Mr. Anil Rai who began training them for this play had to leave before the actual production be! cause he accepted to take up the Principal's post in the Assam Rifles School in Shillong. We wish him well as he proceeds further in his career and thank him for all that he has done for North Point over so many years. We will definitely miss him. Other teachers stepped in as directors and proved that our staff is extremely versatile.

On Rector's Day the Chief Guest was Tashi Tobden an alumnus of 1965 who has held almost all the major posts in Sikkim. For all those who received awards this day it was a day they will not forget. The Fr. Henry Depelchin Gold Medal went to Vicky Brahma of Class 10 and the Fr. Stanford Gold Medal went to Mathew Jose. These are awarded through the votes of the staff and students for studies, games and character. Fr. Van gave his final talk as Rector.

During my week in Ireland I have been kept quite occupied visiting friends and supporters. Once again I had the pleasure of spending an afternoon with Arved Von Teichman. Though he has been very much confined to his wheel chair more than 25 years, he has lost none of his optimism and exuberance in living. He attributes all this to the North Point spirit
which taught him how to cope with difficulties. The wedding was, of course, the centre of this week. Leo Carbone and his wife Dianne, Jimmy Pyke and a host of other people graced the occasion. Phillip made sure they all enjoyed themselves. One thing that really surprised me was his request to all the guests whom he had invited. "Please do not give us wedding presents but support the North Point Vision 2000+ ." They did this very, very enthusiastically. Tomorrow morning I leave for Madrid.

Warm regards,
Fr.Van

St. Joseph’s College,
Darjeeling 734 104,
West Bengal
June 25, 2005

Dear Alumni & Friends,

The monsoon has brought all of us great relief. For a while now we will not have to depend on huge water tankers coming into town, selling everyone water on the streets. Of course here we buy several tankers a day, partially because of the construction work going on. But in town many unemployed people working on their own bring in long carts, pulling in about 20 old cooking oil tins filled with that very precious commodity, water, and selling them directly to families. They cart these over several kilometres. The day is not very distant when parts of the world will wage water wars, I fear.

Today all the school boarders are on their way home for a twoweek break. In the College, which follows a different academic year, the first year students will be arriving to begin their classes. The new courses of Business Administration and Mass Media have just been introduced in the Hills for the first time, so that will certainly attract greater numbers. The pre-monsoon heat in the plains this year is making Darjeeling quite appealing. The papers said that one Bengal town, Purulia, had a temperature of 50.5 degrees Celsius for some days. You wouldn’t need a sauna bath in places like that.

Today is the annual London alumni reunion with about 60 participants. Well over 200, perhaps 300, will be travelling to Chiang Mai, the cultural capital of Thailand, for a week long reunion towards the end of July. This is the major one of the year, so a couple of us from North Point and Loreto have been invited. Next year it will be held in Darjeeling, so obviously that will be a huge one. We have already booked a massive number of hotel rooms. Darjeeling is known as the hotel town in the Hills. October 1^st this year is already marked on many calendars for a reunion in Delhi that will be hosted by Kamal Meattle.

Yesterday there was a large rally of students and elders in town voicing their hopes of making Darjeeling a smoke free zone. They had to face very windy and rainy weather but they turned out in numbers showing their determination to make this hope a reality. There is also some effort being made to remove smoking scenes from films made in India, but this may be more difficult to achieve.

I want to express my gratitude again for the steady flow of financial help coming from some alumni and well-wishers that is making it possible for us to continue on in our renewal. If others join in, we may complete most of the Vision 2000+ by the middle of next year. One floor of classrooms and the new dining room for the Primary Department will be ready for use when the students return on July 10^th. When we first floated our vision over five years ago to our alumni, we looked upon it as a 20 year plan because we thought it would take a long time to create the necessary enthusiasm to give something back to the school and college where you were nurtured for so many years. However, we have been proved wrong and fortunately so. The growing generosity may even see the vision completed in my own life time, something I never really expected. Many thanks for all the surprise letters that have come in lately. I also want to sincerely thank all those wh! o have gone through all the trouble of hosting reunions and strengthening the bond among North Pointers themselves and with their institution. Even Fr. Henry Depelchin, the founder, and successive Rectors and staff members must be smiling in the great beyond. I hope to see many of you in Chiang Mai.

With a heart full of gratitude,

Fr. Van

 P.S. Our server is down once again so this may reach you very late.

St. Joseph’s College,
Darjeeling 734 104,
West Bengal
May 22, 2005
 

Dear Alumni & Friends,

I want to thank all of you who wrote in after my last Newsletter. It  is always good to hear your comments and your suggestions about the  school and college and the town where you have been nurtured. Right now we  are in the middle of a very successful tourist season. The shopkeepers, restaurants and hotels are naturally very happy. The odd thunderstorm  disrupts the flow of electricity and the communication system but no one  seems to mind.

