Vidyaranya is going to turn 50 in 2011 and some of us felt we needed to do something to commemorate the event and started discussing the project(s) seriously. Basically, we started thinking about this for two reasons--one, we felt the school's fiftieth anniversary in 2011 ought to be marked in some way; and two, we felt we needed to get together a corpus fund to take care of retired teachers--their health, or pensions or whatever. This is primarily because last year, Mr Madan and Miss Viduraj, both fell down, broke bones and needed looking after. Also, although the fiftieth year is 2011, we felt we need to start planning now because we will need that kind of time to get something together. The teachers who taught in the 1960s and 1970s are not getting any younger and they should be very much a part of the celebrations.
Apart from the corpus fund for the health care of retired teachers, the other suggestions that have come up in the weeks we've been discussing this are: (a) a scholarship fund for students who can't afford the fees (of course) (b) a lecture series by alumni who've done good, interesting, different things (c) a mural painting (d) a book with Amma on education and complemented with stuff by some ex-students (including, we guess, photos) (e) a documentary film about the school, its philosphy etc (Anand Kamalakar, an old student, is a documentary film maker and works freelance for National Geographic; he has very kindly said he'd be willing to do this film for school. His note on this is attached.) (f) a fund to update the library Except for (b), (e) and (f) above, we may run into problems with all the others above, but we need to discuss all possible suggestions and take a decision about which we want to follow through. Do you have other ideas/suggestions?
In order to take discussions forward, we thought it best to meet and form a core group that will do a lot of the organising. We have zeroed in on meeting in Hyderabad on Saturday 18 July 2009 and are currently trying to arrange a meeting room as well as dinner or lunch. Do let me know whether the above ideas appeal to you and whether you'd be able to join us at the meeting. (Venue: School; time: 6 pm.) We thought that on the 18th, there will be a lot of excitement, but are not sure how much serious discussion will get done, so please keep the mid-morning of 19 July free as well, to enable us to continue the "serious" aspects!
To make it all more relevant, we thought it essential to also involve parents of children currently in school. Without all of you, it would become an exercise in nostalgia--which is not the point of it! Some of the teachers who are there today will also be joining us.
We look forward to hearing from you and hope very much that you will join us on 18 July.
Best,
Aasheesh Pittie, Ajay Shrivastava, Rasna Bhushan, Vaneeta (Bhargava) Bhattacharyya, Hajera Abbasi, Mohammad Jung, Zayn Khan and others
(ICSE batch of 1977, ISC batch of 1975, '76 and others)