St. Joseph’s College,
Darjeeling 734 104,
West Bengal
January 18^th, 2005

Dear Alumni & Friends,

We were expecting snow by morning but no such luck. I say ‘luck’ which may be misunderstood in my home town of Winnipeg, because there they seem to be experiencing quite a few blizzards. But here it is a rarity. When it gets as cold as it is now, people start coming up from other parts of India in the hope of seeing a snowfall. This is a new form of tourism that has developed the last few years.

This intense cold has adversely affected our winter school. From around 1000 students attending for the first weeks, it is down to 850 just now for we have no heat in the building. But the 850 are as enthusiastic as ever, as well as the volunteer teachers. They not only have coaching classes in their weak subjects, but the spoken English classes, computer classes, music and art classes, seem extremely attractive. Later in the afternoon they stream out on to the fields for tournaments in football and other games, a real luxury for them because such big flat areas are rare in the villages. Many just like to run up and down so at least they get warm.

We will be inaugurating at least the kitchen and the dining room for 400 Boarders when our own students return on 19^th February. One floor of five classrooms should also be ready. Classes three to seven now will be divided into three sections and the numbers for the teachers will be more manageable and more individual attention will be possible. I want sincerely to thank all of you who have made this possible by your generous donations. Surprisingly, even unknown tourists on their sight-seeing tours of places of interest in Darjeeling are supporting our efforts to improve the facilities when they see what we are doing. I guess they realize that good education is the main way of uplifting the people of any land.

Our College principal, Fr. Joseph Victor, has been invited to visit the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg from next week to work out the modalities of  the MoU we have with them and to deliver some lectures. We hope that we will have a continuous exchange program in place both for Students and Professors in the near future. The exchanges that have already taken place on an experimental basis have proved quite successful. The MoU is adding its own little mite to broadening an understanding among people of different cultures and backgrounds, so essential in this modern world if we are ever to live in peace and harmony. For the first time in history the world has acted with such unity in its response to the tremendous plight of the tsunami afflicted millions. Would it be too much to hope for that soon senseless war and violence will be a thing of the past and be replaced by cooperation between nations at every level?

 This winter, too, there has been a list of alumni visitors, Kaval Oberoi from Cairo, Armen Lucas from the French riviera, Kalyan Gupta now resettled in Kolkata, T.C.Wong (Huang) of Calgary and others bringing along their families to see the alma mater they still cherish. In a previous letter I forgot to mention Supratim Sen now also resettled in Kolkata. This is very heartening indeed. Some year after the Chiang Mei reunion, we should arrange a pilgrimage back to Darjeeling. On February 12^th there will be a reunion in Mumbai organized by Ivan Sequeira from Toronto (ivanstclair@hotmail.com) and Francis D’Souza of Mumbai (kookiejd@yahoo.com). If any of you will be traveling through Mumbai about that time, you will be most welcome. Just contact Francis for directions as to time and place.

I would be interested in receiving from the heads of the various alumni chapters a list of names of those who may have distinguished themselves in their professions or careers after leaving North Point. I would appreciate receiving the CV of these individuals also.

Warm regards from the chilly Himalayas,

Fr. Van         19^th January…we actually had a snowfall last night in the higher reaches of the town. The tourists are enjoying the snow very much, having never before touched snow nor seen such a beautiful sight

                                                                     St. Joseph’ s College
Darjeeling 734 104
West Bengal
November 12^th, 2004

Dear Alumni & Friends,

Today is Deepawali, the Festival of Lights in India. A more beautiful and meaningful day one can hardly imagine. At the outset of my letter, I would like to wish all of you a share in the joy of this light, especially in this world where the darkness of  division seems so all pervading at times. The mountain sides are ablaze with light as every village and every single home enters into the celebration of this great festival.

This past month has been very busy indeed. Our Rector’s Day was very colourful this year and all of it was apparently viewable on the Darjeeling local channel a few days ago. The awards of blue coats, white coats, class performance took a considerable time. The very sunny day saw the quadrangle filled with students, parents and well wishers. The Fr. Stanford Gold Medal for all round performance in Class 12 was awarded to Yugal Rai and the Class 10 Fr. Henry Depelchin Gold medal was awarded to David Dongal. Both boys are from Nepal. Also my Diamond Jubilee in the Jesuit Order was fittingly celebrated. The next day the Dusserah Puja festivals began.

