My wife and I were chatting about our blogs. Shobana had posted in her popular cooking blog Cooking With Shobana, in which I lend a helping hand, but I was thinking of a topic to write about for mine. ” Write about Founder’s! ” she said. ” After all isn’t May all about Founder’s for Lawrencians?”. And, of course , she was right on that count!
The month of May is when we traditionally celebrate the Founder’s Day at my Alma Mater, The Lawrence School, Lovedale. The celebrations are very elaborate and go on for 3-4 days (a full week decades ago when we were at School) covering important events like Trooping the Colour, PT Display, The School Play, and ending with Beating Retreat. Obviously with the raging Covid 19 pandemic none of this was possible this year.
We in our Alumni Volunteer Group who put together a Virtual Variety Show on the second Saturday of every month decided to have Founder’s as the theme for the “OL Assembly” held on May 8.
The President of the Old Lawrencians Association (OLA), Johnny Paul, and the Vice President, Beena Belliappa briefed Old Lawrencians (OLs) on a new initiative taken by the OLA. This aims to help OLs and their families in these terrible days of Covid 19.
I have been intimately connected with” Glimpses of a Glorious Past” an Informal history of our school. This book resides as an ebook in the website of the OLA but we have a segment every month in the OL Assembly as mentioned in this blog post. In this month’s episode, we traced the history of the School Band and of the Founder’s celebrations in general.
The show brought to the audience recollections of OLs of their best memories of Founders. Krishnadev Rao, a former Head Boy, spoke eloquently on the remarkable leadership displayed by then Headmaster Mr L A Vyas during a Founder’s Parade in 1981. I was very impressed by what the talented current Head Boy, Kian Godhwani said about what they had learnt despite missing the cheer of celebrating a Founder’s. We must remember that only a small number of them are now at School preparing for the Board Examinations, which may or may not take place as I write this.
Some OLs who took part in a memorable event from 55 years ago, spoke of when the School Band participated in the Republic Day Parade at New Delhi in 1966. This was under the leadership of Bandmaster Denzil Prince. Elsewhere in this blog, I have written about Denzil, a former Head Boy, who studied in Lovedale from 1944 to 1954.
We also have a delightful Quiz Show called what else but QuizDale! Here the questions are centered around topics relating to the old School and school life, then and now. OLs, young and old, participate to win points for their House!
The Virtual Founder’s OL Assembly is indeed a treat for any OL. You can (and indeed, I suggest you do) see this at leisure in small chunks, according to your convenience. This is a big advantage of having it on YouTube. Happy viewing, folks!
Prem Rao : Stories from a Story Teller 