Kerala - Kochi   

Maharaja’s alumni get together for old time sake

— PHOTO: Thulasi Kakkat

RELIVING MEMORIES: Old students of Maharaja’s College in front of their former classroom on Tuesday.

KOCHI: Republic Day saw around 1,000 alumni have a get together at their vibrant alma mater – the Maharaja’s College in the city.

Beneath the canopy provided by trees that adorn the compound, the old pupils from the 1986-’96 batch had a freewheeling chat with college mates and teachers – serving and retired, to relive memoirs. The day began with the chime of the college bell, followed by visits to class rooms. Later, the joyful crowd gathered around the ‘samara maram’ that bore witness to many an agitation in the campus. Many among them sang songs at a ‘ganamela’ that was arranged on the campus. Some began with a request that the audience must not hoot when they sang, a reminder of their college days.

The college is special, since it has been more or less unaffected by the current obsession among many educational institutions to become ‘state-of-the-art’, by cutting down trees to pave the way for expansive lawns and tiled walkways. And most students know each other, unlike institutions where students are hooked to their books.

The batches that passed out between 1986 and 1996 produced a sizeable number of film actors and directors, noteworthy among them being Dilip, Baburaj, Salimkumar, Jyotirmayi, Tini Tom, Sajan Palluruthy, Ramesh Kurumassery, Anwar Rashid, Amal Neerad, Asik Abu and singer Biju Narayanan. Most of them were active in campus theatre and the batches that passed out in that decade brought laurels to the college in the MG University Youth Festival. “We tried our best to recreate the old ambience at the campus. The next get-together would hopefully be held in 2014,” said Dilip Kumar, one among the organisers of the event.

Student political activist and SFI leader Sindhu Joy was among those who participated in the coming together of the alumni. “Though I studied here from 1992 to 1998, I am a regular at the college even now,” she said.

The community that passed out in the decade keep in touch through the Internet.

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