1979 - 1981 - Commerce Group students of The Hindu High School, Triplicane

Those who have been in and have  seen Triplicane (Thiruvallikkeni) can never miss that imposing structure at 149 Big Street, Triplicane, Chennai 600 005.

 

A landmark by itself – an imposing structure - bricks and saffron coloured walls with Indo-sarsenic architecture has inspired many and created many worthy students.  Hindu High School founded as Dravida Patasala for tamil boys which later amalgamated with The Hindu Andhra Balura Patasala for telegu boys that were in existence in 1852. In 1860 they were amalgamated as The Triplicane Andhra Dravida Balura Patasala and in 1898 renamed “ The Hindu High School”.  It has been a great learning  centre producing eminent personalities and transforming the lives of tens of thousands of people into responsible citizens for the cause of nature building.   The school was for long, considered as one of the best schools in the Madras Presidency and was once the feeder school to Presidency College, another institute of formidable repute of yore. The School could boast of many an illustrious personalities like - S. Chandrasekhar, the Nobel Laureate, Kasturi Srinivasan, Wizard of wonder drugs Y. Subba Rao, Former Attorney General K. Parasaran,  Justice M.Ananthanarayanan chief justice, Madras, Sri G.N.B.Balasubramaniam Carnatic Musician, Dr.K.Chockalinagam, Managing Director,Devaki Hospital , Dr.K.Ganesan Principal,Vivekananda college,Madras, Justice P.R .Gokulakrishnan chief justice, Gujrat High court, N. Rangachari Chairman C.B.D.T & Chairman I.R.D.A,  Cricketers M.O. Srinivasan, C R Rangachari, WV Raman; City Police Commissioner Nataraj, Cine stars Kamalhassan, Parthipan and more. 

the imposing building and the wide corridors

It is our good fortune that We studied in this glorious edifice (I studied there from 6^th standard till 12^th Standard).  

The academic year 1979-80 was the Second batch of +2.  As you would recall, earlier the school curriculum was that students would study upto 11 standards in schools.  The Secondary School Leaving Examination (popularly known as SSLC) – a Government examination conducted commonly for all schools would be taken up  on 11^th standard.  Those who were successful went to Colleges for joining what was known as PUC and then Graduation.  

In 1978-79 – the system underwent a major change – it became 10 + 2.  The Public examination was to be conducted for the X Standard and then students would study specified streams : Science, Commerce and Vocational for 2 years before joining college for Under Graudation.  Thus those of us who passed out SSCL (X) in 1979 were the second batch.  

When the Hindu High School reopened we proudly went to classes wearing a full khaki pant and white shirt.  The next year -  it became White and white and rest is history.  The Commerce Group was a different mix.  In the First Year it offered : Maths, Commerce, Accountancy and Advanced English. Understand that some parents complained that their wards’ future would be affected if they do not study Economics.  By a quirk of fate, in the Second year (that is the entry year for us) the stream of Commerce had : Commerce, Accountancy, Economics and Advanced English.  It had its impact as some of us felt the burden of a study without Maths – not being able to score high marks in + 2 and absence of maths hurting in Competitive exams …………….  Life after 30 years never can be put back and most of us are well placed !

School days are pleasant days – the days when we were young and unbiased in thoughts.  Many of us relished Cricket in a big way and were in the habit of frequenting Marina and Chepauk cricket grounds watching many league matches, Butchi Babu and Ranji trophy.  We have seen Krish Srikkanth tearing away bowlers….  Three decades is a very long period – as we settled in our own lives battling and surviving – most have touch with their classmates. 

In this background, 14th Sept 2011 was a day to remember, for it was the day when a batch of us met after long years.   After almost 30 years the students of 1979-81 batch Commerce group in Hindu High School met.  Those present were :  R. Sathyamurthy, TA Sriram, S Venkataraman, N Ramesh, N Gurumurthy, D Ramesh, M. Suresh, S Muruganandam, V Govindan, TA Bakthisaran and myself (S. Sampathkumar)

The other names that could be recollected are :  Gopalakrishnan, Kamaraj, Kannan, MV Raman, N Ravichandran, Balaji Sreenivas, Gopinath, AB Sivakumar, S Venkatesh, Dinesh, Vedavyas, Gururaj, G Chandrasekhar, G Chandran, K Raghu, SP Soundararajan, Krishnan, GP Ramachandran, Kotteswaraprasad, Ravikumar, R Ramesh, Ramakrishnan, Mahalingam, SS Vasan, Mukund, Dayalan, Venkatasubramaniam, Arunmozhi, Sivasubramanian, Vijayasarathi & ……..

It is extremely unfortunate that one of our colleagues S. Vijayaraghavan is no more.  He passed away after illness in 1997.  He was a good friend of mine and I was with him in his final days..   Here are the e mail ids and contact nos of our friends who met.

Name	E Mail ID	Mobile No
S. Venkataraman	svr1964@yahoo.co.in	9884237012
N.  Ramesh	nramesh8@hotmail.com	9444873292
N. Gurumurthy	gurumurthy1964@hotmail.com	9380280805
D. Ramesh	draoman@hotmail.com	9884008210
T.A. Sriram	chithralayasriram@yahoo.com	9710926680
R. Sathyamurthy	samaruna@gmail.com	9940246730
		96565555810
S. Sampathkumar	samvijib17@gmail.com	9940086033
M Suresh	suresh.mahadevan@tajhotels.com	9282336030
S Muruganandam	smuruganandam41@yahoo.in	9840938080
V. Govindan	govindan@gmail.com	9444051317
TA. Bakthisaran	sribakthi@gmail.com	9444913764

In case our other batchmates stumble upon this, please do send e mail to all of us and we will have soon have an updated list and a meeting wherein all of us would be present.

The meeting was extremely pleasant and took back to the days when we were in school and almost instantaneously, we started reminiscing those glorious days and the things of past.  Some of us were meeting after 30 years still the bonhomie was evident.  Age and time has moved fast and some of us are wiser by experience.  Being the first meeting what we shared was perhaps the ‘tip of ice berg’ and am sure when we meet or exchange communication frequently, we  would learn more (not only of the persons) but of their experiences and the  learnings. 

It was indeed great to have our Commerce master Shri TS Sriraman with us.  The uniting efforts of Sathya are commendable as also the memory and keeping up the friendship of Sriram.  Sathya has already uploaded the photos on his google + and here is the link.  : our group

Here are a couple of photos as well (the ones taken by Sathyamurthy)

With regards

S. Sampathkumar.