On October 27^th I set out on another Alumni tour again. The meeting in Kolkata with a select group of alumni was really a brainstorming session of how to raise funds for our building program in the school and I am sure something positive will happen. The ideas were aplenty and a core group was appointed to bring about effective action. Then I went on to Jamshedpur to attend the National Federation Congress of all the Jesuit institutions in India (approximately 150 schools and colleges). This is a three yearly event. This was very well arranged and I was able to meet many of our own alumni, especially of the College. Then I accompanied Fr. J. Victor, the Principal of the College to Bhutan where we laid the groundwork of a North Point chapter there. While there, Daya Gupta and his documentary team took the opportunity of interviewing Lyonpo Yeshey Zimba, the Prime Minister, Lyonpo Khandu Wangchuk, the Foreign Minister, Dasho Bap Kesang, Secre! tary of the Civil Service and Employment Division and several other officials of the Government.

On my return the school held their annual fete day, the last major event of the year. Now it is study, study, study till December 9^th. The  10 day Darjeeling Carnival is going on and doing very well but the students have their eyes glued on to their books. Quite a number of  Alumni from India and from around the world have visited the school and college in recent weeks, Douglas Crawford from Australia being one of them, also Samar  and Shankar Bose, John King. Gerry Taylor and Ian Taylor from England.

I want to mention a special word of gratitude to all those who have sent in contributions to our unfolding renewal of North Point.

Grateful regards,

Fr.Van

St. Joseph’s  College
Darjeeling 734101
West Bengal
October 13, 2004

Dear Alumni and Friends

I have been back in India almost four weeks and I regret that I have been remiss in thanking so many of you for the most enjoyable time I had interacting with all of you. Also I want to thank all those who took care of me so well wherever I was privileged to stay.

It has left me with such wonderful memories. Also the generous support that I received to my appeal for the funding we so much are in need of has left a very warm feeling in my heart. Your appreciation for what we are trying to do in our Home in the Mountains for present and future generations of students is something I will never forget.

Yesterday we bade farewell to Trevor Archer,NP’64, and his wife, Anna, who stayed with us for a very busy week of lectures. Trevor is a Professor in Goteborg University in Sweden, specializing in Bio Psychology, particularly in regard to the functions and dysfunctions of the human brain. His grasp of the subject and his interesting way of conveying this very important knowledge amazed all the groups to whom he spoke, our own School and College students, Loreto College Department of  Education, the Darjeeling Rotary Club, and an assembly of Darjeeling medical doctors and trainee nurses. All were very appreciative. I want to thank Trevor and Anna for their very fruitful visit. Plans are afoot now for a Congress to be held on this subject at North Point in 2008 with many specialists reading papers. As this will be one of the first Congresses to be held in Darjeeling, it will take a lot of preparation, and planning is starting early.

The Major Play this year is Ebeneezer. Its final showing will be on Rector’s Day, this coming Saturday. The Annual Prize Distribution takes place on the same day  which will be attended by many parents, friends and alumni. As the annual monsoon signalled its complete withdrawal yesterday with a thunderstorm, it should be a wonderful and colorful day in the Quadrangle and Fraser Hall. 2004 has been a wonderful year  in sporting tournaments, in studies and in community living, so we have much about which to express our gratitude to God’s Providence over North Point.

With warm and grateful regards,

Fr.Van

Camp-Winnipeg,

                                                                                    August 21^st, 2004

Dear Alumni & Friends,

Since I have last written to you much has happened  both in the school and college as well as with myself . I will try to be as brief as possible. One thing about my journey that I must mention at the beginning is that it has been entirely enjoyable.

Chris Liu, Terence Hsuing, C.C.Khoo and even Ivan Stclair Sequeira from his sick bed are to be highly commended  for their meticulous preparation  for the 24^th July Reunion at the Mandarin restaurant. Altogether there were 68 gathered there including a few Loreto Darjeeling graduates and Alumni spouses. Ronnie Trutwein from Germany was there, his third reunion in two months. He certainly deserves a medal for his enthusiasm and loyalty. Roman Mukerjee managed to attend two to the delight of everyone. Emile Lafrenais from Los Angeles  and Gobind Daryanani from Pennsylvania and Ashok Sadhwani  heroically crossed the border. Many were delighted  to meet Ashok, the architect of the Los Angeles Alumni website. All are requested to add their name or update their e-mail address on that site www.npalumni.org. as we want to issue a directory of all the alumni, some of whom are only on my list or on other NP sites. Ashok, your name is held in benediction and I want the alumni worldwide to know the labour of love that you are always busy with.

On the 31^st July, the main date I had come over for, the Canadian Jesuit celebration of all its members’ jubilees for 2004. For me it was the 60^th year since I entered the Society of Jesus. There were even  two celebrating their 70^th year, one of whom, Fr.Michael Lapierre, survived a major cancer operation in 1948 and is still going strong, a sure sign that no one should ever despair. It was a day of thanksgiving to God and thoroughly enjoyed by all who attended. The next jubilee for me, God willing, will be my golden jubilee of priesthood in 2008.
 

