Kolkata :

Online socialization paved the way for an ‘offline’ chat at a city hotel, bringing together many former students of Apeejay School, Park Street. They revisited their colourful school days and felicitated their teachers at a reunion ceremony, ‘Rejoice’.

The revelers were thrilled to have come across their classmates after a gap of as many as 25 years. Around 15 former students of the school’s 1988 batch chalked out the event over social networking sites, though they had been toying with the idea for the past two years.

The members of the school’s alumni association, APJOSA, Kolkata, who passed out between 1985 and 1993 reminisced about their bygone student life, reconnected with their school friends and sought the blessings of their teachers including Rita Chatterjee, current principal and administrator and Neville McNamara, former principal of the school.

The main objective of the event was to increase the membership of the alumni association, which was formed in the 1980s, according to Rajib Basu, a chartered accountant who was among the school’s 1988 batch. Around 10 alumni of the school, settled in different places outside the city, had also joined the party.

The school anthem, ‘Soaring High’, set the right mood for the evening that revolved around unadulterated fun mixed with nostalgia. Jyoti Vardhan Sonthalia, a corporate professional, said: “I left the school way back in 1988 but my bond with the alma mater is so strong because of the teachers who imparted discipline and value education to us; who groomed us for what we are today.” The party ended on a happy note when Manoj Lunia, an alumnus of the 1985 batch, sang the Hindi version of Kishore Kumar’s ‘Chirodini tumi je amar’. On McNamara’s request, silence was observed in memory of the students who passed away untimely.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Kolkata / by Sarthak Ganguly, TNN / April 06th, 2015