Take a good look at the St. Xavier's Durgapur website. I provide the link here without comment.
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Life is short, uncertain, precious... it should be fun, even the dying
Different strokes
Rodin's famous Thinker, spray-painted!
'I should not be thought to be serious only when I am solemn'... Bertrand Russell
About Me
- Suvro Chatterjee
- Durgapur, West Bengal, India
- I am 61, and for 22 years now a confirmed home-bird. I read, write, teach, counsel, listen to music, exercise, watch movies, have fun with kids including my own, have tried to be a good husband, think all the time, and generally endeavour to live the good life as I have understood it. It's tough, and it's been a long trudge.
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7 comments:
Dear Sir,
Even if the spelling mistakes and grammatical errors are ignored, the Headmaster's message along with the photo in the home page is a nightmare. In the details about the school (which has little or no mention of the Fathers and Headmasters who gave the school the name, fame and credibility it once had), it is written that an upcoming plus-two section and a nursery is about to take off in 1913! And the less said about the lofty ideals and missions of the school, the better.
This school is my alma-mater...hey Bhagwan!
With regards,
Saikat.
Oh God! What have they done? I couldn't even read anything. Just the flashy images, reminiscent of wedding mandaps and tacky symbols.....
I am a minimalist and I loved the way the school was when I was a kid. This is madness. I probably wouldn't recognize it if I went in now. I wish I had never seen the website.
Disappointedly
Nishant.
Along with the 1913 thing that Saikat mentioned, I learnt a new spelling from this website - 'quiry' instead of 'query'. Ha ha ha ha! :P Fu***ng hell!
Dear Suvro Sir,
I wish to be completely honest here. Even though I studied for eleven years in SXS, I have few good memories and nostalgia attached to the place. The former glory of the school I am really not privy to...in fact by the time I had started to understand something of what was happening in the school and learned to judge teachers, I feel I had realized then and there, at least subconsciously, that the process of decay had started. (I had even forgotten the names of the teachers even until now.) And then you came along and changed everything. None of the other teachers in my eleven years of study there came even close to impacting my thoughts the way you did. I do not want to be deliberately ungrateful, and wouldn't have said these things if they hadn't been absolutely true. The odd lesson here and there I remember; ...but my stay was on the whole miserable except for those two delightful years when you taught us and when I left I did not say 'ooh, I am so going to miss the school' (which I find corny), I only knew in my heart that I was going to miss your classes.
I am not going to say much about the state of the school. I don't give two hoots about where it goes from here. The building will come crashing down (figuratively, of course) to the ground for having parted ways with the only teacher who could have made a difference. I don't think anyone can stop its downward slide now. For all the Headmaster's yapping it's in a state of free fall now.
They are talking about creating future world leaders. Tell me Sir, should we laugh or should we cry?
Sayan, "they are talking about creating future world leaders" starting from the year 1913!
God help the school! Can He?
--Subhadip.
Well, Shubho, if they have to make such a show of their illiteracy, let them. Who can stand in their way! I don't think they will even be willing to listen to someone, who, out of nothing but good intentions, tries to put some sense into their heads. They might even take offense at that, who knows! Ignorance is a very potent force, I think.
I think the present condition of the school must be very painful to those who were witness to its glory first hand.
I took a long look at that website. It pains,shames, and saddens one and even makes one feel somewhat incredulous and the anger if there are remaining vestiges is somewhat of a more personal nature as is the hurt. I wasn't obviously a student of the school but was in school through the 80s and early 90s and St.Xavier's was then supposed to be a good school. I won't list some memories that even I have.
I won't even go through all the issues I have with that ghastly website. The sentences convey no meaning. But let's see, no English reading club and no mention of the library leave alone any mention of a one-time "book-keeper". Even I had heard that the St.Xavier's library was the best stocked library once-upon-a-time. I think it was Suvro da who'd mentioned this. I do remember the Silver Jubilee of St.Xavier's and the souvenir, and now it's the 50th...and the school authorities have managed to raze down even the memories that one might now imagine are simply remnants from some other lifetime.
Shubho, please don't mind my saying this: you normally write decently and the rancour or anger that you feel being an old student of the school must be different from mine. But you don't need to use expletives, do you, to express what you wish (and little asterix don't really hide the word, do they?)? I wouldn't have said this but this is the second time and the first time on Sir's bemused blog also hurt me. I do hope you wouldn't use expletives on Sir's blogs - if only out of a little consideration to an old woman.
Nishant's bit on the flashiness and tacky symbols did make me half grin.
Not to drag this comment on any longer but I'm glad that you quit when you did Suvroda and don't intend to go back...
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