On August 2^nd I arrived in Winnipeg, my home town. I have been visiting  visiting , visiting and hopes for the completion of the North Point Vision 2000+ have been boosted a great deal. The scratch DVD 12 minute video prepared by Alumnus  Daya Gupta who is hoping to have the documentary finished by December amazed many of the viewers and I would generously like to acknowledge the debt of all of us to Daya’s painstaking work. He still has to complete some interviews and we will have the documentary in our hands. I even had the pleasure  of a visit with the President of the University of Manitoba with whom our college has a developing MoU.
 

On 26^th I will leave for Calgary and 29^th to Vancouver before starting my homeward journey via New York. Reports I have received from the school indicate that all is going well, ideed very well. They seem to have won every tournament they have entered, even the Abhishek Barua Football tournament.. They did very well in two quizzes, the first being between 32 schools. A week ago they celebrated an event with banners and pageantry, being the first school in Darjeeling to be able to declare itself as Drug Free.
 

Warm regards,

Fr.Van

Ottawa
July 11, 2004

Dear Alumni & Friends,

Just to update you all with my travels, meeting alumni in so many places. I have been to Germany, Belgium, Sweden, England, Ireland and am now in Eastern Canada. It has been a wonderful experience meeting so many, so grateful for what they have received at NP, school and college, and enthusiastic to hear about what is going on back in their home in the mountains.

In Belgium I spent a day with Rishi Chatterji in Bruges. He works for an Indian Company and is dealing with a world wide pharmaceutical client in tying together all their various units in Europe in some way on a computer base, something that is beyond my understanding. He keeps flitting from one country to another and hopes to finish this project in a year or so.

In Sweden, I lived with Trevor Archer in Gothenborg. Rajiv Sharma came across the country. He is happily engaged in his work as a doctor. Trevor has plans of holding one of his frequent world conferences on many aspects of his study of the brain in Darjeeling by 2006/7 which will end up being a great help to our renewal of NP. It will take a lot of preparation and he will be in Darjeeling in early October to start looking into this. The local alumni in Darjeeling will also have plenty to do.

In England I stayed with Ian Prossor. He seems to work round the clock on constructing a huge complex that will stretch over four miles, rather hard for me to imagine. Phillip (Farid) Khan-Pani had organized a large reunion in London on 26^th. Financially this was a great success as the North Pointers were very generous with their gifts for North Point Vision 2000+. Their interest really amazed me. The gathering was such a happy one for all as they watched parts of a future NP documentary being developed by Daya Gupta back in India. So many want a copy of the scratch film they viewed.

Though I went to Ireland for a different purpose, I accidentally stumbled on a North Pointer of 1962, Arved Von Teichman. He started a large farm back in the sixties but in 1969 he was afflicted with the first signs of MS. For years he has been totally confined to a wheel chair. His son runs it now. I cannot express the joy of the family as they watched the film. This was his first contact with NP in over forty years and in a true sense for me it made the whole trip worthwhile. In Dublin I met several of the retired Darjeeling Loreto Sisters. Retired is hardly the proper word. Mother Damian is still a very active, vibrant and busy person and I felt privileged to spend time with her and the others like Sisters Lucy, Francis Clare, Anne.

I was to meet Dr. Pemba and his family in a short stay over while switching airports in New York but the airlines and the terminals were suddenly changed for me, so they unfortunately searched in vain. Today I am in Ottawa for a small reunion and then I will return to Toronto for a big reunion on 24^th. Yesterday I was wandering through one of the large beautiful parks of Ottawa that had countless groups singing , chatting , and having picnics. To my surprise I ran into a Nepali group and discovered North Pointers and many connected in some way with Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Kathmandu. That will increase our reunion today a bit.

This is all for the present.

Warm regards,

Fr.Van

Germany
June 11, 2004

Dear Alumni & Friends,

Just a few lines to let you know where I am. I am writing  to you from the home of Serosh Engineer in Krefeld, Germany. I have passed on the best wishes of several of you to Serosh. This afternoon Ronnie Trutwien of the 'fifties'  will be dropping in. He retires from his teaching career on July 22^{nd in Kaarst, Germany} but will be attending both reunions in London and Toronto. Earlier in the week I was in Munich at the home of Dr.Mira Dorcsi (formerly Majumdar) where Lobsang Gyalpo from Vienna and Darius Patel from Nuremberg paid a visit.There were phone calls from several people-C.C.Liu '85 from  Vienna, Cyrus Patel from Frankfurt, Barry Morrow from Saudi Arabia, Tabrez Siddique from near Hanover, Nilima Raychaudhuri, S. Kipgen, Ambassador in Kiev, Ukraine, Rishi Chatterji, now near Antwerp and others. They all ask for addresses of other North Pointers. Some I can give, others I cannot give because my letters to so many keep bouncing back. I understand that it is necessary to change one's e-mail from time to time but so few think of sending on this information. There are many addresses on the www.npalumni.org website that are no longer applicable either. Yet the NP network keeps growing. The numbers that will be at the London Reunion on June 26^th  and the Toronto Reunion  on July 24^th keep growing and should be more than fifty at each place. From the 21^st to 24^th of June I will be with Trevor Archer in Guttenborg, Sweden after spending a few days with my many relatives around Wingene, Belgium.

