those who had classes there. Nothing much has changed in the primary campus as well the Diamond jubilee block including those heavy fold able desks cum benches. Time just flew and came back to High school campus to see if the person we all wanted to meet had arrived.

Tin sheds no more..

        The desolate Diamond Jubilee block..

All of us wanted to meet our HM sir, who retired in 2000 while we were completing our class 12. Mr. Kalimuthu was a very strict disciplinarian, an extremely popular person in the town and a man of great reputation and respect amongst parents and public alike. It was because of his strict nature that CFHSS was nicked name as “Call Father Higher Secondary school” as he would call the parents in case of issue with any student. The problem in CFHSS was either the class teacher or the PT Master or the HM or all of them knew the parent of every student, making it tough for anyone to getaway easily. Like any other popular celebrity, his accent, clang and advice were often mimicked by students.

Back at the high school campus, the announcement of the arrival of Mr. Kalimuthu, the most popular headmaster of CFHSS for close to two decades was done. That was enough to send the crowd into a frenzy with everyone trying to wish him, get blessings, click selfies with him. The scene was no different from what we witness during the arrival of any celebrity. 

We waited for the crowd the move away and used the opportunity to speak to our Drawing Master Mr.Ravindran – the only teacher who taught all the 15 classes from class 6 to 10 and Mrs. Prabhavathi – our class teacher in class 6. 

Mr. Lingan - who was the lab assistant during our times was another celebrity we met. A very friendly person and a popular man amongst higher secondary students, he still seems to have the same enthusiasm. Pleasure meeting him!!!

Our eyes were on HM sir, but getting close to him appeared tough. I dont recollect how, but suddenly we were with him (Not sure if Sudha Ma’am took us to him). He spoke to each us, recognized each us through the identity of our parents.   Me and Suman have been speaking for years now about visiting Mr. Kalimuthu and it happened just for few seconds. The fact that he recognized us in such a massive crowd meant the plan is on for future as well!!!. Now I know there will be more people who will join us when the plan gets executed.

 Prized possession!!!

Just to put it on records – Mrs. Malathi Subramanian, erstwhile Principal of DEMS whom we addressed as “Madam” is the one who flashes in my mind at the very mention of HM or Principal!!. DEMS is my school, Madam – my principal. Dot.!!! I know someday I will go in search of her and meet her too.

And then we met him – the superstar of our times!!!.  He taught us only one year – probably class 7, but he was immensely popular among the boys irrespective of whether he taught them or not. His popularity can be gauged from the amount of response that came in our whatsapp groups of both 10^th and 12^th on sharing his photo. He was “Arjun Reddy” of our times – rebellious, chilled and had a devil may care approach all day. There was style, swag, grooming and attitude associated with him —all these before 5 PM!!! His memory seems to have aged, but the man still had the swag and style. Just an example of the quality of “products” sold in those years..

There were others we met - most notably Mr. Francis, who was our Maths teacher in class 6. He was also the man who planned tours for the students!. All we had to do was start a discussion on a tour. An ambitious cross country tour would be done inside the classroom itself. To be fair, it was him who tokk us to "Black Thunder" despite not teaching our class that time. We reminded him of his tour chronicles and he was happy we remembered him that way.

Time just kept flying. Volunteers and organizers kept reminding us that food stalls were set up the school ground where recreational and fun activities were going along with music, dance. To me the best part of CFHSS was the playground. The playground had turned into a mela ground – Tug of war, musical chair, DJ (something that was unimaginable in the bygone era) were on. Those seating galleries in the circumference of the ground were occupied by a lot of younger generation alumnis (Pullingos!!). It was heartening to see how girls and boys were casually spending time together, something that was viewed as crime in the previous century at the CFHSS.

We chose to go to the AVK recreational club, where had spent countless hours playing shuttle badminton and attempted to learn snookers. The 1903 built building with the wooden flooring is still strong – the British have done a fabulous job indeed. The cultural hall has changed very little with modern speakers and sound acoustics all around. We really envied the current facilities (Ironically the mike and sound proved to be a dampner that evening). The artifacts on the wall have been done away with. The stage was decorated for the alumni function that was to happen in the later part of the day. Few of us have been on that stage many a times, but never as a chief guest or a dignitary. So we decided become dignitaries for a while and occupied the stage. A couple of them delivered address to the empty auditorium and 3 – 4 dignitaries present at the stage.

These old type switches!!! Not many left...

                                                                       Chief Guests

                                                          Address by the chief guest..

Back at the ground, we were awaiting Arasu adhigaris – Magesh, Thyaga and Mara while Ranjith tried his hands in Tug of war. Santhosh energized by the reunion phenomenon went wild trying to find lost contacts. Ramakrishnan – my immediate senior from the DEMS days and currently a scientist at ISRO joined the occasion with his kids (who seemed amused about the AC weather without fan or AC -  exactly like many kids who visit Nilgiris for the first time). We ate something from the food stall (dont remember what we ate). Arasu Adhigari 2 – Thyaga joined us while “The ultimate arasu adhigari” - Magesh was nowhere in sight. We learnt that he had gone down the hills to attend a function – he is a celebrity for some reasons, hence proved!!!).

There was still some time left for the function at the cultural hall and it was not any difficult to decide on  what to do next – walk through the estate. Keeping time constraint in mind, we kept the walk short. Started at CFHSS, went to Cordite house for Selfie on demand (Santhosh), headed to KV and then to Main gate. We had to give DEMS a miss, as I wanted my Ecosport – the successor to be parked in front of DEMS and click a photo. I wont mind doing a trip for that sake after all why would I say no to Aruvankadu?.. From Main gate, we were back to cultural hall where the function was about to begin. The mike and sound system turned out to be the ones from previous millennium and there was delay in the start of the function.

We decided to leave the function as we had to drive back  home. Just as we headed to the car, The Arasu Adhigari – Magesh arrived. He didnt let us go, but agreed after some pleading and pursual. So we could leave after a high Tea he declared.. Not easy to over ride the decision of arasu adhigari.  Santhosh by then had become a man possessed – decided to reunite all the batch mates and was working in full swing. Arasu adhigari has promised to organize one sometime in future. And then we meet Senthil – our classmate and presently an entrepreneur with a transport company of his own.

                                               There is the man.. The Arasu Adhigari!!!!

Good times do end!!  so the 6 hours of nostalgia and fun ended with a high tea. We dropped Suman back at Wellington, battled the sunday traffic and reached Bengaluru by midnight. More life lessons and stories shared between me and Santhosh on the way back.  I remembered one bitter fight between two of my classmates during class 10 and knew one of the two. When I recollected that incident and asked Santhosh if he remembers who the other person was, he surprised me by replying it was him!!.And he narrated the whole incident and its background. That was some revelation to me!! Santhosh – the Mr. Nice guy who got aggressive only once in school is the one I credit for this fun filled trip. Thanks Mr. Nice guy!!! And for getting lost contacts back in touch as well..

The last click from the trip..Clicked while waiting for the traffic jam to clear

Our class teacher from class 7 -10, Mrs. Rajam Hepsy and our tamil teacher from class 6  -10, Mr. Ramakrishnan are no more. Remember them for many good reasons!!. And the shocker about Aravind. (Mani) – what a waste of life!!!

Santhosh – the man possessed has so far managed to get 26 out of 35 batchmates get back in touch with each other. I am sure he will some day arrange a grand reunion of all of us!!.

Our class VIII C.. With our class teacher Mrs. Rajam Hepsy

(Pic courtesy : Mr. Nice Guy - Santhosh)

The End