The annual college examinations are nearly over without any disruption  and that is a bit of a miracle. The results of the Council examinations for our Classes X and XII have just been issued and everyone is exulting over the 100% pass in both, 74 students in X and 85 in XII. In the sports activities likewise all the tournaments played so far have been won and the ! several trophies for  Basketball, Volleyball and the much coveted Edinburgh Cricket Shield are on display near the entrance of the school. Strangely, this worries me a bit. Though I am far from being a pessimist, will the students be prepared to cope with real life issues later on where also defeats and losses are commonly part of the scenario?

So far 177 have registered for the almost week long reunion of  North Pointer and Loretoite Alumni in Chiang Mai, Thailand, towards the end of July. With qualified events managers in the Windsor family seeing to the arrangements, it promises to be an enjoyable as well as fruitful gathering. News of smaller reunions being organized elsewhere, too, is a  sure sign that the Alumni bond  is indeed growing in strength. Also the news of individuals and groups involving themselves in community social  projects is reassuring that the values inculcated here are not lying dormant.! The major Kolkata schools' quizzes in aid of our NP Vision  2000+ funding campaign will now be held in September. The organizing team, including  Anirrudha Lahiri, NP'63, Managing Director of the Telegraph group of newspapers, deserve our full support and gratitude.

Recently we had two very interesting speakers in the school. The first was Dr. Amrita Dass, Founder and Head of the Institute of Career Studies, Lucknow,  The second was Mr. Mark Bartholomew, representative in India of the University of Cambridge Examinations "0" and "A" Levels. The former, really an outstanding speaker, unravelled  for us the emerging trends in Careers and in Education. She destroyed the myth that one must be a science graduate to succeed in life. Of the approximately 2000 major careers, only about 8 to 10 require science. The vast majority of careers can follow on a combination of any subjects. The two things they mainly require are a s! upple mind and a smart personality. Aiming for excellence especially in Arts subjects will give you that mind and as far as personality is concerned it is the extracurricular activities that are most helpful.

The explanation of the Cambridge Examination system created a great deal of enthusiasm among the teachers and the students. It is not the text book knowledge that is examined but rather the ability to do independent thinking on the subject. Even one of the possible subjects is Critical Thinking. Himali School in Kurseong  is now an official center  for these examinations. Whether we also will offer it  to those who want it  will require some discussion. It will obviously be very challenging.

Recent alumni visitors included Avijit Ganguly, now of Kolkata, Faroukh Lawyer of Mumbai, Francis Liu from Kolkata, Ashok Chanda's sister, Jayanti and others.

Warm regards,

Fr.Van

St. Joseph’s College,
Darjeeling 734 104,
West Bengal
April 21st, 2005
 

Dear Alumni & Friends,

Darjeeling seems to be the place for weddings of North Point alumni family members, at least there are growing signs of this. Last Saturday, Robert Wilson, now a resident of Dubai, hosted the wedding of his lovely daughter, Serene, with Ludovic, a French groom. This could easily be the wedding of the year in our town as a large contingent of family members from France graced the occasion. Their vows were exchanged in the Cathedral Church in the morning followed by a massive reception in the Elgin Hotel in the evening with Patrick Wilson as the Master of Ceremonies. It was, indeed, a great day in Darjeeling.

The Basketball Carnival held in North Point allowed our team to show the benefits of being trained by Alumnus Karma Lam. Though they reached the Finals, they trailed behind St. Augustine’s of Kalimpong till the last moments when the tide turned. Several baskets in a row gave them a five point lead as the whistle blew. The last minute suspense always adds a lot to the victory, so the cheering went on and on.

In an inter-school cricket fixture against St. Paul’s, all the four categories, PD, LD, A and B teams won, so we are looking towards a very competitive Edinburgh Shield match against them next month. The spirit is running high.

Though we are running into financial problems, we hope to finish one floor of five classrooms above the dining room by the time Class XI begins which will be at the end of May. All the alumni visitors and there are many these days, are extremely pleased with the sections of the buildings that have been completed. The alumni in Kolkata are working hard to hold a function, namely quizzes between twenty odd schools, to raise several lakhs. I wish them all success. Also I am so pleased that they are taking such a great but calculated risk. The final quiz will be held on July 29th. Barry O’Brien will be the quiz master throughout the series. Other alumni chapters also are informing me that they are planning functions but no details are forthcoming as yet. The Kolkata effort should show them the way, unity of purpose and much planning by people
who cherish their alma mater.