Warm regards

Fr.Van

St. Joseph`s College
School Department
April 14, 2004

Dear Alumni & Friends,

This is just a last reminder for those who may be in the New Delhi area this coming Sunday night and may be free to attend the College and School joint alumni reunion, to announce yourself to Kamal and Anita Meattle meattle@pbcnet.com or to Kamal’s Secretary, Ms Nishi Narang nishi@pbcnet.com as son as you receive this as plans have to be made for the evening. I will be making a presentation on North Point revisited 2004 at 7:30 p.m. This will be followed by a get together and dinner at 9 p.m. Accompanying me will be Fr. Joseph Victor, the Principal of the College who will speak on the College itself and all its plans. With Kamal and Anita’s warm hospitality I am sure it will be a wonderful evening. Their telephone number is 001 2620 7747.

Although North Point with its own springs was not affected, Darjeeling suffered from a period of acute water shortage, Thank goodness this ended a few days ago, just as the tourist season was about to begin. With the huge increase in population these last 15 years, this has become an annual problem in early Spring in all the district hill towns. Little has been done since 1932 to increase the reservoir area at a time when the population was less than ten thousand. I keep hearing that the present population is 150,000 or even 200,000 at normal times and in the tourist season well over three hundred thousand. The civil administration obviously has to do a lot of serious planning. Rain harvesting has become an important topic for discussion. With our usual heavy rainfall in the monsoon season this is clearly the solution.

This coming Friday and Saturday we are hosting the inter school Basketball Carnival. The boys have been practising all out for this, so everyone is hopeful that it will be a real challenge this year. The boys in the Leadership Training Service (LTS) have made all the arrangements to make everyone feel at home whether they win or lose. This year they are engaging themselves in many social activities. The Darjeeling Hope Society’s large number of physically  and mentally disadvantaged children will be accompanied by them throughout the year. They will receive training in disaster management for the local area in case of landslides, fires, earthquakes or excessive rain. It is wonderful to see their enthusiasm to become leaders through service.

The construction of the dining room that will seat 400 boys with two floors above that for classrooms is finally under way. As the kitchen  and storage rooms will be below the dining room, a lot of digging  had to be done. Finally the Hill Council loaned us free their large excavator and the work was finished within almost one week. We are most grateful for their assistance. The architect is Shasheesh Prasad, an alumus who is famous throughout the hill region for his expertise. He is also donating his talent freely so that, too, is a great boon. Nevertheless the building material and the labour is very expensive, so I once again make a request to all of you to help us as generously as you can so that we can complete the building in record time. So far we have approximately Rs. 25 lakhs and the estimate is in the realm of Rs. 200 lakhs. Naturally this will be my main the! me wherever I meet alumni. I hope and pray that the response will be equivalent to our target. We are not professional fund raisers but our dream here to help St. Joseph’s continue to be a place of academic excellence for the present and future generations is driving us forward and   we hope that all the alumni who gained much for their own lives while studying here will be eager to give back to this institution that nurtured their intellectual and human growth when they were here. A plaque containing the names of all those who contribute US $ 1000.00 and more is assured. The easiest methods for transmitting donations from certain countries ay be found on <www.sursumcorda.org>

Soon Fr. Kinley and I will be attending a reunion in Kathmandu. By June 6^th, I will be in Kiev. By June 8^th in Munich at the home of Dr. Mira Ulrich The  phone #  in her office is 0049  89 2710525 and June 11^th in Dusseldorf, actually Krefeld, where some alumni will meet under the auspices of Serosh Engineer on 12^th. I will be Gothenburg, Sweden, with professor Trevor Archer from June 21^st to 24^th. From 24^th I will be in London for the reunion planned by Phillip Khan Panni on 26^th. His contact  e-mail address is phillip@pkp.co.uk. I will be in Dublin for a couple of days and then leave London on July 5^{th for Toronto. The rest of the itinerary I will give later. I have given this information in case any alumnus is close by he will be most welcome to join in the small or big reunions. If more information is needed as to addresses or phone #s, please write to me directly. I hope I will have the pleasure of meeting as many North Pointers as possible.}

With warm regards,

Fr.Van

St. Joseph`s College
School Department
March 14, 2004