The Hindu : Kerala / Thiruvananthapuram News : Golden jubilee of a different kind

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Aug 21, 2005

Kerala

Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

Golden jubilee of a different kind

J.Ajith Kumar

Reunion of the first batch of the College of Agriculture, Vellayani

MUSING OVER THE GOLDEN DAYS: The reunion of students of the first batch of the College of Agriculture, Vellayani, Thiruvananthapuram, and their families held in the capital on Saturday in connection with the Golden Jubilee of the college. Photo: S. Gopakumar

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Half a century hasn't withered the flowers of their love, nor has time stolen the fragrance of their intimacy. The years might have taken their toll physically; but at heart, they are still in the prime of their youth, to be more precise, students who have just been admitted to a professional course.

True, they were students, exactly 50 years ago, admitted to the first batch of the degree course in Agriculture at the College of Agriculture, Vellayani, Thiruvananthapuram. The colle ge was founded in August 1955 by the Department of Agricultu re of the erstwhile Travancore-Cochin State. Both the Department of Agriculture and the Kerala Agricultural University (KAU), that now administers the college, seem to be oblivious of the golden jubilee of the first institution of its kind in the State.

However, for the students of its first batch, it is an occasion that they have been eagerly looking forward to. They planned an event well in advance to make the occasion truly memorable. Thus, a reunion of the `students' along with their families was organised in Thiruvananthapuram on Saturday. Of the 50 students in the first batch, only 41 are alive today. And 22 of them turned up, most of them with their wives, to relive the memories of the three years they had spent together in their alma mater.

Even though quite a few of them used to meet every year at one place or the other, the `August get-together' in Thiruvananthapuram was a special occasion coinciding with the golden jubilee of their association. Almost all of them had occupied very senior positions ei ther in Government departme nts or in teaching faculties of va rious universities of agriculture.

Present on the occasion, sharing the nostalgia of the `students' and showering blessings on them were three of their teachers, N.S. Mony, M.M. Koshy and A.G.G. Menon.

The first Principal of the college was M.C. Cherian and he had three sons and a daughter. He often used to remark - "I have 53 sons and one daughter," recalled N.Vijayakumar, former Managing Director, Kerala Plantation Corporation, who retired from service as the Additional Director, Department of Agriculture.

V.G. Nair, who retired as Professor and Head of the Department of Plant Breeding at the KAU, had the rare honour to be a teacher to some of his classmates. He had already joined as a member of the KAU faculty by the time several of his classmates returned to the university for their post-graduate studies. "It was not a student-teacher relationship then. We were still friends and continue to be so till today," he said.

"We have resolved that until the last two of us are alive, we will have an annual get-together," said V.Thyagarajan, presently Chairman of State Agricultural Prices Board.

The nostalgic golden jubilee reunion was complete with the visit of the `students' to their alma mater on the outskirts of the city.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Kerala