I want to remind all of you about the International North Point and Loreto reunion that will take place in Chiang Mai, Thailand from July 23rd to 28th. Most of us will be gathering in Bangkok by July 21st or 22nd. I hear they are expecting about 200 and more. A recent past Principal of Loreto College in Darjeeling, Sister Carmella, will be representing the Institute at this reunion. A reunion of the Delhi chapter of the combined School and College alumni is being organized by Kamal Meattle in
his own spacious grounds for the evening of October lst. If anyone wishes to join this, please send your name plus names of family members to him at the following e-mail address: meattle@pbcnet.com Even if you are just passing through Delhi about that time, you will be most welcome.

After the wedding of Chit Myine Cho’s daughter, Larah, on November 12th, in Milton near Boston, the American chapter is planning a large reunion in the following week that will be both an Award Night as well as a fund raising dinner. In the next newsletter the names of Distinguished Alumni who will be presented awards that night for the creative and inspiring ways they have lived out their lives will be announced. The team of judges here at North Point are pondering over the CVs that have been sent in. Their contributions in their various walks of life are truly remarkable and North Point will be proud to recognize what they have achieved. The wonder that boys whose characters were moulded here at North Point, who studied in our classrooms, played on our fields, ate in our dining rooms, though ordinary in so many ways have pursued careers that have been so beneficial to their communities and to the world at large, all this is something really to celebrate.

The College Department wishes to announce that this July they will be beginning courses leading to Bachelor  of Business Administration, Bachelor in Mass Communication (Hons), Bachelor of Computer Application , B.Sc(Hons)in Microbiology. Aside from these full degree courses, they will be offering  some Career Oriented Programs such as Eco-Tourism
Management, Industrial Microbiology, Functional English, Organic Farming, Travel Guidance, Journalism, E-Commerce, Biodiversity Conservation, Banking Management. These are add on courses recognized by the University of North Bengal.

There is a request to inform alumni of ‘79 & ‘80 that an a! lumnus, George Dutt, passed away due to a road accident. Besides asking for prayers for the repose of his soul, friends of his want to collect anecdotes about his life as others knew him and to send these to Ashok Sadhwani  whose e-mail address is ashok@asmara.com

Fr.Kinley will be in Kathmandu over this weekend April29 to May 3rd 

Enough for the present,

Fr.Van, S.J.

St. Joseph’s College,
Darjeeling 734 104,
West Bengal
February 21st, 2005

Dear Alumni & Friends,

This morning in bright warm sunshine, Classes 6 to 12 assembled for a brief welcome to the school year and for the prize distribution for the academic achievements in 2004. Many parents were also here and it was a pleasure to have them. The Boarders were proud of their new dining hall and kitchen which they inaugurated on Saturday. After 117 years our students will be finally eating, not in rooms built for other purposes, but in a room specially designed for that purpose alone.

A few days before, we had the closing prize distribution for the winter school. This winter programme offered free (and the teachers from town coming as volunteers) has become a widely published venture through the town and environs and will certainly continue annually. This has removed long standing prejudices among the local people, especially the youth, that this place has no value for them. Relations have improved immensely, aside from the fact that the students gain a great deal from the facilities that North Point offers to them. The teachers who come are also extremely happy to contribute whatever they can to the education and formation of these hundreds of eager students and we are very grateful to them.

Our College Principal, Fr. Joseph Victor, has just returned from three weeks in the University of Manitoba, in Winnipeg, Canada. As has been mentioned before, we have a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between our College and this University. So he spent very busy days visiting various departments of the University, having discussions with many faculty members, working out the modalities of Student and Professor Exchange and setting up possible research programs  Many ways of effectively implementing the MoU to the benefit of both institutions were discussed and if these are finally agreed upon, then it will really give St. Joseph’s a bright future. Besides the courses taken, students will have rich intercultural experiences, something that is of primary importance if we are ever to have peace and understanding in our world in future. Fr. Victor admits that even just three weeks in such a stimulating intellectual environment has given him a lot to think about.

The campus is very large and attractive, partly in a rural area at the edge of the city. The undergraduate course is of four years duration, the graduate course leading to the Masters degrees, usually of two years, and the Post Graduate courses lead to the PhD. The winter weather can be quite severe but the rest of the year is quite pleasant. The possibilities of our school students who carry on in our college finding admission more easily into this University, are quite clear.

Our college has also been requested by the UGC to apply for the status of being a college of potential excellence which is the first step towards autonomy. The future indeed looks bright. Recent developments in both school and college are leading all of us to dream of what North Point might one day be and we invite you to dream with us.

Warm regards,
Fr.Van