Kerala - Kochi   

Lotus Club celebrating platinum jubilee

It is an occasion worth remembering. And the moving spirit behind the prestigious Lotus Club in the city thought it fit to bring out a platinum jubilee commemorative volume to celebrate the landmark.

It was in 1931 that the Lotus Club was born, thanks to the initiative of the local gentry and Mr. and Mrs. Bristow whose urge to socialise with the local population led to the forming of this great institution.

As the editor of the volume V.N. Venugopal recalls: "Many have come and gone through our portals, the famous and the not so famous — from Maharajas and civil servants, to Wimbledon champions and literary giants, and the Club has grown in size and scope, membership and dimensions."

The commemorative volume is a homage to the past . It also reiterates that the Club is a British institution. Yet it remains today as a testimony to the abiding interplay between what is essentially Indian and what is a very British social heritage.

A brainchild of Gertrude Bristow, Lotus Club was founded on the 15th of July, 1931 as a meeting place of the East and the West socially, something that was not very popular in those days. The genesis of this idea was in the `Parvathy Saroj Samithi,' a social service league founded by certain prominent citizens of the town for doing humanitarian work among the poor and the deprived.

The Club was registered under the Literary, Scientific and Charitable Societies Act 1088 ME, and a Memorandum of Association was drawn up simultaneously. Some of the distinguished gentlemen who visited the Club in 1930s and 1940s were W. Somerset Maugham, Sir T Vijayaraghavachariar, Lord Linlithgow and the Maharaja of Mysore, says the volume.

K. Venkiteswaran

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

Stories in this Section

Paswan visit an impetus to PSUs
Question leak: two accused charge-sheeted
IMA to frame guidelines
Lotus Club celebrating platinum jubilee
Glimpses of history
Student commits suicide at Angamaly school
Periyar: FACT unit told to rectify pH correction system
Chamber to bring out new tabloid
`No capitation fee being charged'
Elected office-bearers
In Kochi Today

Copyright © 2007, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu